February 21st

The dinner at the Wellspring tonight was chicken curry with rice, followed by sponge flans (with custard) or pancakes (... NOT with custard).


Volunteers: 4. Visitors: 47.

The curry was mostly made from tinned stuff tonight. I'd originally thought of doing chilli con carne (not feeling that imaginative) but, after looking in the crate where they lived, the chilli looked a little low but there were plenty of curries there. In with the tins of chicken curry and some curry sauces went; 4 tins mushrooms, 6 tins carrots, 6 cartons of passata, a 500g bag of red lentils, 3 very large sliced onions (the only fresh thing that went in), some chicken gravy granules and curry powder. 3kg of rice got chucked in the pan to accompany this.


Pudding was a hotch-potch. It's obviously pancake day so one of the other volunteers rustled up some pancakes, which were served with lemon and sugar. Mum had also sent with with sponge flan cases which were filled with raspberry jam and peache or pineapple segments. Custard was the required accompaniment for the flans. It didn't seem quite right to have it with the pancakes.

January 24th

Dinner at the Wellspring tonight was tuna pasta bake and pudding was a hodge-podge of Eccles cakes, scones and mince pies.

Volunteers: 6. Visitors: about 35... I think.

The pasta bake included: 5 fresh red onions, 3 tins tomatoes, 3 tins ratatouille, 11 tins tuna, 5 tins pasta bake sauce, about 4 tins each mixed vegetables and sweetcorn and 2kg mixed-shape pasta. This was all topped with plenty of grated cheese. Of course, served alongside bread.

Pudding was a hodge-podge because my original plan had just been Eccles cakes; there was some puff pastry in one of the freezers and so I brought along the currants and brown sugar (donated by my parents) to finish them off. These got made but some scones were also donated shortly before service started and needed to be used. There were also open packets of mince pies about, so they got used up too. And I’m fairly sure all of these got served with custard. Anything goes with custard if they ask for it...

January 17th

The delights of the night at the Wellspring were meat and vegetable pie for mains with Chelsea buns for pudding.

Just try not to see the slight case of
shrinking pastry...

Mum had sent me to the Wellspring this week with some shortcrust pastry. My imagination is still anywhere but in my head so it got used to top a pie. The pie filling consisted of; 7 fresh red onions, 1 tin easy fried onions, 7 tins miscellaneous beef products (e.g. stewed steak, Irish stew, etc.), 4 cartons tomatoes, 6 tins new potatoes, many tins of various vegetables (carrots, peas, green beans), water and gravy granules to thicken. This was accompanied by mushy peas and bread.

Pudding was made by one of the chefs who frequents the Wellspring. They were a trial run for Chelsea buns that need doing in a few weeks time. The advantage of the Wellspring; someone will always be keen to eat anything made as a "practice". These were of course served with custard.


I've been told that there's puff pastry in the freezer that I can use next week. Unless my imagination actually kicks in some time soon, I think they'll be used for Eccles cakes.

January 10th

Didn't do much of the cooking myself tonight but I paid enough attention to know what went in it. But I played my part. I am the washing up Queen!


Visitors: 50. Volunteers: 3.


Mains was cottage pie. This was made up of 5 red onions, 8 tins Irish stew, several cartons of passata, tinned peas, tinned carrots, several oxo cubes... and possibly a few other things that I missed being thrown in. This was all topped with plenty of mashed potato.

Dessert was made up of various flavours of angel delight (for those who don't know, a type of flavoured, set milk pudding) with peach slices. this was despite the fact that one of the other people working at the Wellspring came in and moaned about it being "artificial gloop", to which he got the reply that it was a good job he wasn't the one eating it. Our visitors seemed to enjoy it well enough.


It'll definitely be me cooking next week. I really need to get my thinking cap on of what to cook. Might be resorting to the old standby of pasta bake...

January 3rd

No post last week. I went to the Wellspring but I wasn't the one in charge of mains, so it felt a little funny to post. Back this week with my own tin-can-creation, but with a slight lack of pictures. Had a little... *ahem*, accident with the memory card. I'll extract it from the desktop at some stage... somehow...


Annnnyway, back to dinner at the Wellspring. Mains was sweet and sour chicken and vegetables with noodles. Pudding was sponge cake. Volunteers: 4. Visitors: 35.


Mum and I had been discussing the donations we get into the Wellspring which might seem useful but are in fact difficult to use. One of these was Chinese-style cooking sauces. Great!... if you've got something to cook in them. Fresh meat is a rarity at the Wellspring, there'd be grumblings if there was no meat in the meal, and the fashion for putting Chinese-style meals with meat into tins has only started recently and therefore we don't have many to hand. What with the seasonal period having just past, mum decided to treat the punters at the Wellspring to some chicken breasts; something in the region of 12-15 in the end I think. I popped out before starting to cook and bought 12 assorted bell peppers. This lot was diced and added to the stuff that we normally have to hand; onions, tinned carrots, tinned green beans and tinned sweetcorn. After a rummage, I also can across tinned bamboo shoots and tinned/in a jar bean sprouts. 6 Chinese-style cooking sauces got thrown in and the whole lot was accompanied by 2.5 kg egg noodles, which we have hanging about but which don't tend to get used often (rice, pasta and potatoes are the go-to starches, and bread and butter... yep, we had it with sweet-and-sour too). Well, we've never had so many compliments about a main meal. Mum is now a proper Wellspring legend. Just hope they're not expecting this every week now...


Pudding was very kindly supplied by someone who had donated 3 sponge cakes. One was already decorated with jam and dessicated coconut, and we finished off the other 2 in the same way. There was also a Chocolate and Orange Bombe Torte, bought from a well-known British supermarket, in the fridge, so it was cut up and served too. As per usual, we drowned both cakes in instant and ready-to-eat custard.


Our resident vegetarian had vegetable chilli with rice. We get the odd tin of veggie chilli in and the occasional packet of microwave rice, so it was a quick one to rustle up for 1 person.


Lots of compliments about the food this week, which is really nice to hear. The pressure's on now to think of something imaginative to do with the other donations that tend to get underused. 

December 20th

No post last week. I had a bit of a collision on the way to the Wellspring and was a tad upset so they told me to go home. But I was back in their kitchen this week. Not that much needed cooking; tis the party season and excesses of food lead to big donations to the Wellspring. 


The intention with mains was that we had chicken curry with rice. I was in full swing with the chicken curry and stumbled across some fresh chicken breasts in the fridge! Trust me, that doesn't happen often, so I took advantage and chucked them in. Over the course of the afternoon, donations from about 3 different parties turned up and so instead of rice with the curry, the visitors got pizza (5 huge ones were donated), sandwiches (2 massive buffet trays came in and needed using) and a load of random buffet-style snacks. 


For puds, my mum had sent me with 5 ready-made sponge flan cases. However, more donations meant that those were left for another day (sealed pack, longer shelf life; seemed to make sense) in favour of several cakes that had been donated. The choice included lemon drizzle, apple, yule log and carrot and walnut cakes. But no pudding (except rice pudding) at the Wellspring can be served without instant custard. So guess what came with the cakes? Yep... instant custard. There was also fresh fruit up for grabs that had come in with one lot of donations


Again, I don't know how many people came in to eat because I left early. We had another influx of volunteers tonight so my services at pot wash weren't needed. However, the volunteers did also get a Christmas treat from me in the form of gingerbread Christmas trees.

December 6th

Dinner last night was chilli con carne. Pudding was bread and butter pudding with custard.

Number fed; no idea, I left just as service started. We had lots of volunteers last night from about half an hour before service so I made the food and then left.

The chilli con carne featured; 3 fresh onions (chopped), several tins of tomatoes, a few jars of tomato-based pasta sauce, an unknown number of cans of ready-made chilli con carne and some tins of stewed steak or mince and onions, kidney beans, sweetcorn, chilli powder, OXO chilli seasoning granules and instant beef gravy. This was served with plenty of rice and bread.

The bread and butter pudding (a favourite of the team leader before me; it was the pudding EVERY Tuesday night. They haven’t had it on a Tuesday since September so I thought it was about time it was done again) consisted of; 72 slices of bread (sad that I know the exact number), spread, currants, condensed milk, 4 eggs and caster sugar. This was of course served with instant custard.

I’m not feeling very imaginative at the moment so I’ve no idea what they’re getting for dinner next week.