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.