Canning, canning and more canning!

Canning Fun!

Last night, we gathered in the Craft Center to can some eggplant and make salsa more salsa. The Garden has been producing some great eggplants and more tomatoes. Stacey has the great idea to make some homemade Tomato Soup with the garden tomatoes for the winter. Look for more on that later in the year.

Jess making some of the Salsa!

  Some of the other vegetables that our diligent students harvested yesterday included green beans and some colorful peppers! We will serve some of this at the upcoming Monday meal at Community Harvest.

Bucknell Students are back!

The summer had drawn to a close and the Bucknell students are returning to campus! Carly returned to CH after having a semester abroad. Below she is making Stacey's "Street Cobbler" with Pat Zailckas and Paul Allegra.

Cherry Cobbler!

Cucumbers and tomatoes

The dinner tonight consisted of Taco Salad made with some great lettuce from the Lewisburg Community Garden. Some other great vegetables were harvested today too like cucumbers and tomatoes.

Lettuce from the Garden for the Taco Salad

The volunteer group was the Milton Lion's Club, who were great and very enthusiastic. Eddie was in a comical mood tonight, wearing a "mickey mouse" hat made at SUNCOM.

Salsa!!

Happy Friday! Stacey and I spent some time prepping some food for the Monday meal at Community Harvest. The menu will be Mexican themed so we made some salsa (picture below)

The "Community Harvest" Salsa has sweet peppers, tomatoes, garlic, onions and jalapeno peppers all from the Garden.

Earlier in the week, Jessica, Stacey, Sydney, Nick and Jasmine did a marathon canning session and their results are pictured below:

Tator Tot Casserole!

With the summer winding down, the summer staff, Nick, Jasmine and Sydney are ending their time with Community Harvest. They have done a great job and they will be missed. Monday's meal was BBQ Chicken and Tator Tot Casserole- wow what a hit! Some yummy vegetables from the Lewisburg Community Garden used to make Cucumber Salad. Also, Furmano's donated 20 cases of beans and spaghetti sauce, a big thanks to them and to Nick who lugged them up to the Pantry. Furmano's has confirmed they will do their annual Holiday Dinner later this semester! Our thoughts go out to Bart, who has been under the weather lately. Our volunteer group this week was the Kingdom Kidz. Always an energetic fun group. Next week Stacey's cobber will make it's reappearance (wild applause!) along with Taco Salad and fresh Salsa made from vegetables donated by the Lewisburg Community Garden! The Bucknell Student Coordinators will be back in the next few weeks too- we are excited to welcome back Carly Chafey, Mike Morrison, Steve Lazar and Danielle Marquette!!

Garden Vegetables!

Today we had our first taste of vegetables from the Lewisburg Community Garden! The Garden Interns, Nick, Jasmine and Sydney, worked to harvest some lettuce and radishes for the meal. The LCG will be supplying the meal with some wonderful treats throughout the summer so stay tuned. The volunteer group last night was from St. Paul's United Church of Christ- they had lots of energy!!

Summer is upon us!

This was the first meal without our regular student volunteers, which was sad in many ways. The students add so much to the meal not only in manual labor help but with their positive energy and humor. Nonetheless, they will be back in August! It was a great night for spaghetti and meatballs with all the rain and cold weather. Also, cobbler made it's return! This made many happy. Also we are slowly making our way through the huge supply of Girl Scout Cookies. The St. Paul's UCC was a HUGE help not only with serving but set up and clean up too!

Three words: Girl. Scout. Cookies.

I knew it was going to be a good day as I loaded approximately 7 cardboard boxes full of girl scout cookies into my car and headed to Milton.  With my cookies added to the collection on the counter, it was almost impossible to see out into the dining area from the kitchen.  Brothers from Phi Psi helped with the set up, so I was able to offer my services in the kitchen with Lynn.  My duties included pouring multiple packets of peas into a pot and then joining the grilled cheese assembly line.  Once the thick slices of bread had been coated in butter and had cheese between them, they were ready for the stovetop grill.  Now, an important thing to acknowledge about the grill is that it has exactly two settings: off and incinerate.  Inevitably, a few of the sandwiches were burnt (or as Lynn likes to say "Cajun-style") before Stacey came to the rescue.

Now this is when Garyn, Nat, and I escaped to the pantry to date and sort canned goods (yes, it was as fun as it sounds).  Upon returning to the kitchen, I am asked to peel apples, which was awesome because it just so happens that when I woke up this morning, I prayed that I would get a chance to peel and slice apples at Community Harvest today.  A few minor hand cramps and a valiant team effort later, and the apples were peeled, sliced, and ready for the freezer.  They have an exciting future as cobbler awaiting them next week.  The cobbler has been a HUGE hit (to say the least) at Community Harvest these past few weeks.  I propose we start selling "Stacey's Street Cobbler" to the world.

In other news, Mark did extremely well bowling.  Bridget claims he won the competition, and he definitely has the trophies to prove it.  I would like to see him enter a girl-scout-cookie-eating contest after tonight's performance.  Brothers from Chi Phi showed up to help serve and clean up, which is always appreciated.  Overall, it was another successful night at Community Harvest.