The Grand Canyon trip was a wonderful success...

M

michael-in-phoenix

Well-known member
...and I'm still trying to get my energy back.

Three days of cooking for 67 hungry 7th graders and another 20 faculty members (while tent camping), preceeded by 2 weeks of nights with little sleep due to worry and stress, and I'm bushed.

All went well and thanks to the tenacity and commitment level of our parent volunteer cooks, we pulled it off. Lots of compliments from kids and adults, and we only sent a handful (4 actually) kids home with the flu.

All in all, a very satisfying success.

Thanks for your support, prayers and kind thoughts. All I can do is sleep now.......

Michael

 
Yeah, the family is fine now. My youngest son is the 7th grader who went...

...with his class to the Grand Canyon last week. Just three weeks ago, more than half the class was out with the flu. We had a full roster on the trip, so everyone evidently got it out of their system in time to travel.

Michael

 
We did. We had three turkey fryers going at all times with 30 qt. pots of water.

We kept them at a solid simmer and added more water as they became depleted.

Hot water is essential to a clean kitchen, as you know. Plus, the dish line had warm water for the kids and parents to work with, instead of 35 degree well water.

One pot is used as a sanitizer, should we drop a untensil and not have a replacement handy. A quick dip into the boiling water and it's useable again.

Hot chocolate, coffee and tea are easy when you have that much boiling water around. Without electricity you can only use a drip cone or a french press for coffee. We went with the drip cones positioned over large air pots for the coffee. We could make larger quantities than we could if we used the press.

The stuff you learn...

Michael

 
Oh, and you know how hard it is to heat up bean soup in a large stock pot? We solved that...

...by sealing the soup ahead of time in FoodSaver bags. The bags go straight into the boiling pots and stay there until they are at serving temp. Then we cut the bags and poured the soup into the warm Dutch ovens. They stayed hot throughout the food service and didn't scorch!

Michael

 
What a great adventure!

I am tired just reading about it... smileys/smile.gif

A quick question, though - how did you seal the soup in the bags? I have a horrible time sealing stuff that contains liquid - it all ends up escaping the bag through the opening and making a huge mess in that little space close to the sealing region... (not sure I'm making myself clear...)

 
Hi Sally! Good to see you. I know exactly what you mean. Me and the FoodSaver ...

...have a long history.

My WW and I double-teamed the soup when we bagged it. Here's what we did:

We filled the bag with liquid soup that was at room temp. We stood the bag up in a tall, narrow bowl so it would be easy to hold. We pulled the FoodSaver appliance to the edge of the counter top and lowered the bowl with the bagged soup below the level of the counter top so that the open edge of the bag slipped easily into the proper position in the appliance. (I cut the bag "long" so as to give myself plenty of wiggle room.) I started the vacuum and as soon as I saw the liquid start to creep up the inside of the bag, I hit the button to seal the bag.

If you're quick, no liquid gets up in the suction slot.

Also, I wasn't freezing the soup so I didn't really need a 100% vacuum. I just wanted the bags to stay sealed in the boiling water.

Michael

 
One of my biggest fears on a trip like this is to burn something and ruin it.

If that happens it can cause a food shortage. I tend to over-estimate the amount of food needed so we don't run out, but if something has to be taken off the menu, it can cause a huge problem.

I sound like a shill for the FoodSaver, but I would hate to camp without it!

Michael

 
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