Youth Camp Cooking

Over the June long weekend, Paul and I were helping to cook at his church's youth camp. 40 hungry adolescents, 20 dedicated (equally hungry) youth leaders, a few alien space ships to judge and a ridiculous amount of food to prepare and eat! Amongst it all, there was the peaceful morning fog, clear starry nights and a great bonfire for the marshmallows! 

I wish i had made more of an effort in my sleep-deprived state to document more of the food, but after the first 24 hours I never seemed to have my camera with me ! :'(

The walk-in pantry and coolroom (felt like we had our own supermarket!)

From top left: The team, the freezer (packed with meat patties and spare ribs!), Paul and his 'santa' bag full of kitchen equipment, and the continental breakfast options (Coco pops won by a mile)

The menu for this weekend was pretty epic actually, though i hardly documented any of it... Here is a little snapshot of a couple of kitchen moments: 

Paul's 'basic essentials' kit from home

40 eggs and 4L of milk for scrambled eggs on morning #1!

The surviving scones for the scone cook-off:
Grace's cream and lemonade recipe (left) ~ amazingly light and fluffy, almost cake-like versus
Paul's traditional butter and milk - my vote goes to my cute boyfriend of course!

Awesome inside BBQ, cooking teppanyaki-style!

The menu:

Day #1

Breakfast: Scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, grilled tomatoes, yoghurt, cereal, fruit, toast

Lunch: Burgers, fries, roast pumpkin soup, 

Dinner: Shepherd's pie, caesar salad + cake

Day #2

Breakfast: Pancakes, porridge, yoghurt, cereal, fruit, toast

Lunch: Chicken and vegetable soup, green beans and avocado salad, garlic bread

Dinner: Slow cooked pork belly, stir-fry vegetables, chicken rice and sweet corn soup

Day #3

Breakfast: French toast, baked beans, porridge, yoghurt, cereal, fruit, toast

Lunch: Sausage sizzle and roasted capsicum salad

(not to mention morning and afternoon tea, and hot chocolate for supper every night ~ I was so full the whole time!)

 One of the challenges was adapting to different kitchen equipment, including the conventional oven with a 'boost' function to flare up the heat. This was both our nemesis (bye bye charcoal scones) and our friend once we were able to wield it to our strengths (browning the apple crumble top and touching up the braised pork belly)! Was also really interesting to work with different cooks and with such large quantities (as well as a bit of time pressure)! The 15-hour days in the kitchen were fun but challenging, learning from one another and adapting to each others cooking styles... always more to learn! All in all, was an exhausting yet rewarding weekend, with a couple of fun and special moments with my boy, serving God's kingdom with the gifts He has given us;

We also had a fair bit of leftover food, one of which was the 10C of chicken rice we had to take home!! So one thing i tried out was a fried chicken rice...