My Lasagna project
The project I organized for the Weiss fellowship was to arrange for our group to cook lasagnas for the men's shelter and community kitchen in Chapel Hill. This project stemmed from a desire to undertake a project that would be benificial to our (very) local community and that would provide a concrete benefit. I also chose this project because I enjoy cooking and food is meaningful, it helps build communities.
I corresponded with the kitchen manager to determine desired and appropriate foods, he emphasized that our food should be soft, not contain any cooking wine and not be anything to exotic. Our group decided on lasagna as an ideal casserole. We filled our lasagna with vegetables such as spinach, peppers, onions, garlic and mushrooms, as well as turkey meat and the standard cheeses and tomato sauce. We focused on making our lasagna a nutritionally complete meal in itself.
The project was done in two shifts to accomodate the schedules of the group members. Our group met at my house and cooked and assembled two lasagnas which we baked and then took to the kitchen the next day (because lasagna is one of the few foods that improves with reheating). The second group cooked and delivered theirs a few days later and I believe in total we provided 6 full large pans of lasagna, enough for the 100 men the kitchen feeds every night to share a meal.
I corresponded with the kitchen manager to determine desired and appropriate foods, he emphasized that our food should be soft, not contain any cooking wine and not be anything to exotic. Our group decided on lasagna as an ideal casserole. We filled our lasagna with vegetables such as spinach, peppers, onions, garlic and mushrooms, as well as turkey meat and the standard cheeses and tomato sauce. We focused on making our lasagna a nutritionally complete meal in itself.
The project was done in two shifts to accomodate the schedules of the group members. Our group met at my house and cooked and assembled two lasagnas which we baked and then took to the kitchen the next day (because lasagna is one of the few foods that improves with reheating). The second group cooked and delivered theirs a few days later and I believe in total we provided 6 full large pans of lasagna, enough for the 100 men the kitchen feeds every night to share a meal.
posted by binzer at
8:59 AM
1 Comments:
This project was a great learning experience from start to finish. Jess Lewis, Audrey, and I shopped for ingredients. We struck a fine balance between cost-effectiveness, nutritional value, and climate impact of the ingredients. We ended up buying a vegetarian ground meat substitute because growing cattle has one of the greatest impacts on the climate.
Next, we went to Jes Speed's house for a cooking extravaganza. At some point, we may see some photos up on the website, but suffice it to say that we had an assembly line that would make Henry Ford proud. Our group made 5 enormous trays of lasagna, and the shelter was ecstatic to have the fresh food.
Lessons learned in lasagna cooking:
1. Sauce always goes against the bottom of noodles.
2. No ricotta cheese on the top layer.
3. Go light on the parmesan cheese in comparison to the mozzarella.
Post a Comment
<< Home