Meals at work

My work was quite quiet yesterday, so I took the opportunity to do some cooking for the clients. I work in Adult Mental Health in a house, where clients come to after being in hospital for 4 weeks, while we try and find them long term, sustainable housing. Tuesday we had a very large donation of bread - 2/3's of which we redistributed to others in need.

So I made an old fashioned bread pudding with some of the buns. I've made this a few times with spare bread and the residents love it. Sometimes I use raisin bread. I always spread the bread or buns with jam before cutting up into smaller pieces, even the fruit toast. It adds a lovely burst of sweet fruitiness to the pudding. I prefer a 'berry' jam, but will use whatever is in the cupboard. Today I added cut up apple as well, as there is a bowl of them that are not getting eaten. I stewed the rest of them. I have learnt, the hard way, that it pays to grease the baking dish you are using before putting the bread, beaten eggs, cinnamon and milk into it. I like to let the pudding stand for an hour before cooking, that way the bread absorbs lots of the milk and it just seems to make it much moister (is that a word?). The smell while it is cooking draws the residents from their rooms, even from upstairs.




Then I made a stew for their tea. They are meant to cook their own dinner, but I felt like cooking yesterday. I had ordered some stewing steak in our last grocery order for this purpose. I mix up a little flour and herbs, tossing the cut up steak in this mix, before browning it in the fry pan. This adds so much more flavour to the stew. In this stew, I put a good cup of my homemade Napoli Sauce and homemade vegetable stock, carrots, peas and onion, along with some HP Sauce and tomato paste. To thicken it up and make it a complete meal, I added two small handfuls of brown rice. I put it on to cook about 3.30, giving it an hour and a half in a slower oven than normal.

I got lots of compliments on the flavour of both the pudding and casserole, so I take that to mean it all tasted good. I really enjoy cooking when it is so appreciated.

2 comments Casserole, Cooking, Pudding