Soup Kitchen ideas

AnnieO1234

We're involved with a Sunday meal group that caters for around 85 clients every week. Main and dessert, plus tea and biscuits.

Recently thanks to one of the cooks we've started to be more adventurous (had to be due to lack of a proper working cooker - don't ask!) but have done some amazing curries, proper stews and pasta dishes. The curries especially have been a total hit.

We get catering packs of mince, chicken and sausage, avoid potatoes other than mash like the plague because of clients fighting about portions (although we did make Bombay potatoes with tinned ones) served with usually rice, pasta or mash. Things like cumin, garam masala, coriander paste really change up what can be very "samey" meals. Don't be afraid to experiment with herbs and spices, certainly our clients love it. For the curries we make sure to have yogurt available for anyone finding them too hot but they're not hot just spiced iykwim.

We've also done fish pie when we got some fish given to us. We do have a benefactor who pays so much each week and have a healthy budget of around £250 a week but this includes the rental of the hall we use.

Xxx

ArtDecoGirly

For years my Mam has been making pea soup, coming from a family of seven with only my Dad's wage coming in, she needed to be thrifty!

It makes a big pan of soup, sometimes she puts in a few diced potatoes to make it more filling:

A ham shank (£2.99 from our butchers, plus, once it's boiled, you also have ham for another day/recipe)
Pack of yellow split peas.
2 onions
Diced potatoes (optional)

Get a large pan, put the shank in, cover well with water, add 2 diced onions, less than half pack of split peas then low boil until peas are mushy. Take out shank and serve.

You could add extra water and more split peas so it stretches further. Then like I said, you also have boiled ham left over! Was brought up on this stuff

curlywurly82

do you have a market near you? i would maybe approach some of the fruit and veg sellers and ask whether they would be able willing to donate any unsold produce close to going over. they stuff they can no longer sell but is still perfectly useable for soups and things.

meritaten

I was sure I posted again - but it aint there!
Have you looked on James Martins Operation Hospital site? he posts some lovely soup recipes.

monnagran

Hi, I'm the one who cooks disatrous puddings!

We run a drop-in on Sunday nights. We are not a registered charity, just a group of people trying to help thjose who need it. We have no grants but all the churches in the area are involved with this and the churchgoers are remarkably generous. Each church has a box at the back and people toss tins or packets in as they arrive for the service. They also take up special collections for us.
We've not found supermarkets very helpful - I think we are too small, although we feed about 50-60 every Sunday and the numbers grow weekly.
The local Farmers Market are very sympathetic and donate left over veg, bread etc. on a Saturday.
We also run a Food Bank (not Trussel Trust) but that's anither story.

By far the best way of raising awareness, and therefore donations, is on social media. When one of our volunteers put us up on Facebook and told stories of what we are doing and described the stories of our customers, offers of help flooded in. Not only was our entire Christmas Day dinner donated but there was enough left over for a good part of January.

A little bit of meat goes a long way when padded out with pasta, dumplings, lentils and veg. Also those who are homeless can't eat huge helpings, (although they soon catch up.)

A friendly butcher gives us meat at catering prices and also huge bags of bacon off-cuts for pennies. We are very lucky to have 2 big festivals here and the caterers are very good about giving us their left over rolls etc. I think I still have a a bit of the baguette mountain in the freezer.

The name of the game is Scrounge and Beg.

Soup is fine but I think a proper meal is important sometimes. If you get befuddled by amounts I think there is a School Meals thread somewhere which is very helpful.

Don't know if any of this is helpful but I can only speak from personal experience.

x

angeltreats

curlywurly82 wrote: »

do you have a market near you? i would maybe approach some of the fruit and veg sellers and ask whether they would be able willing to donate any unsold produce close to going over. they stuff they can no longer sell but is still perfectly useable for soups and things.

When I ran a cafe kitchen I made friends with the local grocers and they would bring me crates of things like tomatoes or mushrooms that were past their best and unlikely to sell, and I'd buy them for next to nothing as they were perfect for soup. Not quite free but if you find they are reluctant to give you freebies, it's definitely worth asking them to let you know what's going cheap.

It's a very good thing you are doing, the world could do with more generous souls like you