Our fifth Cook for a Cause!

Yesterday we held our fifth Cook for a Cause Day, our 12-hour cook-a-thon benefiting the Carpenter's Cupboard Food Bank in Wheat Ridge.  More than 70 great volunteers joined us to cook over the course of the day, and we were able to donate almost 500 pounds of wholesome, handmade food.

We made shepherd's pie and a special squash lasagna (named "squasagna" by our friend Kathryn) using all the squash donated from people's gardens this summer.  The food turned out delicious, we had a good time, and more than 700 people will eat a little better over the next few days, thanks to everyone who helped out. It was nice to cook with some old friends and meet lots of new ones who we hope to see again soon.  Here are some pictures from the event:

All these carrots were hand-diced (and this is a fraction of the total)!  Luckily several volunteers had taken our Knife Skills class and led the charge!

We boiled 150 pounds of potatoes...

...and riced them all to make the most fluffy mashed potatoes ever to top a shepherd's pie!

Lots of pans of sauce being cooked!  That's me checking things out, second from the left--not sure why I look so serious, since everything was turning out great!

More pans of sauce!

We had lots of mozzarella, thanks to a generous donation from Leprino Foods.

After hosting this event five times, we've got a good system for packaging and labeling the hundreds of pans of food!