I'll be up all night cooking for the homeless meal this afternoon. The prices at the grocery store, plus the shelf stock have forced to make some changes.

One of our regular Ladies broke her knee Friday. Combined with a couple of cancellations and one Lady in the hospital; we will be serving the meal, pretty short handed!

First, a lot of shelves are empty; and all prices are are significantly higher. I usually save myself a lot of time, but purchasing the mixed vegetables in the homestead cuts. Those went from $1.29, to $4.17, per can! So I looked at the normal size pantry cans, but they went from $0.54 to $1.10. so I bought fresh vegetables that are up about 50% (because people don't want to do all this cutting and steaming) so I can make the beef stew anyway!

Here's what 5 pounds of carrots look like when sliced:

This is a 28 inch diameter bowl....

By request, I'll cook beef stew, and green bean casserole. It will be about 10 gallons, and will all be served out.

I couldn't find any chuck steak, because people are buying it out as soon as it hit the shelves. I tried steak for this stew, but it won't shred properly. It looked like it was hamburger time, until the butcher brought some tenderized chuck steak out. I saved him from putting it on the shelf, by buying all 8 packages; and managed to get about half of what I wanted for this stew! The meat will be pressure cooked in the morning.

The sack of potatoes were about 100% higher than recent costs were, and I can't peal these until the morning, or they'll turn brown. I have a 28 quart steamer that will do the potatoes, carrots, celery, and onions for the stew at the same time.

I will put in 6 bags of egg noodles (they complain if I forget the noodles) for texture and taste.

The beans were big brand name only, and too high ( $1.57 a can) since I need 30 cans for a batch. We help run a food bank too, and I called, and they had some beans extra. I may have to make the white sauce from scratch, because the mix is becoming harder to locate. It's not that hard to do, but it will increase my cook time by quite a bit! They had one bag of fried onions, combined with the bag I have here, we'll have plenty.

It is getting more difficult to find food for the homeless meal, but we'll keep feeding them as long as we are able!

The line from last month:

But we will be short handed this month.