To Feed An Army

This past weekend, Carolyn and I journeyed to the depths of West Virginia to be the "Team Chefs" for Team Sorensen - Luke and John's Saab rally car team.

This madness started a few months ago when we went to check out this rally thing at the STPR Rally in Wellsboro, PA. Here, we ended up feeding the guys with food we had picked up along the way (PB&J, carrots and hummus, etc - nothing special). However, it worked out well enough that we "volunteered" to tag along at the other rallies and keep the crew well nourished (they are also a lot of fun). Carolyn and I had never been responsible for this magnitude of food before (3 meals a day for 10 people for 2 days), so took our duties very seriously. The first place we went to was Costco to stock up on some bulk food...we then filled out the rest with stuff we had at our homes. In addition, we decided that we would make many many cupcakes to sell at the rally along with the t-shirts Luke had provided.

The cupcake selling went really well, we made $38 on CUPCAKES!!! It was very exciting. It turned out that our biggest market was the volunteers who were stuck all day at the spectator points. They literally rushed me when I brought out the baked goods.

In addition to baking cupcakes (with homemade frosting) we made muffins and banana bread for breakfast. They both turned out exceptionally well, with the muffins being a huge hit. As it is quite late, I will not go into too much detail on these, besides provide the recipes and pics - you should definitely give these muffins a try though, they were great!

Triple "Berry" Muffins - Made by Randi!
Yields 12

Ingredients

3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter
1/3 cup whole milk
1 whole large egg
1 large yolk
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup fresh blueberries (from Carolyn's house)
1 cup raspberries (we used wineberries from my grandparent's backyard)
1/2 cup cherries, halved and pitted

Directions

Put oven rack in upper third of oven and preheat to 375°F. Generously butter muffin pans.

Melt butter in a small saucepan over moderately low heat, then remove from heat. Whisk in milk, then whisk in whole egg, yolk, and vanilla until combined well.

Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a bowl, then add milk mixture and stir until just combined. Fold in fruit gently but thoroughly.

Divide batter among 12 muffin cups, spreading evenly.

Banana Bread
1 loaf
Ingredients

1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup mashed ripe bananas
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup macadamia nuts
Pinch of cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Oil and flour a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan.

Using an electric mixer, cream the shortening and sugar. With the mixer running on medium speed, add the eggs one at a time. Add the bananas and mix well. Add the baking soda, salt, flour, nuts and cinnamon and mix thoroughly. The dough will be sticky.

Pour the dough into the prepared pan and bake about one hour or until the center is brown and set.

Overall, we had an excellent weekend, the guys were a lot of fun and the team got 5th place in the 2WD Max Attack competition - and won $1,000!!! Yay!!!