(no subject)

Nearly every Sunday we host a card playing day. Friends come over after the local Fighter's Practise and we play cards for a few hours - usually late-medieval (okay, early-Renn, but I hate trying to remember how to spell 'renaissance') games and then finish off with the modern "Five Crowns". And since this takes place after fighter's practise, it starts in the late afternoon, which means that somewhere in the middle of our play people get hungry for supper. Almost always, we end up paying for it ourselves; either ordering takeout or cooking it from our own larder. There are days when that grows a tad wearying for me but never enough to cause me to want to cancel the evening of playing. I've tried various schemes to get others to chip in - those work sporadically but there is always 'that older single guy' who never brings anything to eat at all (but who will occasionally chip in with cash when we order pizza) and then a selection of students subsisting on their Veteran's education benefits or young enlisted folks who have limited funds. So I completely understand the frequent "We're out of money until next payday" chorus.

Tonight's game set was small and we decided in advance to make sandwiches - everyone bring what they want for the inside & we'd supply mayo, mustards, breads and so on... That worked well and I'm going to try to remember the idea. But mulling about it afterwards reminded me of what we'd once done when we were a young military family with a pinching budget. I had (still have) a Tupperware-printed recipe book with pages of 'make it in advance' foodstuffs which were designed to be frozen and then used later on. The book gave one page up for each 'freeze this' recipe followed by three or four pages of 'and here's what you can use it in' dishes. It was a real palate-saver in our days of tuna casserole and home-made spaghetti. In fact, I think I still use their beef meatball recipe.

So I decided to combine our hobby (the SCA) and our friend's need. Starting this week and hopefully twice a month, I am inviting those same people over for 'freezer nights'. I'll pull a period recipe out that will do equally well in everyday life and we can form a big cooking party. Everyone who works on it gets to take some home ready for their freezer, packaged in sealed plastic bags (I have a freezer-sealing kit). This week's will be a variation of Norse Pies as redacted by Adamantius. "Chawettys". Those are very tasty and people will have the chance to combine the meat & cheeses with whichever other ingredients they would like. I think the next one might be Chicken Buns since those do well too and my picky eater will like them too. Besides, we can have fun with sauces with that one. I'm not sure what we'll try after that - perhaps, since at least one of the participants is a young man who loves cooking, he will come up with a recipe he'd like to try. Or I won't worry so much about things they can also use as lunch items at events, and we can make Salisbury steaks and other plain-but-filling fair.