Cooking, Cooking, Cooking!!

It has been a week of lots of cooking at our house! We had friends over for dinner, I volunteered to take someone who just had a baby dinner, and we cooked spaghetti for about 30 people through a service project for church at a home for teenage mothers in Orlando. As a side note, the last meal was very eye-opening. These girls live in a dorm style setting, on less money than most people pay for their car in a month. The goal of the home is to continue their education, prepare them to care for themselves and their baby, and give them their own independence before graduation from high school. We hope to be able to help out more at this home in the near future. If you get the experience to help teenage mothers, take it - it is amazing what these girls go through, and yet how positive they are!

In the midst of all of this cooking, our refrigerator managed to stop working...again! But, no worries I still managed pictures amongst the chaos!

Beer can chicken with dry rub for dinner with friends:

Beer ready to go on the stand (holes poked in the top to allow the beer to froth, and steam which makes it so tender!)
Ingredients for the dry rub...cinnamon, black pepper, sea salt, dry mustard, garlic salt, paprika
Dry rub mixed, and ready to be applied to the chicken!

The clucker ready to go...by the way he was only $4.99 at Whole Foods!!!!

On the grill!! The burner on the left side is at medium heat, and the chickie is on the right so he doesn't get direct heat.
Resting before we eat him after about 2 hours on the grill!

Spaghetti Sauce for the girls' home:

I have never cooked for this many people before! Thank you to google for helpful hints on how much to buy, how much pasta per person, etc! I used canned, diced tomatoes to help speed up the process! My poor stove ran for 4 hours on 2 burners so the sauce could simmer! If you noticed the green tea on the left, it was a must have!! My morning started early with a doctors appointment, continued by meeting Todd for breakfast, grocery shopping for the sauce, making two full pots of sauce, making a meal for a family through our church and delivering it, cleaning out our entire fridge when it stopped working, and still delivering the sauce and serving at the home for 3 hours last night! I slept in this morning :)

Oh, and a preview of tomorrow...spa day with Todd and dinner in Tampa! Todd has the day off, and so we are having a staycation :0)