Donations

The Shoals Community Soup Kitchen is pleased with the generous monetary and food donations it has received. If you would like to help support this endeavor you may send a check to First Presbyterian Church of Florence and indicate in the memo section that your donation is for the soup kitchen. The mailing address is 224 East Mobile Street, Florence, AL 35630.

Applesauce Muffins

This recipe is from The Ultimate Muffin Book by Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough and makes 12 muffins.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour (I prefer unbleached)
2TBS granulated sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 large egg, at room temperature
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup plus 2 TBS canola oil
1/4 cup milk

Position rack in center of oven and preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prepare muffin tins with nonstick spray.

Whisk the flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a medium bowl and set aside.

In a second bowl, whisk the egg and brown sugar for 3 minutes. Whisk in the applesauce, oil and milk until blended. Using a wooden spoon, stir in the prepared flour mixture until moistened.

Fill the prepared tins 3/4 full and bake for 20 minutes or until the muffins are browned. The muffins will stay fresh for up to 2 days at room temperature or up to 2 months in the freezer

Jack-O-Lantern Farm

If you like to buy naturally grown and local then you should try Jack-O-Lantern Farm located in Muscle Shoals. The owners are two of the nicest people with which to visit and they have donated fruit and vegetables to The Help Center and to the Soup Kitchen. Their website is www.jackolanternfarm.com. Check them out!

Friday March 27

We served chicken noodle soup and toasted cheese sandwiches to 32 people this week. First Presbyterian provided the main meal and cooked applesauce muffins using leftover applesauce from last week. St Bart Episcopal brought brownies.

CROP Hunger Walk

A CROP Hunger Walk will take place Sunday April 26th. Registration is 2:00 in the Fellowship Hall of First Presbyterian Church of Florence. Money raised will help 'communities respond to overcome poverty'. Specifically 25% will go to The Help Center located in Florence. Everyone is invited to participate. Teams are forming online right now. Follow this link to take part or to donate.

http://www.churchworldservice.org/site/TR/CropWalks/testwrapper?fr_id=2879&pg=entry

Cornmeal-Cranberry Muffins

This is the recipe for the muffins served on Friday March 20th. The recipe is from the December 2007 edition of Southern Living.

Ingredients:
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour (I prefer unbleached)
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup orange juice
3 TBS butter, melted
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 cup cranberries (we substituted dried cranberries and reduced the amount)

Stir together first 4 ingredients in a large bowl; make a well in center of mixture. Add buttermilk and next 3 ingredients, and stir just until dry ingredients are moistened. Fold in cranberries. Spoon batter evenly into muffin tins, filling each two-thirds full.

Bake at 425 degrees for 20 minutes or until lightly browned. Let cool 15 minutes. Serve warm or room temperature.

Friday March 20, 2009

We served 37 guests today a choice of chili mac or sausage soup, homemade bread and butter, strawberry gelatin salad and homemade cornmeal cranberry muffins. We ran out of dessert and began serving applesauce. Today was our first day to need a highchair so some of our guests are quite young. The meal was a joint venture between Westminster Presbyterian Church and First Presbyterian Church. Daffodils and flowering quince were our centerpieces for each table.

Shoals Community Soup Kitchen

This is Pam's blog designed to keep everyone informed of the Shoals Community Soup Kitchen. This soup kitchen is a six month trial mission ministry hosted by First Presbyterian Church of Florence which began February 6, 2009. The kitchen is open every Friday from noon until 1:00 and anyone is welcome to join us. We do not require ID and we do not preach. We offer a meal and a smile in God's House.

For each Friday I will post the number of guests served, the meal we served and which church/organization prepared the meal. I will not mention individual names of guests nor of the volunteers.

Our first Friday we served 3 guests a bowl of chili mac, cornbread muffins and cookies. The chili and cornbread were prepared by First Presbyterian and cookies were cooked by members of Grace Episcopal Church. Tulips were on each table and all the volunteers wore aprons with Shoals Community Soup Kitchen embroidered with blue thread.