What can you make with baby formula, celery, shredded pork, tomatoes and spaghetti sauce? Cornbread breakfast casserole, of course!
That’s just one of the 70-some recipes in the new cookbook developed by Washington State Chef’s Association and available at Salvation Army Renton Rotary Food Bank and Service Center.
Recipes in the “Food Bank Challenge Cookbook” feature ingredients commonly offered at area food banks. Ingredients like hot dogs, chicken and turkey wings, refried beans, powdered milk, peanut butter and textured vegetable protein.
Sixty of the cookbooks were dropped off at the food bank last week by John Fisher, senior chef instructor at Renton Technical College (RTC). Thanks to donations by Fisher and a board member, the first 60 cookbooks are free. After that supply runs out, the cookbooks are $1 for food-bank clients, $6 for others.
The cookbooks will certainly help persuade people to take home unfamiliar food items, says Renton Salvation Army Captain Terry Masango.
“People say ‘I don’t like this, I don’t know how to cook this,’” Masango says. “(Now) we can say, ‘Here’s a recipe.’”
Recipes are divided into six chapters, from breakfast to dessert. Offerings go from hard-boiled-egg simple to elaborate-franks complex. In addition to hot dogs, that frank dish includes chicken strips, coconut milk, pickle juice and peach syrup. The cookbook also includes other fancy dishes like pan-seared halibut in grapefruit cilantro butter sauce.
The recipes were created by various members of the Washington State Chef’s Association, former RTC chef instructor Mimi Reed and culinary students from RTC and other area colleges. The group’s original intent was to create dishes out of common food items at Bremerton Foodline Food Bank.
In addition to Renton’s food bank, the cookbook has been distributed at four Seattle area food banks.
Fisher says he has about 600 of the cookbooks. Proceeds from each book go into producing more books.
The cookbook
The “Food Bank Challenge Cookbook” can be purchased at Salvation Army Renton Rotary Food Bank and Service Center, 206 S. Tobin St., 425-255-5969, or by calling RTC’s John Fisher at 425-235-2352, ext. 5683.
