Cook of the Week: Mom embraces from-scratch cooking for her family, PADS
On the third Saturday of any given month, you're likely to find Kathy Talken with her team of volunteers chopping, mixing and serving dinner for the 20 to 40 guests at their parish PADS shelter.
“We don't just feed them cheap and easy. We try to make something different, something they can really enjoy,” says Kathy, of Wheeling.
Kathy has been a volunteer for more than 10 years and embraces the opportunity to coordinate one dinner a month for the homeless men and women who make their way to emergency shelter the church operates Saturdays from October to May. Each weekend has its own team and the teams enjoy a friendly competition to provide unique meals.
“I theme my meals,” she laughs. “We make everything pretty much from scratch; it's a great team effort.” Kathy describes a recent Asian/Italian fusion night where her crew served Chinese fried rice and homemade pizza. The volunteers cook some things at home, but also use the church kitchen depending on the meal. For an upcoming Mexican fiesta, Kathy hopes to put several of the teen volunteers to work chopping.
“We don't really have recipes this time, we just plan to chop the vegetables, and throw them all together for guacamole and tacos. I like to get lots of people involved — especially young people. They really get into it and go home with an appreciation for what they have.”
Kathy grew up in a home where all the food was homemade. Likewise, she commands a kitchen where all the food is made from scratch.
“My kids have never had anything like Prego — to me it's just as easy to make my own sauce as it is to open a jar. It's hard to screw up Italian. You just add basil and garlic and if it doesn't taste right, you just add more garlic!”
Kathy has three daughters who are just beginning to dabble in the kitchen.
“I try to stress the value of cooking from scratch to them,” says Kathy. “Of course there are easier ways to cook — using boxes — but cooking with fresh ingredients is so much healthier and it's easier to hide the vegetables this way. When I make marinara sauce they don't even know there are carrots in it! This way you know what's in there. Just give it a little time and it is so much better.”
This isn't to say that it's all about healthy food, Kathy admits, because she does love to bake, a task recently made easier when an electric mixer showed up under the Christmas tree.
“I use it all the time! It's the workhorse of my kitchen.” Kathy enjoys baking cakes for neighbors' special occasions. Today she shares a luscious chocolate lava cake recipe you can whip up at home — with or without a Mix Master!
When she is on a serious hunt for recipes, say for a PADS dinner, she loves the Allrecipe.com website.
“Basically I like to cook what I like to eat. I enjoy pushing myself. If I have something at a restaurant I like to try to re-create it at home.” Or, with her parish teammates for a PADS dinner.
“I'm just so thankful that I'm on the serving side. It's why I keep doing it.”
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