It was a busy night at FoodCycle tonight and despite the wind and the rain, Gill and Dani were keen to join the other two volunteers form FoodCycle to begin the task of cooking up a sumptuous meal from the surplus produce donated by two local supermarkets.

There was an abundance of Avocados, which were soon earmarked for a spicy guacamole to be accompanied by a wedge of pizza and some salad. For the main course our Project Leader took on the task of making a roasted vegetable pasta bake.

And our GoodGymmers took up the challenge of producing a warm pudding to finish off the meal. There was lots of fruit available, and they had soon decided on a lemon and apple sponge to be served with a warm fruit compote on the side. Dani got stuck into getting the cherries stoned, while Gill started on the batter for three huge sponges. With the addition of lemon peel and juice there was soon a tasty mixture to go in the huge baking tins. Having so many apples in the delivery today, Gill then had the job of peeling, coring and slicing the apples, to make a decorative topping for the sponge. They were soon in the oven baking, while Dani and Gill continued preparing the compote. It takes forever to take the stones out of three boxes of cherries, and also gets you a whole lot of stick from our project leader. But Dani did well to hold her own and we were soon all laughing and joking together - mainly at Jordi's expense. (Well he shouldn't have started it... should he?) Dani ploughed on, adding grapes and strawberries to the mix too. Plums, apricots and blueberries were thrown in (not literally) and another of the volunteers prepared some more apples to include. This was soon bubbling away nicely on the stove.

It was so great to see the 45 or so guests being served up such a tasty and nutritious meal and even to get a taster ourselves. We will definitely be back next week for more cooking and serving and banter.