It was another busy night at FoodCycle - and GoodGym have definitely become a favourite partner with this fabulous charity venture.

We were luck to have a new member join us tonight in the hosting team. Welcome to Darshini - this was her first GoodGym task and she arrived wearing her GoodGym T shirt with pride. So great to have her on board.

We also had some of our GoodGym regulars with Abdo adding a flourish or art work to liven up the menu board, and Mayra making a return to the kitchen team after a short break joining martin and Gill.

It was also great to have Yasin with us for his second FoodCycle task.

Tonight at Foodcycle, 3 of the kitchen spots were occupied by Goodgymers. Lots of chopping, baking and ketchup mastery took place as we all got stuck in to provide a 2 course dinner for members of the local community. The evenings menu was limited to 2 dishes as the hosting team was really short tonight. The first course was Shakshuka, a delicious tomato 🍅 based dish with lots of tasty editions, accompanied by a green salad, roasted potatoes and Tigger's fantastic banana 🍌 ketchup. Yes, you read that correctly, who'd have thought, hey? Dessert was rice pudding with a very tasty mixed fruit compote. Around 40 meals were given out and all left overs were taken away by the guests to eat at home. This was a great task tonight. Well done team, 👏 you were all great

Four of our team were in Ready Steady Cook mode today - and although we weren't given a carrier bag with only 5 food items in it, it did feel a bit like that this evening when we arrived as there was very little food for us to base our menu on.

But it didn't take us long to decide that using eggs, peppers and potatoes squirreled away last week, and with the addition of some carrots we could at least make a pretty delicious frittata for the main course. Tigger was great at sorting through the box of carrots and getting rid of those that were well passed their best, while Gill and Caron form FoodCycle got on with peeling them all. Martin and Mayra joined the crew and were soon busy peeling, chopping, and cracking a mammoth number of eggs.

Our starter today was out of a tin, so didn't need too much preparation. Thanks Mr/Mrs Heinz for some delicious tomato soup, and Gill prepped the toast to go with it.

For dessert it was decided we would serve banana custard and Martin made an excellent vat of custard for his debut attempt at custard making. And it was fabulous. Well done!!!

We couldn't have served the meal without the excellent hosting from Abdo and Derrick and the other hosts. Thanks for singing up.

It was also great to meet Mehdi who had arrived unannounced for his first experience of FoodCycle and his first experience of GoodGym. We hope that next time he will sign up and help as a host or in the kitchen, now he knows how it works.

And at the end of the meal the guest and volunteers were all given one of Gill's home made cakes, celebrating her big 60 a day early.

Another Tuesday and another visit to FoodCylce for four of our Goodgymers. They were short on Foodcycle volunteers so the decision had been made to go ahead with the meal but concentrate on just two courses rather than the usual three. Mayra was delighted to see that there were lots of peppers and asked to lead on the main course, prepping rice and with Martin and Patricia (FoodCycler)'s help put together a delicious main course, with a side of glazed carrots and a mixed salad with boiled eggs, eggspertly peeled by Martin and Gill.

Gill was eggcited by the three crates of eggs that arrived in the surplus and had a cracking time making a banana upside down sponge with orange compôte which was served with a dollop of fresh yogurt.

Despite being down one in the kitchen, we even had time to focus on our plating, and we were pretty pleased with the results - the main course went out looking like a restaurant standard meal (and tasted as good too).

And of course we had Derrick on hand to make sure that the tables were set, and that meals were served up to guests with his usual efficiency and welcoming smile. He's also the only volunteer we know who can wear his hairnet with panache - shaped like a cap!

We had lots of our guests specifically coming to say thank you, and commenting on what a tasty meal it had been. Great work team, great plating and a fabulous meal.

What a fabulous day it was for our small team of 6 GoodGymers to be volunteering at the Welcome Home Festival, as part of Luton's celebrations of the National Refugee and Asylum Seekers Week. It was an event that was particularly close to our hearts, as so many of our team have had to leave their homes, families and countries to come and live in the UK.

Gill was on hand to help out and ensure that things went smoothly in the kitchen, but it was down to Mayra and her friends, Kamal, and another group to cook up foods from their home traditions. Mayra was making enchiladas, baleadas and horchata from Honduras while Kamal was busy with a fava bean stew which was being served in pitta breads with a topping of feta cheese and a hibiscus drink from the Sudan. There was also another team cooking up food from Eritrea.

Meanwhile the sub-team, comprising Musa, Yasin and Derick, were outside busily setting up the venue. Sorting out signs, placing chairs and checking that the bouncy castle was in the correct location. The temperature soared so it was no wonder that they needed the occasional sit down.

It was a cracking event and the food went down a treat.

Well done team - we hope you enjoyed the event as much as all the visitors did.