Back in August a Geriatric nurse by the name of Karen Dick took the time to share news of an aged care home doing beautiful fresh cooked food/meals. Karen’s cousin, Heather Beard, is a part of the kitchen team and we went on to learn that the Catering Manager, Glenda McCullough, attended a Foundation Masterclass back in 2016. It is with pleasure that we share a little about the food served at Amaroo aged care and the effort put in by the team to create enjoyable dining experiences everyday for those lucky consumers they cater for.
| We are a small but very busy 30 bed facility, in Berrigan NSW. Our kitchen supplies meals to our residents, the nearby hospital, 26 independents living units, fresh hot meals on wheels in Berrigan. We also supply frozen meals to our Home & Community Office in Finley NSW, supplying the surrounding towns. We also supply frozen meals to the Berrigan Children’s Centre.
We cook fresh cooked high protein meals, from scratch with plenty of vegetables, fruit, meat, eggs, barley & lentils etc in them. Our soups are all freshly made and very popular. Our desserts are also made fresh. Poached eggs are allowed for a choice at all meals, if Residents are feeling like something light. Our residents have a hot second choice at meals, they have a cold choice of a salad or sandwich also. We are flexible with choice when a Resident is sick or not eating well. We have special days e.g. resident’s choice of a meal, morning or afternoon tea, foods from other countries, Residents have input into the menu (we do this at resident meetings and through Resident of the Day). This winter they chose to have Lemon Delicious (the recipe was given to us by one of the residents) & Lemon Meringue Pie for desserts, their winter favourite is Lambs fry & bacon, Pancakes for breakfast, which are now on the menu monthly. They also love crumpets and raisin toast on the weekends. We have Happy Hour every second Friday and in the good weather BBQ teas, also on Friday nights. We also cater for special functions held as part of our lifestyle program i.e. we had our Spring Ball last month night (pictures attached) and Melbourne Cup Luncheon this week. For our Spring Ball, the dining room was emptied for dancing and supper was served during the night. The residents, staff and visitors were all dressed up for the ball. We have a vegetable garden which staff help the Residents plant plants, water and pick the produce, which they bring into the kitchen for us to cook. We have Rhubarb, Mint, Silver Beet, Capsicum, Zucchinis, Cherry Tomatoes, Parsley, Snow peas, a Bay leaf tree & planted some citrus trees etc. We also receive fresh produce to use from the Berrigan Community Garden. The Residents have baking activities fortnightly where they cut up vegetables for soup, cut out or roll biscuit mixture to make biscuits for afternoon tea or make a slice, fruit & marsh mellow kebabs for morning tea or dessert. I really enjoyed The Maggie Beer master class in Melbourne 2016 and learnt a lot. Heather & I agree with Maggie Beers ideas and education around healthy meals in aged care. We have the MBF chicken mushroom pies on our menu. Our staff are great and work very hard, all want the very best for our residents. It’s like a big house and we are all one big family. Thank for the opportunity to tell people about Amaroo. Regards Glenda McCullough, Catering Manager, Assistant, Heather Beard and General Manager, Andrea O’Neill |