Phillips County Hospital and Hi-Line Retirement gets nutty with potluck

Sweet, nutty, vindication.

The Phillips County Hospital and Clinic had their first (maybe annual) peanut butter and jelly day celebration Wednesday April 2.

When PCHC employee Susan Bibbs got wind of the holiday, she told her coworkers and one week later they did not disappoint.

They didn’t settle for a smorgasbord for jam and peanut butter smothered sandwiches. They got creative.

The luncheon featured many finger foods and desserts that stuck true to the theme, including peanut butter and jelly flavored meatballs, french fries, and pizza.

The desserts included PB&J cheesecake, PB&J bars and a PB&J cake.

Only have a little hot sauce for your chicken wings? No problem, there is a recipe for PB&J hot wings, a treat that was brought to life by PCHC employee Sue Davis.

How did she find the recipe and nerve?

“I went on-line and looked up peanut butter and jelly recipes and that one sounded the weirdest so I picked that one,” Davis said.

She had never tasted the recipe before PB&J day, but it was a hit around the hospital.

“That’s all I brought today,” Davis told the PCN inferring that there was supposed to more be. “I was going to bring peanut butter soup, but I ended up on an ambulance call last night, so I couldn’t finish it.”

The soup is a yam and peanut butter based soup with onions and garlic. Davis said that she would still make the soup for herself at home.

Celery goes good with hot wings and Wilma Plouffe must have known it because her PB&J celery was a hit.

This definitely isn’t the first time PCHC has hosted a peculiar potluck.

According to Marcia Weber, who is the Business Office Manager at PCHC (also self-titled quality improvement and Potluck Supervisor), whoever has a birthday within a certain month from Hi-Line Retirement Center and Phillips County Hospital and Clinic gets to decide the theme of their birthday potluck. The company hosts one for each month.

Weber said one of the wackiest potluck’s the company has had was the “Bring a Brown Bag Lunch.”

“You put a number on each brown bag and draw a number and get that lunch,” she said.

Though Weber typicaly eats lunch at the elementary school, she participated in the “Brown Bag Lunch” potluck.

“Interestingly enough, I got a Spam sandwich and I loved it,” she said. “If any other person got Spam, they wouldn’t have liked it.”

The company also celebrates random holidays such as National Pie Day, which happened in late January.

“There was shepherd’s pie, chicken pot-pie and there were fruit and cream pies,” said Weber.

Any holiday can trigger a pot-luck, including St. Patrick’s Day, which the company put out corned beef and cabbage.

“We’ll find any excuse to have a potluck,” she said.

As it turns out, the company not only likes to “find any excuse to have a potluck,” they also are having their first food drive for the Malta Food Bank, which will conclude tomorrow.

“We put a box in the waiting room in case anyone cares to donate,” said Weber.