Mm-mmm-Mother's Day

The SSC Library Teen Cooking Club celebrated MOM in May.  Mother's Day was on Sunday, so we needed to refine our culinary skills and impress the woman who raised us.  Not all of us are lucky to have been raised by our mother, but there is usually a special someone who deserves recognition at least once a year.

We struggled at first...

While we hit several road blocks in making a simple recipe, we persevered.  Never cry over spilled spaghetti!  The main dish, Pasta Cacio e Pepe, was an easy pasta meal that anyone can make in a pinch.   Pinch is a VERY important word to consider.  When we read through the ingredients, black pepper is a major player in this dish.  I pointed out that cacio means cheese and pepe means pepper, so those ingredients mixed with some oil made the sauce.  Kids weren't thinking how much a 1/4 cup of pepper really is, but I knew that would be too spicy for most taste palates, so we cut it to 1/8 cup.  Guiding the students to prep the pasta water and saute the pepper, we learned how fast pepper can smoke up a kitchen and hurt our lungs!  What a tough lesson.  We cleared the kitchen, aired out the room and saved our respiratory systems.

Success after struggle

While learning Italian recipe translation and moving past the pepper spray smell we created, success was achieved and this dish was DELISH!  One student said, "I never heard of it, thought I'd hate it, but it's AWESOME! Can I have some more?"  But, there was nothing left.

Homemade Caramel...mmmm!

For a sweet treat, we tested Triple Layer Toffee Bars.  The students (and I) had never made caramel from scratch, so this was a great experiment.  Just 4 ingredients whip up a yummy sauce. 

Layering crackers and caramel

This was another simple recipe for students, but it takes over an hour to cool in the refrigerator.  Because of that time delay, this food was taken home in small packages.

Toffee Bars and Strawberries to Go

Another sweet treat also saw some defeat.  Strawberry Shortcake Kabobs seemed like a perfect Mother's Day snack and it could be, if the cake is cooked a day ahead of time.

Warm Cake Crumbles!

Some recipes are splendid, but this one took some time to consider.  Cooking the cake ahead of time, like a day before, would have given the cake a density needed to cut it into cubes.  Our cake was still too warm to do anything but crumble.  It seemed like a disaster!

Some Kabobs Lived...

Despite the pending disaster, this team kept their cool and sense of humor in the situation.

Humor through mild torture

We have some jokesters in this group.  "Why can't I eat all the chocolate sauce?  The recipe is a disaster!" captures the situation in this picture.

Flowers for Mom

Gifts for mom wrapped up the program.  This table was IRRESISTIBLE to most who only saw the basket of Dove chocolates calling to them.  Delicious Dark Chocolate Mother's Day Bouquets were a fun way to wind down our culinary excursion.  Dove chocolates are more than plain, so we had a few filling options, including peanut butter, almonds, and caramel.  Each flavor had a different colored wrapper, producing a colorful petals.

Scrumptious Flowers

I took a moment with this crafty project to talk about our library's maker space, the Creation Station.  There are tons of making opportunities including 3-D printing, sewing, knitting and crochet, scrapbooking and the Cricut Cutting machines.  The blooms of these flowers were cut on the Cricut machine, which saved time and rescued my hands from the scissors.  An assortment of flowers, drinking straws as stems and some hot glue created a lovely gift for anyone to receive.  Mine went to my dear artist friend who had her first solo art show opening that evening.

June's cooking club is canceled so the library staff can have an educational event.  

Our apologies to Father's Day.  We don't mean to skip you!

Teen Cooking Club will resume in July with our annual Barbecue.  You don't want to miss it!

Thanks for visiting.  Let me know if you have any Mother's Day favorites.

See you in July,

~erica