Freaky Eats

This October appropriately became a spooky month with life and family circumstances shaking up plans and postponing the Freaky Eats theme from Friday the 13th to October 30.

Mind Control:  Fact or Fiction

A spine tingling program was in full swing in the adjacent community room as I prepared my ghoulish program.  While Chris Johnson's traveling library show, Mind Control: Fact or Fiction was toying with the powers of the brain and freaking out the audience, I was preparing to freak out the senses of some hungry teens.

Monstrous Meal

The Freaky plan started simply with Monster Donuts.  I purchased a glazed dozen donuts, a package of multi-colored vampire teeth, and a bunch of bloodshot sugar eyes. A Time for Seasons summed up this project quite simply.  Shove the teeth into the donut hole, push the eyes into the dough and Voila!  Adding more than 2 eyes makes them freakier.

Three Eyed Purple People Eater

We needed something to wash down the monsters and found Zombie Juice might do the trick.  This recipe comes from Ebay, which is weird!  Teens wondered if we could auction off the concoction for profit after we made it.  Turns out it was too toxic for their tastes!

"Like Toxic Root Beer Floats!"

This recipe included three main ingredients, orange sherbet, vanilla ice cream and orange soda.  I made the mistake of buying DIET SODA and everyone lost interest!  I admit I can't get behind diet soda and actually detest most soda, but teens usually don't care.  This was a shock to find they hated this recipe.  "It looks like toxic root beer floats" exclaimed a freaked out chef who seriously tried to appreciate this drink.

Too toxic to taste

It turns out this drink was way too sweet for teen taste buds.  They appreciated the gummies, but disliked the sugary eye balls.  

Overall, this was a flop recipe destined for the graveyard.

How do you boil water?

The last recipe in this Tate of Teen Cooking Club experience was Toxic Waste Mac and Cheese.  We began the program attempting to boil water and get this recipe done first, but the electric coil burner we used was slower than molasses.  As we waited for the water to boil, I asked what seemed like a simple question--How do you boil water?  I recently borrowed The Useful Book:  201 Life Skills They Used to Teach in Home Ec and Shop, which covers all of these simple life tricks that we take for granted.  The answers flew fast, but it was funny to hear how many steps were missing from this process when each student tried to relay the order to me.  

Add the Mac

Luckily we had other projects to keep us busy and not watch a pot boil water.  Once the bubbles were rolling, we added a box of small shell pasta.  Then we set the timer for 10 minutes to cook the pasta al dente.

Minty Toxicity

When the pasta was done, we drained the water and started the roux sauce.  I talked about the base of most sauces starting with a roux, which uses an oil mixed with flour to a paste or play dough consistency, depending upon preference. Milk is then added to the roux slowly to make a white sauce or bechamel.  Bechamel is the mother many sauces in culinary arts.

After making the white sauce, we added a package of shredded cheese, Italian herbs and several drops of green food coloring.  The spinach was forgotten in the aisles of Wegmans, but no one missed that scary vegetable anyway!

Speaking of vegetables.....stop by in November to see what we make for Vegan Ventures, the cooking class where we skip all of the animal products!

Thanks for visiting this Freaky Eats Teen Cooking Club.

Happy Halloween!
xo,
The Jersey Devil