Ice Cream ROCKS!

I scream, you scream....ICE CREAM ROCKS! That's for sure, but here in the Twin Tiers, we have lots more love for our local ice cream shop and here is why:

Free cones for all!

Dippity Do Dahs is a homemade ice cream shop located on Market Street in Corning, New York.  It has won our hearts since 2013 and keeps on ROCKIN'!  Ben Calkins is the owner and truly is the Boss of Ice Cream.

Ben the Boss

I learned that Ben started this shop after years of a corporate career.  He took his dreams and made them reality.  He lets our community live vicariously through that dream with tours of the shop and lessons on how to make new flavors.

Master Mixer

Our group was split into two, the tasters and the makers.  Whoever was tasting got to sample any flavor in the coolers.  The makers got a back stage view of the mixing magic.  We learned about subfreezing temperatures, supply sources, and complete process of this confection.  We swapped roles after our lesson.

Fill the Filling

Our lesson included a personalized pint of vanilla ice cream, filled with our choice of sweets like chocolate chips, peanut butter cups, cookies, and sprinkles.

Final Product

Each maker made their own pint filled with specific ingredients.  We were welcome to pick up the final product the very next day.  This lesson just kept on giving.  Each student looked forward to picking up their very own delicacy.

Made by Me

That's a wrap for Teen Cooking Club with me.  Check on my Pop-up library excursions in the coming months with a new blog, yet to be named.  Send me your suggestions and I'll work my magic.  In the downtime, follow our newest project, "Family Folklore-A Paranormal Podcast."  Broadcast from the Crystal City of Corning, New York, it is a goosebumpy experience filled with chills and thrills from local residents of the Southern Tier of New York.  Stay tuned for all the fun things to happen.

email your stories to CorningFamilyFolklore@gmail.com

Thanks for visiting!

xo,

Erica

May Flies and Mud Pies

With the month of May upon us, I felt the need to mix things up and get funky.  Mother's Day is in may, but spring is finally sprung, bugs are emerging and mud is getting mixed up during the downpours of the season.

Oven Baked "Fried" Pickles

Since we were aiming for weird and different, I chose this Oven Baked "Fried" Pickles recipe.  Fried pickles are my restaurant addiction, but many of my students had never tried them.  This was teen approved and easy-peasy!

Peanut Butter Muddy Buddy Cookies

We hit the garden with cucumbers, so we continued looking for mud.  Here you see Peanut Butter Muddy Buddy Cookies before they were baked.  Simple to execute, easy to eat.

Yikes!....  Snakes!

Under mud, or somewhere in the garden, you're likely to discover some snakes.  We made these Spicy, Sesame Snake Breadsticks just a bit less spicy (or not at all!) compared to what was called for in the recipe.  I like to stress to students their creative license is often welcome to edit the spices of a recipe.  Cut spice to your preference or omit ingredients which revolt against your palate.  

Crunchy, not slimy

These little snakes were so adorable!  Students liked them, too.  "Simple and satisfying, crunchy, but not slimy like a snake in the grass."

M i s s i s s i p p i

Mississippi Mud Pie was a great effort of a recipe, but totally worthless regarding the portion size versus the quantity of students in the class.  This was certainly my oversight, so something to pay closer attention to.  I noticed the pan was not full when these marshmallows were added and I thought the group missed a ton of ingredients.  It was a keen-eyed regular who discovered this recipe had a yield of 2 giant, decadent bars!  We were all shocked.  Who offers a recipe so decadent for only 2 servings!?!  We just could not fathom the time wasted.  These teens like to eat!  And we all agree that a recipe should have enough servings to feed your party or have left-overs.

Herb Marinated Cheese

Moms and loved ones alike in each students life got a jar of special olive oil from this class.  Herb Marinated Cheese.  Each jar had bits of feta and goat cheeses, which were infused in olive oil with fresh and dried herbs.  Such a sweet gift for anyone who is lactose tolerant ;)

  

The weirdest part of this class was the encore.  Considering we worked with mud pies, I wanted to challenge students to eat bugs, but not necessarily may flies.  We've read that protein from bugs can be more sustainable than livestock farming, but I wanted to know who would be willing to try.

NOT May Flies

I could not find edible flies, or perhaps I didn't want to find edible flies.  I felt most comfortable to eat a grasshopper.  So, these packages had 3 boxes of flavored grasshoppers distributed for a random student to receive.  The rest of these envelopes had icy pops as a cool treat to end the class.  The 3 (un)lucky students to get these grasshoppers were shocked/excited/grossed/pleased to get such an unusual treat. [They also got icy pops to be fair.]

Wanna Try?

Since I challenged each recipient to taste these bugs, the challenge was returned.  This box of Sour Cream and Onion Crickettes was the test package.  Our senior student was willing to be the guinea pig test subject and we have video proof.

After seeing these brave students, I HAD to try.  

Well, I lived to tell this tale and I quite enjoyed that little bug.  

(but ask me how I felt about this purchase the day before class)

That's a wrap for Teen Cooking Club this May.  We skip June and celebrate the end of this school year in July.  We'll discover how ice cream is made at our favorite local shop, Dippity Do Dahs.  It's certain to be a really cool, rockin' good time.

Thanks for visiting!

xo,

Erica

Let's Go Shopping

The wonderful Wegmans Food Markets provided the Southeast Steuben County Library Teen Cooking Club a free cooking demonstration for the February 2018 class.

Let's Go Shopping

Upon entering the cafe' to meet students, I encountered this welcoming table where Chef Andy was placing ingredients at each setting.  In order to get a donation from Wegmans, I needed to apply online for a grant.  I requested a cooking demonstration similar to a Saturday Young Chefs event that Wegmans hosts to guests at a low cost.

Each Place Setting

Each place setting had a plastic cutting board, appropriate for younger chefs, a plate with uncut vegetables, a plastic knife, chop sticks and gloves.  We were excited to honor the Chinese New Year with a noodle bowl.  Noodles are a good luck food, representing longevity.  Once our host covered some facts about Chinese New Year, each student received a chef's hat to start preparing foods.

Fashionable Friday

Once we donned our caps, the preparation began.  One important rule Chef Andy discussed is a term "Mise en place," (MEEZ ahn plahs) which french meaning "everything in it's place."  The idea is to have all of your ingredients washed, cut, measured and placed in your cooking area BEFORE you start cooking the recipe.  This is a rule I often overlook in my kitchen, but find can help cut the chaos in our Union Hall kitchen. 

 Lessons for the future! 

Radish

This little red veggie is a radish.  Most student were not familiar with this ingredient.  It has a little spicy flavor and creates a nice crunch in soups and salads.  The color red is a sign of good luck in Chinese tradition, so it was very appropriate for this recipe.

Concentrated Cutting

Although the lighting was tough for photography, you can see our chefs concentrating on cutting their food to their preferred sizes using only plastic butter knives.  This is more of a challenge than we normally face.  We use real knives in Teen Cooking Club.  Everyone was grateful that we do not use plastic cutlery all of the time!

Long Noodles

We discovered some new ingredients as we prepared our soups.  Nira Grass  was very new to me, but the description states that it is a garlic chive, so I realize I have it growing in my perennial garden.   Shanghai, a vegetable that looks like bok choy, is leafy green that mildly frightened these students.  The great part of this class was learning new ingredients and how to prepare them, but not being required to eat them.  All students were happy to chop, but many eliminated the greens from their soup when the broth was added.  Before any veggies were added to our cups, we took a serving of long noodles.

Noodles for Longevity

Long noodles represent longevity in Chines tradition.  It is suggested to only bite the noodle when it is completely in your mouth.  Biting it too soon can shorten life or give bad luck.  Adding our veggies to the bowl was step two.  Step three was adding broth.

Gather for the Goodness

Everyone gathered around the demonstration table to get their broth.  Our chef discussed ways of making broth from scratch, but showed the prepared package we can conveniently purchase.  Included in the broth was soy sauce, oyster sauce, garlic, ginger, touch of salt and pepper, plus some thai peanut sauce for anyone without a peanut allergy.

Yummy!

The vegetables were raw, but the noodles were cooked al dente, "to the tooth".  Adding the hot broth only heightened the vibrancy of color of the vegetables, but left them crunchy.  I really liked the variety of textures in this recipe.

Mangia!

The final step in this redcipe was to eat.  As my Italian grandmother would say when the food was ready, "Mangia!"  After our exclusive cooking demonstration, there was still time left to shop through the store to quantify the value of our meal.  We discovered that we could serve the fifteen people in our group the same size portion of soup for $2.20, which is less than half the cost of a medium sized prepared soup in the market.  This proved the value of cooking from scratch at home.  It was tricky to "shop" with 15 members of our Teen Cooking Club family, but it worked and everyone enjoyed the results!

That's a wrap for this month's installment of Teen Cooking Club.  Check back in March to see what edible wraps we concocted in our next class.

Thanks for visiting,
-Erica

Squash Your Hunger

What food lasts forever in your pantry and can fill an army of friends on the cheap?  SQUASH!!!  That's right, squash is part of the cucurbita family and boast many health benefits for low cost, long shelf-life produce.

Squash Your Hunger

January is a cold month amidst the dark hours of winter.  To brighten our spirits and palettes, we cooked with gourd-geous organge hues to squash our hunger.  The first recipe involved curry, apples, onions and pumpkin.  We made Autumn Squash Soup, which was a great decision for a frigid afternoon.  The bomb cyclone was headed our way, so we needed to warm up quickly.

Soup Prep

Preparation was a snap with a responsive team.  Ingredients were sauteeing before I had relayed all the steps in the process.  The kitchen filled with savory scents, calling to our bellies.

Bubble and Boil

Once the soup was complete, it needed to be blended to a smooth consistency.  I brought my trusty immersion blender to class just for this step.  Students were fascinated by the speed and precision of the immersion blender.  "We need more recipes using that tool!"

Blended Squash Soup

 I learned some fun facts preparing for this class.Cucumbers are part of the squash family.  Look at the species name- cucurbita.  Cucumbers fit in the name!  An adult student who likes to participate so she learns new life skills took ownership of a Creamy Cucumber Salad.

Whipped up in Minutes

This salad was mighty popular and a great way to cool off tongues after eating a hot soup.  Dill and cucumber are cool ingredients versus a hot curry or spicy onion.

A Cheesy Butternut Squash Pasta plate was tackled by a third team.  This seemed to be the most unusual of our recipes.  The girls made a cheesy sauce with blended squash and tons of cheese.  This sauce was mixed to cooked pasta and voila!  Cheesy goodness that disappeared in moments.

So good, it was Gone!

Now that the savory plates are covered, we can step into Sweetsville.

Muffin Mania

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Swirl Muffins were the first stop in Sweetsville.  This is not an actual town, but the place we all like to be when making meals.  Desserts are often coveted, despite knowing we need savory foods, too.  The library is undergoing construction, so some important tools are trapped from usage.  It turned out that the hand mixer is one of the hostages.  Therefore, team mates took turns flexing their muscles and working the cream cheese to a fluffy consistency.

Mmmm...muffins

This was a winner recipe!  I took this photo before the pan emptied with few crumbs remaining.  Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies were the last recipe to tackle in our plan.  I wanted to test the theory that gluten free (GF) all purpose flour acts equivalently to regular all purpose (AP) flour.

Cookie Experiment

In theory, GF flour should equate to AP flour.  The recipe mixed up just fine, but we noticed a major difference in cooking.  These cookies were only supposed to take 12-15 minutes to bake, but the GF flour seemed to cause a delay.  This recipe took upwards of 20-25 minutes per batch to firm up.

Yummy in my Tummy!

Regardless of the extra bake time, students still called these cookies, "Yummy in my tummy!"  My favorite joke for this recipe was a teen consistently calling them Goatmeal Cookies.  I finally understood his reference to the Gluten-free part.  This student often expresses his opinion that Gluten Free recipes result in cardboard quality products.  "Only goats eat cardboard."  I found that hungry teens and tweens devour Goatmeal Cookies, too. 

Time to Eat!

Many thanks to Wegmans Food Markets for sponsoring this teen cooking club.  The community of Corning, New York is supportive of these learning lessons and we are grateful.  The Local Steelworkers Union Hall provides our giant kitchen, the students provide the fun.

Let's Go Shopping

This wraps up another delicious cooking club event.  Join us in February as we go shopping at Wegmans Food Market.  We will meet and shop just like a large family preparing to stock up their pantry for the month.  Their chefs will also engage us with a cooking demonstration!  That will be fun to see how the professionals get the task complete.

Until then, thanks for visiting!

~Erica

Vegan Ventures

Teen Cooking Club ventured into a Vegan menu on Veteran's Day 2017.  For those readers who are unaware, vegan diets eliminate all animal byproducts.  Meat, dairy, and honey are also eliminated from this diet.  "NO CHEESE?!" screamed a few unsuspecting students.

Soup's On!

Once we covered the basics of what not to expect, we rolled up our sleeves and got chopping.  Despite no cheese, the apparent main food source in the minds of these students, the menu was filling and easy to accomplish on a cold Friday afternoon.  Soup is a great entry into a vegan diet.  It's easy to avoid meat, while getting lots of flavor and substance using beans and greens.  Cookie and Kate provided this yummy Spiced Lentil Soup, which included curry powder.  Insert the olfactory scent of the kitchen here.  

Sweet Treats

When veggies are involved, I stress to students to "Try it!  We made it together, so it won't kill you.  If you decide it's not for you, the round file is in the corner."  They laugh at the idea of a trash can being a round file, but they respect my efforts and give the required taste.  Not everyone liked the soup, but those who did came back 2 or 3 times!

A sweet addition to our menu involved no-bake cookie balls.  The Beaming Baker posted this recipe for No Bake Peanut Butter Coconut Bites (Vegan, Gluten Free).  Since they were gluten free and no-bake, this seemed like a simple recipe to tackle.  I swear the holiday off of school and the phase of the moon had a portion of my students in a tizzy!  Just look at the top left corner of these pans---that is not the best work of my budding chefs.  I believe we need to focus a class on meal presentation.  At least these treats disappeared in zero seconds flat.

Chewy Cookie Bars

The last recipe on our menu was a suggestion from a patron.  These Reese's Chewy Chocolate Cookies are tried and true in her vegan home, but we ran into some issues.  Switching the butter with a vegan replacement was not much trouble.  Using "fleggs" in place of chicken eggs offered a great lesson. {A flegg combines ground flax seed and water to create a gelatinous mixture quite different from the average egg from an animal.}  Despite following this recipe step by step, the group of students found the mixture to be tough to blend and very dry.  We added extra oil and water to adjust the issues.  Baking the mixture in a pan to make bars rather than cookies allowed them to be quicker to prepare, since class was quickly coming to a close.

Come and Get It!

Despite our concerns about the cookie bars, they also disappeared within seconds!!!  Families were arriving to pick up their charges, so younger siblings and curious parents tasted the foods we cooked.  Everyone was surprised to eat simple food that tasted so good.  Only one family of the group lives by the vegan diet, but everyone decided it's an easy solution to cook healthful foods that have a low impact on our environment.

Clean up!

Kitchen chores are the least favorite of my students.  I stress that balance is important to life, so with fun comes responsibility.  Sometimes it's a struggle to get these students to clean up, but I love when I catch them in the act without any prompting. <3

Last chance to create with Me!

This wraps up another fun-filled year in the kitchen with teens.  Join us in December to catch a recap of the annual Make & Bake Gifts event.  Filomena Jack will bring her stuffed creatures to teach some sewing skills.  Craft Farm will enlighten students with some kitchen chemistry while making lip balms.  We will also test an old-fashioned corn flake candy wreath recipe, plus add in cinnamon-sugar pretzels.  It is always a great way to get into the holiday spirit.

Thanks for visiting!

xo,

Erica

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