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.
We celebrated Valentine's Day a little early with Teen Cooking Club. This event was held in the community rooms of the Southeast Steuben County Library. The local Union Hall, our usual digs for Cooking Club was housing a Local Foods Festival hosted by Cornell Cooperative Extension, which proved just how many faces you can pack into a union hall.
Valentine's Day Marshmallows were also tested and tasted:
Put them on a stick and dip!
No recipe was really needed for this idea, just melt chocolate in a crock pot, stick marshmallows on a stick. Dip the mallows in chocolate, drip off the excess, then dip them into festive sprinkles. Let them cool, then enjoy!
Valentine Sweetheart Pretzels
These pretzels were so easy and shared the marshmallow station, because they had the chocolate pot. The recipe can be followed here.
We also made delicious Cupid Floats, which I highly recommend, despite the high amounts of sugar you will likely consume.
Red Vines act as straws for this yummy drink
After all of the recipes were made and most of the cleanup was accomplished...I washed dishes as a Valentine's Day gift to my students, we played a few rounds of Minute to Win It games. These were a FABULOUS HIT!!! There is nothing like the giddiness of sugared-up teens and tweens giggling away the afternoon.
Marshmallow Toss
Conversation hearts were the focus of these games.
You cannot refuse a good use for these.
Highest stack wins!
The winners of these games were surprised to receive a gorgeous 3-D printed treat.
3-D Printed Hearts
There was a flurry of activity and I nearly collapsed at the end of the day, but it was all worth the effort, as usual. The excitement is contagious, but my body cannot handle all of these sweets!
Sweets from the Heart.
Next month we celebrate Pi Day (3/14) with Pies!
If you are free after school on Pi Day, be sure to celebrate with us.
This post goes back to August, when it was still Summer Reading Club with the teen theme of "Spark a Reaction." Teen Cooking Club was busy making a bunch of reactive treats.
The sweetest of our treats was edible DNA. Our models utilized Twizzlers and Dots.
My teacher friends remarked upon a fantastic rocket project using alka seltzer and film canisters.---I know!--What's film? How can you get a film canister? Luckily, we still have many mom and pop shops. Our own local B & C Photo in Elmira, NY was happy to help with this conundrum. With paper, glue, tape and markers, each student personalized their "ships" and prepared them for take-off.
The stuff you see flowing from bottles below is Elephant Toothpaste. This stuff was so fun and very reactive! Good idea for an outdoor summer project.
We also cooked some quesadillas and had juice mixed with ginger ale- very sparkly- because these kids HAVE TO EAT!- but we were a-buzz with activity, so no pics of the food frenzy.
The most interesting project for us all was the Alka Seltzer Rocket. The instructions are so simple. Sourcing the canisters was really the most difficult part. Everyone got a canister to take home and further experiment. There were some that seemed to be duds, they just would not work, but given time, they truly Sparked a Reaction. Hopefully this video is a sign of the fun we had.
October is full of spooky haunted happenings. I decided to create a cupcake decorating contest to scare us out of eating all the trick or treat sweets. You may expect that almost nothing holds these kids back from eating junk. I wonder if they would eat chocolate covered broccoli....
The kids were split up into random teams by drawing numbers. They were given a set of rules and expectations, which included a deadline for judging. I contacted our local Arts Council to have arts minded individuals choose 2 winners for this contest. Cakes of various colors were baked, then franitically decorated to meet the deadline. I saw so much creativity happening all at once, the Local 1000 Union Hall was a buzz with activity.
The judges were serious in their selection process. I cannot claim only 2 winners out of this contest. The work was wonderful! Take a peak at some of the entries.
The success of cooking contests proves that kids like to be given a challenge they can tackle. Although two winners were selected, the contestants had so much fun. They each pointed out elements they appreciated to their parents and all look forward to the next Teen Cooking Club. We will be cooking again on November 14 for my Birthday Bash.
