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

Fall Feast

The Southeast Steuben County Library Teen Cooking Club sessions returned in October after a two month hiatus.  Down time did nothing to the program participation, in fact, the quantity of students surged!  Luckily, we have the spacious USW 1000 Union Hall to cook up a storm and contain the 30 teens buzzing with excitement to create the concoctions I collected.

USW 1000 Union Hall houses the SSCL Teen Cooking Club

To start off the event, I set up tables with recipes on each station.  Each recipe was labeled with a number.  Attendees drew from a bucket to find out which recipe was their's to accomplish.  This method has been valuable in breaking up "besties" and siblings, while meeting new friends with similar interests.  

Station 1 created a Butternut Squash Broccoli Quinoa Casserole.  I just love the way quinao (pronounced "keen-wah") is read by the students.  Only the veteran students know the grain and it seems to be overlooked by many households.  I wanted veggies to be used and loved in this main dish.  CHEESE makes the difference.  The dish was warm, colorful, and filling.

So yummy, we doubled the recipe!

Station 2 was assigned Harvest Pumpkin Soup.  Pumkins and soup scream fall to my belly and everyone seemed to agree.  The recipe claims you should puree the mixture, but I allowed the team to choose to leave it chunky or smooth.  The "chunky" vote won.  Lots of kids loved this recipe, which was our appetizer as we waited for all recipes to finish in the ovens.

"This is so warm and makes me feel cozy."

Station 3 were given the favorite recipe that disappeared before it hit the counter, Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies.  Due to the pumpkin, these sweet treats are high in fiber and very moist.  They were the dessert before dinner, since the squash in the casserole took longer to soften than expected, but no one seemed disappointed by this fact.

Cookies before cooking...they vanished right out of the oven.

Station 4 was given a double dose of recipes to allow enough tasks for each student.  Old Fashioned Apple Crisp speaks to the season of harvest.  The Finger Lakes region is abundant with apple orchards and the cost of apples goes way low in autumn.  With a large crowd, we doubled the recipe.  This was another sweet treat with a knack for vanishing.

Gone too soon...

For the Harry Potter fans, like myself, who anticipate the upcoming film "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," (click here to borrow the book from our library!--books are always better than movies...)I felt it necessary to introduce a beverage from the much-loved book series. Butter Beer is a quick, 5 ingredient recipe that is sure to please, though it would taste much better served at the Three Broomsticks in Hog's Meade.

The bespectacled bud imbibed like he was in Hog's Meade.

So many great recipes and equally fun company.  These chefs-in-training worked hard and ate 'til their bellies burst.  As families arrived to retrieve their kin, it was irresistible for their noses to guide them to the serving counter.  What little food was leftover ended up being tasted by parents and siblings.  Everyone wanted recipes, and I promised this recap for the exact purpose of taking the lessons home.  Please enjoy!

Go worldwide with us next month with guest chef, Nithya Krishnan.  We will be experimenting with new ingredients and recipes foreign to my knowledge--I can't wait!