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

Creepy Creations

Kitty Litter Cake

Creepy Creations were on plate for October, in recognition of a very creepy month.  We resurrected the Kitty Litter Cake, a ghastly concoction, that this new cat owner wretches over!  I warned the kids that no one ate this cake a few years ago, because it just looked too Grrrrroossssss!!!--this certainly made it the most favored creation of our event.  I believe the double chocolaty goodness aided in the success of this mess.  If you want to attempt this nasty treat at home, try this recipe.  We replaced the German Chocolate cake with Devil's Food Cake, which made it super delicious.

"Looks like intestines!"

Threaded Spaghetti Hot Dog Bites were the main course in our creations.  Slice hot dogs into bite size pieces, thread several strands of raw spaghetti through the hot dog pieces, then cook them in boiling water as you would cook spaghetti.  We added marinara sauce for a bloody look.  Mangia!

"Brrrainnnnssssss"

The next recipe was a sticky situation.  Bloody Popcorn Brains are popcorn balls with a twist.  The colorful marshmallows we used turned the mixture a beige-brown shade and the "blood" was used in making alien faces, so these are Bloodless Popcorn Brains.

Aliens Attack

Pretzels, icing, candies and creativity gave us this alien arrangement.  Alien Pretzels are really easy to create.  The makers of this recipe refused to stick to the "alien" color pallette and opted for the full spectrum.  As one chef in training said, "I mean, who says aliens are only green?"  This recipe is perfectly paranormal.

Green Goo

Last on the menu was this Green Goo Smoothie.  I like to test new ingredients with my group.  This recipe called for almond milk, carob chips--really hard to find in this area, chia seeds and spinach!  Yes, we drank spinach!!!  The recipe we used is M.I.A., but this recipe is very similar.

Yuck!

Gross on a Plate, but it's quite tasty!

Just can't get enough...Nom, Nom, Nom.

Stayed tuned, November is our Birthday Bash.  We celebrate our birthdays for the whole year in one big bash.  More cake, please.

Stellar Sammies

Stellar Sammies are outta this world!  That was my intention when planning September's Teen Cooking Club.  I missed last month's installment of "Animal Appetizers" for August.  The picture are M.I.A. at the moment, but I hope to share that event.  We made treats for stray and foster dogs of Tanner's P.A.W.S.  It was one of the most rewarding Teen Cooking Clubs ever held at SSC Library.--I promise to find the evidence and recipes.

Back to September's Stellar Sammies.  Sammies are sandwiches in the foodie community.  Anything between two pieces of bread can be a sammie with the right imagination.  I was originally letting my preconceived notion of a "sandwich" (two pieces of bread with something in the center) define my expectations.  Luckily, Pinterest steered me in a stellar direction.

"We need more cheese!"

First up for team 1 was Chicken Cordon Bleu Bundles.  These sammies were so simple and fun to make; I think the crew liked them best in their bellies!

"Rolls are sanwiches?!"

 The second teams' recipe was Cucumber Sandwiches.

"Mmm...this cheese spread is delish!"

The sliced bread in the recipe was replaced with a baguette, which we sliced in coins to match the shape of the cucumber slices.  I'm surprised how fast these gems disappeared.  I mean, they are vegetables!

The third recipe was Meatball Poppers.  I replaced the meat with vegetarian meatballs in this version to introduce another food option.  Some kids run the other way when I say something is "meatless" as though it is a disease.  I actually prefer these little nuggets.  They are easier to work with out of the bag, rather than mixing meat and making meatballs from scratch.  I'm sure the kids would agree that skipping that step was a fantastic idea!

Uncanning the crescent rolls.

Pretty tasty, minus all those caraway seeds.

The groups worked very well together, as usual.  There seemed to be a little bit of hazy-daze going on with the group, but I remembered that it was the effects of the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL.  They were like zombies of a too-long-summer.  One thing is for certain, they are never too far when I "ring the dinner bell."

NOM, NOM, NOM!

Check back next month when we make Creepy Creatures in preparation for Halloween.

We will have a ghoulish good time!

Edible Books

Edible Books was the cooking club theme for June.  It was actually set for April, but several events canceled or postponed cooking club between February and June!  I have a lot of catching up to do. 

An array of books to choose

I provided book scans donated by a patron who had used them for a baby shower.  These were a lot easier to offer the kids versus the bulk and weight of actual books.  After the event, I was even more pleased to recycle these icing-coated-images rather than clean books forever.  

Getting the attendees to focus and plan a "book" look was a little tough, considering they just wanted to eat all the treats.  I did get a few very fine examples:

Blue Chicken

Rainbow Fish

Emerald

Clumsy Crab

A Cat Called Penguin

The trouble was getting the kids to see past the sweets and use them as building tools for their creations.  Eventually, I gave up steering their direction and let them create sugar castles fit for a belly ache.

Donuts, marshmallow, graham crackers with icing "glue"

"Heart Failure"

GROSS!!!

YUCK!

This loosely reference a farm book

I have seen amazing edible books designed for contests, but this mission fell a little flat.  Perhaps if the students bought these supplies, there would have been more reverence for their usage.  This is just another lesson in working with teens and tweens. 

Souper Bowls

Teen Cooking Club is back with a new year of recipes and treats.  January is such a terribly dark and cold month that soup had to be on the menu.  The Super Bowl is usually scheduled for January, so we made a play on words....

The crowd was split into two teams, Green Team and Red Team, by random drawing, although I believe siblings broke the rules to stay together.  I let each group decide upon a leader to oversee their recipes and make sure everything was being prepared as directed.

The Green Team took to the field with a recipe for Bisquick Biscuit Bowls.  I altered the recipe ahead of time to remove excess spices, but I would try Paula Deen's Chili in a Biscuit Bowl at home!  The recipe yielded 6 biscuit bowls, so I persuaded The Green Team to use their skills to multiply the recipe.  They tried, but fumbled with the sticky dough!!  Their soup was a Baked Potato Soup.  A vegetarian in the group voiced their concerns about meat in any of the recipes, so we kept this one meat free.  

The field looks open, but competition was brutal!

The Red Team faced their challenge with an Easy Bread Bowls recipe.  Although this team had to work with defrosted bread dough, it seemed less sticky and easier to mold onto the pans.  The Red Team soup recipe was appropriate to their team name,

Classic Tomato Soup.  This recipe is easily altered.  We substituted whole peeled plum tomatoes for tomato puree.  This removed the need for a blender, which could have been problematic within our time frame.  If vegetable stock was used, this would be another terrific vegetarian option, but we used chicken stock according to the recipe.

The teams played good games.  Here is a recap of the moves:

 The Green Team had so many more moves to complete their soup vs. 

The Red Team, but their hard work helped them win the best recipe choice.

Hands were flying for that potato soup! 

Left panel shows The Green Team

Middle panel shows The Red Team

Right panel shows results of both teams, Green on Top, Red on Bottom

I recommend making bread bowls for soup nights at home.  They are quick to make and provide a restaurant feel for a simple meal. 

While these concoctions sizzled and simmered, we had a half time show with Frosty Snowman Pretzels.  I found it difficult to source ROUND PRETZELS anywhere in the Southern Tier.  I substituted regular pretzel twists to actually make this adorable treat.

This recaps another SOUPER Teen Cooking Club with SSC Library.

Check back next month when L.O.V.E. is in the air.

Everybody now:  "When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie...