Made with Love

The presence of Saint Valentine graced the Teen Cooking Club this February.  Using the spirit of the season, our food theme was Made with Love.  The power of the full moon (and perhaps higher quantities of sugar) added a bit of loony to the mix.

Made with Love

First on the menu was Cherry Cream Cheese Hand Pies.  These little bitties were easy to make and disappeared quickly.  To provide variety, we used blueberry and cherry filling.

Heart Shaped Treats

Fresh from the Oven

I seem to gravitate towards Hungry Happenings food blog.  Their Chocolate Cherry Bombs recipe seemed like a perfect match for this lovely occasion.  These cake balls were more time consuming than originally thought.  In hindsight, pre-baking a cake would have saved time and kept that team of teens busy the entire program.  A warmer cake batter caused troubles for the rest of the process.

Bombed Chocolate Cherry Bombs

Valentine's Bark was another fun and easy recipe that the teens loved!  Melting chocolate and pouring it onto the pan was barely messy (ha!) and decorating the concoction with tons of pink candies and sprinkles made the young chefs giggle with joy.

Valentine's Bark

For a savory plate, we created Pineapple Fried Rice.  Cooking anything with vegetables can be iffy with teens and tweens.  Luckily we had culinary masters on this recipe.  Onion chopping was a breeze.

No cryin' over onions!

Having vegetarians in the class gave us the creative license to omit meat from this recipe.  It was not needed.  Even with specks of yellow and lots of dots of green, this plate vanished!

Pineapple Fried Rice

To wash down all the goodness, we made a juice punch with Lemon flavored Seltzer water mixed with equal parts cherry juice.  Our chefs took the time to perfect the serving counter for a perfect photo opp.

Cooking to our Heart's Delight

There was hustle and bustle along with learning curves and lessons for me to take into account. With this in mind, we will work with less recipes next month and work more closely together to maintain food safety rules and keep everyone on par with the tasks at hand.  This club is fun to lead, but some days provide clarity to the needs of the group more than others.  I look forward to slowing our roll in March and taking things a little slower.  

Irish for Today

Even with struggles like messes that no one claims and even fewer wish to clean, this program is my favorite of the month.  We make a mess, work together (mostly) and have a fun time making the magic.  So many of these students return each month to get a taste of their own efforts and that form of community makes my heart burst with pride.

Be sure to visit in March to see what the leprechauns have up their sleeves.

Thanks for visiting!

~erica

BBQ 2016

Barbecues are the best thing about summer cooking.  

Stoking the grill and prepping food, while enjoying the great outdoors brings our appreciation for food and fire another level higher.

Grilled Pinapple

We started our event by moving indoors!  A tremendous thunderstorm rushed through the valley at the precise moment our BBQ began.  With the Local 1000 Union Hall as an inclement weather standby, we had the comfort of cool air and dry hair, while our food cooked on the grill outside in the rain.  

Grilled Pineapple was a fun and easy recipe to start the event.  It cooked quickly and excited the crew.  "Ooh! I've never tried grilling fruit before," said several participants. The recipe is vegan and very yummy, but we skipped the coconut milk and went right for the whipped cream from the can.  Sometimes shortcuts are necessary.

"Baked" Potato Bar

Speaking of shortcuts...

We had a "Baked" Potato Bar, but they were really boiled salt potatoes, following the bag instructions and provided a row of yummy toppings to smother the tubers.

Vegan Satay Skewers

There were a few vegetarians who signed up for this program, so I decided to attempt some unusual BBQ fair for all to try. The recipe I sourced needed translation, but was easy to accomplish.  Vegan Satay Skewers are delicious, especially when you follow the dip recipe precisely. Along with vegetarian needs, I also balance nut allergies, so the peanut butter required for the skewer sauce was replaced with sunflower butter.  

That sauce was an EPIC FAIL!

Blueberry Chia Pudding

Sticking to the vegan fare, I sourced a recipe for Blueberry Chia Pudding.  I mentioned how chia seeds are a super food and the hot food item at the moment.  Seeing a bag of black seeds did not impress my group.  When I teased that chia seeds are the same product used on Chia Pets, the group was less enthused to taste test this recipe.  "So, you're basically giving us grass seed to eat," was the resounding sentiment.  Despite hesitation, the team that made this pudding took it seriously and several students truly enjoyed the unusual texture.  No left overs always proves a recipe's success.

Mexican Street Corn

The last menu item was Mexican Street Corn.  This was a top favorite along with the potatoes. Spicy tang and creamy spread made these cobs major menu competitors.  

Corn cooks quickly and the topping was a simple addition to move this grain from 

corny to crazy cool!

Despite rain, we had fun in our indoor picnic/ barbecue.  We were busy as usual, but left with a little more cooking knowledge than when we started.  That is the goal.

Extra special THANKS goes to Wegmans Food Market in Corning for their generous gift card donation, which helped purchase all of the food used in this program.

Teen Cooking Club will be on hiatus until October.  This seems like forever away, but the cool weather creeps in quickly in Upstate New York, school starts soon and foliage will be falling before you can say Autumn.

Thanks for visiting!

~erica