The Children's Culinary Academy

From the Ground Up

I've been busy these past few weeks getting the garden ready for the summer program! Since I moved the CCA to a new location I had to start the garden anew, and at first the task seemed incredibly daunting. It's hard to leave a garden behind after putting so much work into it--even harder to start again from scratch.

PAL had given me a great space to work with, but, as a former preschool playground, it was covered in nearly equal parts grass, wood chips, and sand, so there was a lot of prep work to be done.

My husband and  a mid-sized rototiller made pretty quick work of the grass. While the grass was being shredded and moved, my son, daughter, and I shoveled an enormous amount of wood chips out to the edges of what would eventually be the garden space.

The sand was a little more difficult. We couldn't decide whether to spread it evenly over the entire garden space or dig it out and move it to an entirely new space. 
When we discovered that the earth beneath the grass, wood chips, and sand was clay, I muttered something about drainage and, for better or worse, we decided to spread the sand around and work it in with the tiller. We'll see how that works out for us as the season wears on.

That effort was nothing by comparison to what had to be done next. An entire dump truck load of soil had to be moved into the garden. The only catch was that the soil was about 100 yards from the garden space. I will admit that I only moved three wheelbarrows full before I gave up and started shaping beds and creating paths out of wood chips. (Hey, that needed doing too!) My devoted and tireless husband is the one who moved all that soil. Every last speck of it. Without his herculean effort I would still be out there willing the soil to 
move itself. 

The planting was the easy part. 

Now we wait...and weed...and create fun kid-style garden art, the likes of which weren't appropriate for our original location. We've started already by creating some adorable garden signs ("Please stay on the paths,"  and "Welcome to the Children's Kitchen Garden"). One of our first garden art projects during cooking camp will be to make garden markers out of wooden spoons, and we've already got some flowers growing out of rubber boots and watering cans!

In short, we're ready and raring to go!

See you all in a couple of weeks!

Asafoeti...wah?!

Asafoetida: A gum derived from the sap of the roots and stem of a giant fennel that stinks to high heaven. Literally translated, it means "stinking resin," but it has also been referred to as "devil's dung" and "stink finger."

Sound like something you want to eat? Probably not so much. The kids in Sunday's class could tell you that it doesn't smell like anything you want to eat either.

Those of you in the know have probably already guessed that we did Indian food last week--more specifically, Vegetable Samosas, which call for asafoetida as one of the many spicy ingredients. 

I brought in my masala dabba
to show the kids how spices are stored in kitchens in India, and we explored cumin seeds, ground cumin, red chili powder, garam masala, amchur (dried mango powder), and the almighty asafoetida.

We started out peeling potatoes and then made a nice, smooth, elastic dough for the pastry, which we set aside to rest while we made and enjoyed some mango and pineapple lassi. 
We've made mango lassi before, and they all loved it, so I thought it would be a good trade for the challenge presented by the number of spices I was about to ask them to use in their samosa fillings.

I'm going to be completely honest here, I truly did not think the kids would even consent to put the asafoetida in their potato/pea mixture, never mind eat it, but each and every one of them complied--happily, 
no less--after I assured them that asafoetida, once cooked, imparts the flavor of garlic and onions.

They folded and filled the samosa dough and cheerfully carried the uncooked samosas to me for pan-frying. And then the true test. Eating them.

I waited for the first review.

"Good," she said.

Then the second.

A full mouth and a thumbs up. And then another thumbs up and another, each one taking a moment to come over to the stove to tell me they liked the samosas. Some even dared to try a little mango chutney too. The only one who seemed at all hesitant was Sarah, who I reminded about the time she was afraid to eat jicama salad and after she finally did, declared it one of the best things she'd ever eaten. Before she left she was happily eating her samosas (although she continues to not be a fan of peas...we have to work on that!).

I'm proud of this class. They all stepped out of their comfort zones and tried new things this session, and I truly couldn't have asked for a more perfect ending to the spring session.

Summer, here we come! Classes for the summer begin on July 12. Registrations are ongoing, though several classes are now full.

It Has Real Corn In It!

The cornbread we made last Sunday had fresh corn kernels in it, and when their parents picked them up the kids excitedly exclaimed, "It has real corn in it!" Of course the cornmeal was made from real corn too, but what thrilled them was the whole topsy turvy (to them) idea of putting whole corn kernels into the batter.

 

What excited me was the agave syrup we used in place of granulated sugar. Agave syrup is a liquid sweetener that comes from the agave plant and is low on the glycemic load scale.  
And, in simple terms, it is also sweeter than sugar, which means you can use less to get the same level of sweetness you'd get in table sugar. Thus, healthier cornbread!!

We also made oven "barbecued" chicken, slathered with our own homemade spicy barbecue sauce. Onions and garlic were chopped,  spices were mixed with tomato sauce, and the whole thing was cooked slowly until the flavors were just right. Then each child brushed two chicken legs with sauce and we put them all in the oven to cook.
  Twenty minutes later the chicken emerged hot from the oven, ready to eat.

 
The kids loved everything on Sunday's menu and the parents sent rave reviews too!

This week we're going to do some Indian food and I can't wait to see what the kids say about one of the more unusual ingredients we'll be using.

In other news, I just agreed to write a monthly column about cooking and gardening with kids at www.camps.com. I'll let you all know when the first article appears.

Whole Wheat Flax Pasta and Spinach Cakes

This week the class made whole wheat flax pasta with roasted garlic, tomato, and basil. We also made cheesy spinach cakes which weren’t such a big hit with the kids, or Stephen! First we made the dough, Ben’s was too wet and Sara’s was too dry, getting it perfect is tricky. Then we put the pasta through the hand-cranked pasta machine, 
which is very fun!

While the pasta dough was resting we started on the cheesy spinach cakes, we had to chop the spinach as small as we could get it.
When the cakes were baking in the oven we made the fresh tomato, basil, and roasted garlic sauce for the pasta. Both the roasted garlic and the basil smelled scrumptious; the tomatoes were perfect, all of that added together, magnificent! I loved that the kids got to see that fresh, uncooked foods can be delicious. 
Finally we tossed together the hot pasta and tomato and basil medley, just in time for the spinach cakes to come out of the
oven. I think altogether we had a wonderful class. 

--Emily

Guest Blogger

Just a quick post to let you know that Emily, CCA's first ever guest blogger, will be posting about today's class later in the week. I am interested to read about how she experiences the class as one of my teen helpers. She's been a student in most (maybe all!) of my Young Epicureans classes and has been a wonderful asset over the past three weeks. I'm looking forward to involving her more in future projects.

Stephen has been a great help these last three weeks too--arriving early to help set up, cleaning, helping the kids, staying late to make sure everything is put away, and bringing a new sense of maturity into the kitchen.

I am pleased to have them both in the kitchen with me.

I also wanted to thank Fran and Gina for donating a huge bin of cleaning supplies and paper towels to the kitchen--we've put them to good use over the last two weeks and have plenty more to last through the rest of the spring session. THANK YOU!!

The CCA is extremely fortunate to have so many wonderful people as part of its support network.

Stay tuned for Emily's post!

Paklava

  
When I made my decision about what we were going to cook in class last week I was confident it was the right decision. I was excited to teach the kids about this unique food from another culture. I was certain they’d love the flavors, the process—all of it.

And then I suddenly thought, “Are you INSANE?! Phyllo dough with nine kids under the age of 12?!” I flashed back to the time we used phyllo dough in one of my very first Young Epicureans classes. The kids in those classes are 12 and up, and they had a doozy of a time working with that paper thin dough. I can’t tell you how many damp paper towels I removed from cutting boards as they were about to be folded neatly into spanikopita triangles. The kids mistook the paper towels for dough over and over again. Laughter rang through the kitchen each time. They were having fun, at least! We threw away countless dried out sheets of dough, and I even had to have a friend run to the supermarket for more during class, which is something that had never happened before and has never happened since. 

I’d already purchased all the ingredients for Sunday’s class at that point. Too late to turn back.

We started out slowly, chopping walnuts and almonds, melting butter, grating orange and lemon zests, and then the phyllo dough. I cut sheets into quarters and handed everyone a small stack.   They brushed and stacked and filled and stacked and brushed their way to the tops of their mini loaf pans without incident. To my joy and amazement, using phyllo dough went incredibly well this time. 
No paper towels had to be removed, and hardly a sheet was wasted. I’d bought three pounds of dough in anticipation of the worst and we used exactly one. Every paklava (think baklava, but from Armenia, not Greece) that emerged hot from the oven looked and tasted wonderful. Um…that is, until I gave them forks, which they used to pulverize the perfectly browned phyllo into piles of sweet shards of dessert debris.

Ah well.  Perhaps in this case a third time will be the charm.

Back to School is Cool--If You're Cooking!

Today was CCA's first day in the new kitchen and by all accounts the kids were extremely happy to be there. Everyone was amazed by how big the kitchen in the Police Athletic League is--at least three times the size of the old kitchen. And for me, the best part is that the area where we cook is completely separate from the area where we do our prep work. Much safer for the little guys! 

As I mentioned on CCA's Facebook page a couple of days ago, the recipes for today's class came right out of one of my favorite books, Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day: 100 New Recipes Featuring Whole Grains, Fruits, Vegetables, and Gluten-Free Ingredients. I started using the first book in this series, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking in class last year and the results were amazing! When I heard there was a second one coming I pre-ordered it immediately and waited anxiously for its arrival. Like its predecessor, it's worth every penny! I usually create my own recipes for each class, but the recipes in these books are perfectly suited to these two- and three-hour classes that I couldn't possibly come up with anything better.

For today's class we made the 100% Whole Wheat with Olive Oil dough and made made the Grissini and Spicy Whole Grain Crackers. I wanted the kids to see how easy it is to make a bunch of different things with one dough.

They enthusiastically mixed, rolled, cut, and sprinkled with herbs, salt, and chili powder and popped them in the oven to bake. The kitchen smelled fantastic and everyone was happily munching on their whole grain crackers and breadsticks (and extra sharp provolone cheese!) when their parents arrived.

 

I'm always trying to explain to the kids what gluten is and how developing it makes breads chewy (or how not developing it keeps pastries tender and flaky), and today I decided to have the older girls and my teenage helpers do a little gluten ball experiment.

Each of them measured a different kind of flour into separate bowls (in this case, rye, whole wheat, all purpose, and bread flours). Then they added enough water to create a dough ball, which they kneaded for about fifteen minutes each. After that they rinsed and squeezed their dough balls in water (Stephen said it was the weirdest thing I've made them do yet.) until the water stayed clear.
Then we baked the dough balls in the oven. The rye dough ball never made it to the oven because there wasn't enough gluten to make it work, but the whole wheat, all purpose, and bread flour gluten balls all went in the oven where they puffed up and showed us how flours with different gluten contents produce different textures in bread.

Here are the cross-sections:

The kids were pretty amazed when I told them that seitan is made from the wheat gluten left behind after the starches are removed (the stuff left after they squeeze and squeezed and rinsed the starch out of their dough balls). Something tells me the kids wouldn't believe the assertion in the link above that seitan is gaining in popularity (truth be told, I don't believe it myself!).

Little (Wet) Gardeners

Yesterday at about 6am the skies opened, dumping a deluge on our little seaside town. Thunder rumbled in the distance. I thought it couldn't be a good sign for turnout at The Beautification Council's annual plant sale, but...well...I was wrong! Intrepid gardeners--and their kids--came out in spite of the rain, searching for just the right flowers, shrubs, herbs, and vegetable plants for their gardens or for some last minute Mother's Day gifts.

Along the way, they visited the kids' corner (covered, thankfully, by an enormous tent) where everyone made biodegradable seed pots out of strips of newspaper and planted, for the most part, watermelon seeds. Some of them went for beans or peas, but watermelons were without a doubt the most popular.
  

 
 
 
 

Right next to us were some Falmouth High School students who were doing some face painting, which was a big hit with the little ones.

 
And we topped off the day with a gift from Ghelfi's--a basket full of chocolate pansies!

(I heard that my Facebook post of the picture of the chocolates is what got Jenna out of the house)

Hopefully The Beautification Council was able to reach their fundraising goals. We'll see everyone there again next year!

Happy Mother's Day to all the marvelous mamas out there!

And don't forget, classes start again this coming Sunday!

Falmouth Beautification Council's Annual Plant Sale

Every year, the Falmouth Beautification Council hosts a plant sale in Town Hall Square. This year they'll be there on May 8th, and as they did last year, they've invited me to spend some time planting bean seeds with kids.

  We make our own newspaper seed pots, add some rich soil and a few seeds and voila! Beautiful starter pots that go right into the ground--recycling at its best.

It sounds like this year is going to be even more fun because there will be face painting and possibly even some treats!

So, mom and dad, wrangle the kids into the car on Saturday between 10am and 2pm, find some amazing, well-priced plants for your garden (both flowers and veggies!), and get the kids involved in a fun, free activity!

See you there!

Spring and Summer

Hello again to all of you! I've missed blogging here. Many of you know that I was off blogging somewhere else for the winter, and that was fun, but I'm very excited to be back in my own space preparing to work with all my friends again!

I've moved the CCA to a new location--the Police Athletic League (PAL) at 279 Brick Kiln Road where we'll have more space. The kids will also be happy to hear that I've purchased 12 more sets of measuring cups. I know this seems like a little thing, but when 12 kids are trying to use the same four measuring cups it gets a little tedious.

The chickens we acquired last summer are laying like crazy, so we'll be using their eggs in class as often as possible and, I'm very excited about taking a stab at cheese making this summer as well. Stay tuned!

And don't forget to check out the registration site for Spring and Summer offerings. See you soon!