cooking with kids
Last night I finally got to do something I've been looking forward to since June or July.
At the farmers' market this summer, I met the director of a program called On The Rise, and some of the kids she works with. The organization works with at-risk kids to provide tutoring, life skills, job skills, etc. Their younger kids work on a farm raising vegetables, chickens, and goats; the teen program focuses more on getting the kids to graduate and to be able to navigate the adult world effectively. The older kids also handle some of the "business" aspects of the farm, including running stalls at the market. I've been buying eggs, edamame, and goat brats from them for myself and for our nascent campus food coop.
What I've been waiting for, and what I finally got to do last night, was cook with them. They're just starting a regular program where they'll have a guest chef come in once a week to cook with a few of the teens. Two teens and the guest will make a meal for the whole lot of them (last night it was maybe 13 people.)
We made a Curry Pumpkin Soup (thank you toasterstrumpet!), Rice and Lentil Pilaf, and Roasted Root Vegetables (with and without Goat Brats). (The roasted veggies didn't quite cook in the time allowed, so they're in the freezer waiting for next week.)
The kids I was working with were more experienced in the kitchen than I'd expected. They were familiar with curry powder, and the difference between a chop and a dice; one of them not only recognized the mortar and pestle but had just used one in her chemistry class. Some of the foodstuffs were less recognized: lentils and rutabegas and beets were new to them. One of them had fun terrifying one of the program administrators with her "bloody" beet-juice hands. (My hands are still a little red too.)
The meal was delicious, and folks really seemed to enjoy it. They were particularly taken with the pilaf, which is astonishingly easy to make, scarcely more involved than just making rice. (Thanks to otterkin for teaching me many years ago that brown rice and lentils cook at the same rate!)
I'm hoping to cook with these folks once a month, so I'm on the lookout for more excellent-healthy-quick recipes. I had thought we'd have an hour and a half, and it turned out to be only an hour, which was pretty challenging. I hope some day I'll get to do a more elaborate meal with a little more time to talk about what we're doing. This was a good start.
At the farmers' market this summer, I met the director of a program called On The Rise, and some of the kids she works with. The organization works with at-risk kids to provide tutoring, life skills, job skills, etc. Their younger kids work on a farm raising vegetables, chickens, and goats; the teen program focuses more on getting the kids to graduate and to be able to navigate the adult world effectively. The older kids also handle some of the "business" aspects of the farm, including running stalls at the market. I've been buying eggs, edamame, and goat brats from them for myself and for our nascent campus food coop.
What I've been waiting for, and what I finally got to do last night, was cook with them. They're just starting a regular program where they'll have a guest chef come in once a week to cook with a few of the teens. Two teens and the guest will make a meal for the whole lot of them (last night it was maybe 13 people.)
We made a Curry Pumpkin Soup (thank you toasterstrumpet!), Rice and Lentil Pilaf, and Roasted Root Vegetables (with and without Goat Brats). (The roasted veggies didn't quite cook in the time allowed, so they're in the freezer waiting for next week.)
The kids I was working with were more experienced in the kitchen than I'd expected. They were familiar with curry powder, and the difference between a chop and a dice; one of them not only recognized the mortar and pestle but had just used one in her chemistry class. Some of the foodstuffs were less recognized: lentils and rutabegas and beets were new to them. One of them had fun terrifying one of the program administrators with her "bloody" beet-juice hands. (My hands are still a little red too.)
The meal was delicious, and folks really seemed to enjoy it. They were particularly taken with the pilaf, which is astonishingly easy to make, scarcely more involved than just making rice. (Thanks to otterkin for teaching me many years ago that brown rice and lentils cook at the same rate!)
I'm hoping to cook with these folks once a month, so I'm on the lookout for more excellent-healthy-quick recipes. I had thought we'd have an hour and a half, and it turned out to be only an hour, which was pretty challenging. I hope some day I'll get to do a more elaborate meal with a little more time to talk about what we're doing. This was a good start.