Highfield Hall Cooks!

Sushi, Spring Rolls, and Thai Fried Bananas

When I asked the Young Epicureans what they wanted to do for the last class Stephen piped up with a quick, "SUSHI!" Chloe, from the Kids Café is also a huge sushi fan and had been asking for it since the first session. I'd put them off because sushi requires a little bit of extra focus. Not to mention some tools I didn't yet have in the kitchen. Namely, these:

Rice paddles and bamboo mats. It's quite possible to make sushi without either of them, but I knew the plastic wrap method would be much too difficult for the kids, so I ordered a bunch from Ming's Pantry, which turned out to be right up the road in New Bedford, of all places!

When I told the Kids Café and Young Epicureans kids that we'd be making Sushi some of them were a little worried because they thought they were going to have to eat raw fish. I let them worry until the day we were scheduled to do it, and then explained to them that sushi is actually just "vinegar rice." It is often garnished with raw fish and vegetables, but it doesn't require raw fish. Sashimi, on the other hand, which we weren't making, is raw fish.

I gathered together some sushi rice (a medium grain), nori, a rainbow of bell peppers, celery, cucumber, avocado, carrots, tofu, and some fresh herbs, and we made sushi. The rice is easy to make. Just rinse the rice in water until it is no longer cloudy, steam it, and then season it with a mixture of rice vinegar, sugar, salt, and mirin. Some people recommend fanning the rice so it will become shiny and have a pearl-like appearance, but I wasn't particularly concerned about that for this exercise. I figured we'd be lucky to get something the even approximated the look of a California roll.

I have to say that the kids, all of them, surprised me. The Kids Café cooks really enjoyed the prep. There were even some moments of extreme silence, which hasn't happened since the first day of the first class ever when they were all too terrified to do anything but stand silently at attention. The peeled and julienned and chiffonaded (is that a word?) their little hearts out.

They had the focus of a herd of Ninjas. And they made some pretty fantastic-looking sushi rolls.

We also made fresh Thai spring rolls

My teenagers did a great job the Friday before too

In addition to Sushi and fresh rolls, the Young Epicureans got to make Thai fried bananas—basically just bananas wrapped in eggroll wrappers and pan friend. I suggested rolling the banana in Chinese Five Spice powder and sugar first, but no one was brave enough to try.

Henry's a very nonchalant chef. Calm and collected.

Emily, on the other hand…I'm not sure who took this picture, but it's a beauty!

Stephen thoroughly enjoyed his Thai fresh roll (although I think the peanut dipping sauce was a little too spicy for him). AGAIN we missed Dominique—she was in a chorale competition. Her group won, so I guess it was worth missing all of us for something a lot less tasty.

 

Spoil ‘Em Then Shock ‘Em

I've kind of adopted this little policy in my head that if I know I'm going to challenge the kids' taste buds one week I'll spoil them a little bit the week before. Call it a false sense of security, if you will. This is not to say that we go crazy and make, say, candy houses and chocolate flowers (although now that I've said it the idea intrigues me) or break out a box of mac and cheese (I'm not the least bit intrigued by that idea), but I'll usually give them a break with something I know they're going to love—like things made with enriched bread dough. The only trouble with yeast bread was that I couldn't figure out how to accomplish some good artisanal loaves in these short, once-a-week classes. First of all, we don't have a mixer big enough to handle a large amount of dough and all that mixing and kneading by hand would more than likely be too difficult for all the kids (including my Young Epicureans) and secondly, there simply isn't enough time for all the mixing, rising, punching, rising, and proofing in one class.

And then I found this:

 

What a great book! The mixing is minimal and the dough does all the hard work by itself. All the kids have to do is combine the ingredients in a bowl, make sure everything is incorporated, and then leave it on the counter to rise. Then it goes in the refrigerator for up to five days. It's so easy that I was even able to have the Kids Café class mix small, individual batches and combine them in one big plastic container for later use. There were variations in each little batch, but together they made a great dough.

For Friday's Young Epicureans class I mixed the initial batch of dough (they mixed another one later for the Kids Café class). While I was mixing someone came into the kitchen to talk to me and I lost track of what I was doing. As a result I halved the amount of water I needed and doubled the amount of honey. Since we were doing sticky buns in that class I decided to let it go, but cautioned the kids that it was going to take extra time to rise. Because of my error we didn't bake any that night and instead everyone took them home to rise overnight for baking in the morning. Just so I could see the results myself I brought a batch home too and was pleasantly surprised.

(I'm most likely going to adopt the accidental recipe and use it instead of the recipe from the book!)

That same night the Young Epicureans made Souffléed Banana Pancakes with caramelized bananas and every one of them came out great. (Unfortunately I was camera-less that night, so you'll just have to take my word for it.)

Two days later my Kids Café kids made pecan sticky buns too, but they also made Challah bread.

They enjoyed rolling and braiding the dough.

And they decorated with poppy seeds.  A few of them seemed underwhelmed with the size of their loaves, but their disappointment dissolved the moment the hot, steaming, golden breads emerged from the oven.

My favorite part of the day (and I think it might be theirs too!) is when they get to taste what they've eaten. Inevitably a group of them ends up under the small table having a conversation while they devour the fruits of their labor.

Memorial Day Weekend Breakfast

We had a light turn-out for the last Kids Café class because of the holiday weekend, but we still had a ton of fun, and because the class was small enough I even got to cook! The day's menu was Chive, Ham, and Potato Frittatas and Banana Bread. I love chives because they're one of the season's first signs that fresh garden vegetables are on the way.

Sunday's chives had been up long enough to produce some flowers, so the kids also got to see what a chive flower looks like. I was a little worried they wouldn't want to cook with them, but my fears couldn't have been more unfounded. Everyone chopped and sprinkled without complaint, and to my surprise, Xavier stood there eating one long grassy piece after another as he waited for his frittata to emerge from the oven.

The frittata above belonged to Jillian, who was thoughtful enough to cut hers into four portions so the rest of her family could enjoy her cooking. Everyone had a chance to work on the stove this week and some of the budding chefs were brave enough to try chopping with a chef's knife.

The mini banana breads filled the kitchen with an irresistible aroma and provided a satisfying end to a warm spring morning in Highfield's kitchen.

 

Just look at Jenna's happy little face.

Memorial Day marks the beginning of summer on Cape Cod, and after we were all done cooking we celebrated by rolling down the grassy hill in front of Highfield. What could be better?!

Ten Pots a’ Boiling…60 Dumplings Cooking….

One hundred golden cookies! I'm not joking, that's how much food thirteen kids produced in two hours. This past week the Kids Café made Chinese dumplings too, but they also got to make Almond Cookies. We started out with the dumpling dough because as every child in any one of my classes knows, dough's gotta rest. Dough is easy to make, but it requires a lot of elbow grease. It's a workout, which I think the kids enjoy, but once they get the dough to the right consistency they are always glad to move on to chopping and mixing. This week they had a lot to chop and mix. Cabbage, scallions, ginger, tofu, soy sauce, egg white, and sesame oil were mixed together to create a tasty and fragrant dumpling filling.

While the dumplings boiled they got busy mixing and shaping almond cookies (the smell of Amaretto didn't go over very well with most of them). Everyone made at least six, although some made significantly more. While they were baking the kids got to eat their dumplings, and as soon as they emerged from the oven the cookies were devoured. There were quite a few empty plates at the end of class!

Hola Horchata!

Have you ever had Horchata? No? Don't worry, it's not contagious! (Although it might be slightly addictive.) It's a traditional Mexican drink that goes well with spicy food, in theory because it acts as an antidote to the heat left behind by the capsaicins in hot peppers. I haven't tested that theory in the same way the guys at Mythbusters tested their various remedies for hot chili peppers, but it's a sound enough theory and last Sunday we made Bean and Cheese Quesadillas in the Kids Café class with real jalapenos in our salsa, so I thought Horchata (or-CHA-tah) would be a great accompaniment. Because we've only got two hours in class I started it for them before they got there. Not for the impatient among us, Horchata is essentially rice milk flavored and sweetened with cinnamon and sugar, and it's a project (albeit an incredibly simple one) that takes a minimum of several hours as the rice "steeps" in cool water, creating a milky liquid.

Every week I spend a lot of time planning how I will present the ingredients to the children. While I typically pre-measure most of the ingredients for my Tots 'n Pans, this group requires a challenging mix of ingredients they can measure for themselves and ingredients I measure for them. When I get it right things run smoothly and the kids get the most enjoyment out of their lesson. Aesthetically, I think it's important to at least display fruits, vegetables, and legumes in their most whole forms. Knowing what an ingredient looks like before it's sliced or diced helps kids make an important connection to their food. 

This week we had lots of wonderful, fresh ingredients to work with

The kids couldn't believe they'd be making their own tortillas, but they jumped right in, enthusiastically creating small balls of dough that they would later shape and cook. Of course, rolling tortillas is always a challenge, and what we ended up with in this class more closely resembled East Indian Naan, but the process was authentic—mixing, resting, and rolling the dough by hand—and the flavor was wonderful.

If you look closely you can see paper towels on each child's cutting board—that's the dough resting.

 

And there's Rachel, mixing her salsa. A few squished beans, some cheese, and a little time over the fire later and we had some wonderful quesadillas festooned with sour cream and avocado. The horchata was a resounding success, although some of us learned that sometimes more of a good thing—in this case, cinnamon—is  just, well…not so good!

Steak Cake and Baked Potato Ice Cream

"What, who?" you might ask. Well you're not alone because that's pretty much what the kids said too. "Are we making a cake out of meat?! WHAT?! HELP!"

 

No meat cakes here, but cake that was to look like meat. And ice cream made to look like baked potatoes. Why? Because I'm a little nutty like that. And because I let them talk me out of my original plan to make a full meal and sit down to eat it together. Last week when I asked what they wanted to make for the last class of the session they all yelled out, in unison, as if they'd practiced it a thousand and one times, "CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!" So cake it was, but their penance for not going along with the grand plan was that it had to resemble a meal. Steak cake and baked potato ice cream seemed like a logical choice. In actual fact, although I am a strong proponent of local, organic, sustainable, nutritious foods I'm also a big fan of letting loose a little bit and just having fun sometimes. Kids like cake. There's no reason for them not to enjoy some good, homemade cake every now and then. Will seemed to think it was a fine idea.

To save time I shaped the ice cream the day before and put it in the deep freeze so it wouldn't turn to goo when it was time to roll it in cocoa and powdered sugar. I also made a simple marshmallow fondant in advance because it has to sit overnight before it's rolled out. So when we gathered around the table in the kitchen this week the first order of business was to make cake batter. Once the cakes were in the oven it was time for frosting (you'd think that with fondant the frosting would be unnecessary, but it actually holds the fondant on the cake).

All the cakes looked perfect when they emerged from the hot oven, but they were, not surprisingly, HOT, and we were running short on time, so we cooled them in the refrigerator while we rolled the ice cream in cocoa "dirt."

That whole deep freeze plan worked for the most part, but some of us have smokin' hot chocolate hands!

A couple of the kids had extra energy, so I gave them the job of whipping the cream to put on their potatoes in lieu of sour cream. Guess what?! Whipping cream is hard!

The part where we had to roll the fondant to look like a cooked T-bone steak is where things got a little interesting. Cases in point:

I know, I know, but really, people, it's the journey that counts. And we had a fabulous trip!

See you next session!!

 

 

 

Kids Café Spices it up South of the Border Style

Who would have thought these 12 kids would dive right into tamale making like old pros?  Chicken tamales with roasted poblanos, no less. Well, okay, only two kids actually used the poblanos, but they all used chile powder (in varying amounts) and not one of them flinched when I told them we were wrapping the whole gooey mess in cornhusks. After they wrapped and tied the first one I thought they'd all lose interest and we'd have to move on to the next recipe, but surprisingly, most of them continued filling, wrapping, and tying until they'd completed at least three tamales. When they were all done we gathered them up and put them in the steamer to cook.

While they were cooking we enjoyed making, and drinking, Mexican hot chocolate spiced with cinnamon, vanilla, and a pinch of chile powder. Everyone liked it and a couple of them even said it was the best hot chocolate they'd ever had.

At the end of class we had a little extra time while we waited for the tamales to finish cooking, so we tried our hands at making cornhusk dolls. It was a first for me too, but I think we did a pretty good job!

Zealously Zesty

To honor the St. Patrick's Day festivities without green food coloring or whiskey, I decided we'd make scones in the Kids Café this week. Of course scones originated in Scotland in the 1500s, but they're also a type of soda bread (a traditional Irish quick bread made using baking soda and most often, buttermilk) and quite frankly, I didn't think these kids would go for lamb stew and we didn't have time for corned beef and cabbage, which could have been hit or miss in the approval department too. Scones seemed like the perfect choice.

They were raring to go again this week, stepping up to the table and reading their little recipe books to find out what we were making. Some yelled out that they "loooooooooooooooove scones!" and others had never had one before. I was still smarting from Friday's green tea debacle, so in an effort to redeem myself I treated this class to some real frozen yogurt. (Look! A tuile!)

I let 12 cups of Stonyfield Farms whole milk plain yogurt drain overnight in cheesecloth, added some vanilla and a little sugar and put it in the machine to freeze before the kids started arriving on Sunday morning. At the end of the freeze I tossed in some chocolate chunks for good measure. The kids were stunned. Frozen yogurt at that hour of the day?! Some were so shocked that they started turning their friends in for eating it—I think they thought it was an ingredient for the scones! Lucky for me, this frozen treat was a success.

After that sweet interlude we got back to business, mixing the dough, adding some orange zest, and then kneading in the cranberries and walnuts.

 

Cranberries and walnuts are great together, and the aromatic oils in orange zest really made this a great-tasting scone. Buttermilk keeps it moist. And, of course the vanilla cream cheese butter we made didn't hurt the flavor at all. Just ask Will!

Everyone went home with a smile and a Chinese take-out container filled with warm, zesty goodness.

Note: There is no Kids Café class this weekend, due to the Easter holiday. The session will instead be extended by one week.

Askutasquash

Um. Gesundheit?

I enjoy discovering culinary history, and it's fun to share what I learn with the kids. This week in the Kids Café we learned that the word "squash," comes from the Narragansett word, askutasquash, meaning "eaten raw." Not that we were eating it raw. Nor am I recommending that as a general practice--even the starving pilgrims didn't enjoy squash à la askutasquash. This Sunday the children were fortunate to be welcomed into the kitchen by the aroma of butternut squash roasting in the oven. They also saw this when they stepped up to their stations:

 

And they knew immediately that it was time to get messy.

What you see up there quickly became a table lined with messy hand monsters literally squealing with glee over their dough-caked fingers. They had so much fun making noodles a couple of weeks ago I decided we'd do it again, only this time it was butternut squash ravioli on the menu. Even though it was only their second time making pasta dough their efforts produced a much smoother, softer dough and the resulting rolled pasta was much easier to handle.

We ended up with nice, long sheets of dough and had no trouble at all spacing dollops of butternut squash mixed with ricotta, nutmeg, salt, and pepper at regular intervals to form square or round ravioli.

It was a sprint to the end as we cooked the pasta and then served it up with a tasty light Alfredo sauce. There was no time to eat this week, so everyone went home with a Chinese take-out container—that is, everyone except for my son, Ben, who so thoroughly cleaned his plate that I had an actual concern for the state of the porcelain's glaze when he'd finished. And then, when we got home, he insisted on making another batch, which we all ate for dinner!

 

If You Give a Kid a Pancake…

…you're guaranteed some smiles! What a wonderful group of children in this class. I do believe I'm having at least as much fun as they are! Today's menu was German Oven Pancakes with strawberries, bananas, apples, and blueberries and Chocolate Banana Smoothies made with chocolate soy milk and a dollop of peanut butter. Everyone enthusiastically mixed their own batter and cut their fruit into bite-sized pieces. Peeling the apples gave them the most trouble. Some cried uncle, but many of them persevered. A couple were even surprised to learn that they'd been using the peeler upside down all these years!

They were a bit skeptical about pancakes that cook in the oven, but the first time we opened the oven door to check on them they couldn't believe their eyes. What started out as about a quarter inch of batter in the bottom of their mini pie pans turned into beautiful, golden pancake puffs that were bursting up and over the tops of the pans. When they came out of the oven they collapsed (as they should) into pancake bowls. As soon as they were cool enough to handle we filled them with fruit and yogurt. I think my friend Clemmie inhaled hers because one minute it was sitting on the plate in front of her and the next it had disappeared!

We wrapped the leftovers in aluminum foil swans and got busy with the blender. The smoothies were the perfect end to a wonderful morning in the Highfield kitchen.