Sparks Cooking
Although I am borrowing this kitchen for this class, while I am teaching here it is “my” kitchen, and these are my rules. Different people have different kitchen rules, so be respectful when you are working at home with your parents or in a friend’s kitchen! Don’t tell them they are doing something “wrong” just because they are doing it differently than I do! Your mom or dad might have different rules than I do, so be sure to ask!
What a silly expression! It simply means that we are respectful of the fact that we are all different, and like different things. Don’t make someone feel bad or insecure because you don’t like what they like. It’s okay to not like things, but don’t be mean about it!
Hands should ALWAYS be CLEAN and ready to work when you come to the kitchen! They should NEVER be touching the supplies or tools without instruction! Do not play with the items on the table, and wait to be told what to do and how to do it. Some of our tools are not safe if handled carelessly!
Some kitchens have the rule that you have to taste everything that is prepared for you. I do not have that rule. BUT! You must participate in preparing all our recipes together, and I ask that you at least SMELL everything we make!
Our sense of smell is closely linked to our sense of taste. Have you ever noticed that some foods taste different when you are sick with a stuffy nose? Perhaps you prefer more bland foods when you’re sick, like toast or eggs. This is because these two senses are linked together. FLAVOR is a combination of what we SMELL and the TASTE of the food! So even if you don’t think you will like a food that we prepare together, go ahead and give it a sniff. If it smells good, chances are it will taste good!
-
Make sure you have all of your ingredients, and enough of each, before you start any recipe. This is called “mise en place” (meeze on plass) and serves two purposes. One, it helps you avoid any mid-cooking emergency trips to the store! And two, it helps you remember to add all the ingredients without forgetting any.
-
Clean up as you go along. This makes final cleanup easy! If you spill something, wipe it up. As you finish with each step, clean up your work area so you are ready for the next step.
-
If you drop something, DON’T TRY TO CATCH IT! It’s just a good habit to get into, stepping away from your work area until what you have dropped has landed. If it is food, wait until you have finished your current task and then pick it up and throw it away. If it is a utensil, pick it up and wash it immediately!
-
Do not measure seasonings and spices directly into what you are cooking. Measure them out over a bowl or into your hand. Sometimes they can clump up in the bottom of a bottle or jar, and dump out all at once, and then your recipe is ruined!
-
Learn what different measurements look like in your hand. Measure out a tablespoon of salt with a measuring spoon, and pour it into your open hand. Notice how much of your hand it fills. Do the same with a teaspoon. Try it with a quarter cup if your hands are big enough. If you are familiar with how much these measurements look like, you will be able to cook without measuring tools! (Baking is very different – you need to measure or weigh ingredients to get good results with baking!)
-
Use a large mixing or salad bowl as a “garbage bowl” at your workspace. This keeps you from making multiple trips to the garbage can, which interrupts the flow of work.
-
We are using special knives in this class, designed to cut through vegetables but not your fingers. But we will be learning proper knife safety, so that you develop good habits for wen you work with steel knives.
-
ALWAYS ASK PERMISSION! Knives are a great tool, but can be dangerous. Always make sure an adult knows you are using a knife (even your special safety knife)!
-
Keep your knives clean! A clean knife cuts more cleanly, making accidents less likely.
-
Always use a cutting board. Do not cut anything in your hand. Always make sure you use a cutting board.
-
Keep your knives with the cutting board! Do not wander around the kitchen with your knife! If you are cutting, you are using a cutting board. If you are NOT cutting, you should not be holding the knife!
-
Do not rush! Cut slowly, pay attention to what you are doing, and avoid distraction.
-
Carry knives point down. Just like scissors, knives should be carried by the handle with the sharp point towards the floor.
-
If you drop it, DON’T TRY TO CATCH IT! This is a hard instinct to fight, but resist the urge to try and catch a falling knife! I have learned the habit of putting my hands up and stepping back if a knife drops or falls, saving my fingers AND my toes!
-
A KNIFE IS NOT A TOY! If you are caught playing with the knife, or fooling around and using it inappropriately, it will be taken away from you.
-
No talking while chopping! You should be focusing on what your hands are doing, not chatting while cutting. Please pay attention to what you are doing, not the conversation around you!
Do not grip the handle of the knife in your fist. Do not hold loosely with one finger along the top of the blad. Pinch the blade between your thumb and your first knuckle, and hold the handle in your hand.
Hold the vegetable firmly with your hand, curling the fingers under so they do not get cut by the blade. If you are having trouble with “wobbly” vegetables, ask an adult to trim one side flat so it lies evenly on the cutting board.
This is not so much a “recipe” as it is a cooking technique. You can adapt this to whatever veggies you have on hand, adding things like beans or browned sausage or mini pasta, changing the spices to taste. Once you know how to cut and prepare vegetables for soup, the varieties are limited only by your imagination!
- A large stock pot
- Large spoon or spatula
- An assortment of vegetables
- Vegetable Stock (chicken or beef will work too)
- Salt, Pepper
- Olive Oil
Observing Knife Rules, cut up the vegetables into bite-sized pieces.
**Why do we cut up the vegetables? **We could just toss them into the pot whole, but cutting them up does a couple of things.
Fruits and vegetables contain natural sugars. Those sugars cook when we cook the vegetables, which is why they taste different cooked than when they’re raw. Sure, we could dump the whole entire vegetable into the pot and then break it up once it’s cooked, but it won’t taste as good.
Vegetables also contain a lot of water. If we were to cook them in the soup whole, the water would turn to steam inside the veggie, making it mushy. The sugars would just get wet and soggy, instead of caramelizing and getting yummy.
What happens when we cut a vegetable into smaller pieces? For one thing, we increase its “surface area.” This is the amount of surface that is exposed to the air, or to the heat when we cook it. This means that more of the sugar is getting cooked, and sugar is yummy! When we cook more of the sugar, and let out more of the water, the vegetables don’t get mushy and they taste even better!
Another thing that happens is we decrease the cooking time. Smaller pieces cook faster than larger pieces. If we are very careful and make sure all the pieces are about the same size, then they will all be cooked at the same time, instead of some being overcooked and mushy while some are still raw.
When all the vegetables are cut and ready, sort them into “hard” and “soft” piles.
Hard vegetables, like carrots, potatoes, and celery, cook more slowly than softer veggies, like tomatoes, zucchini, and squash. Vegetables like onions and garlic taste better when they cook longer, so we’ll start them with the harder vegetables.
Add about 1-2 Tablespoons of oil to the pot.
I say “about” because I rarely measure when I’m cooking. I slowly pour the oil while moving the bottle one or two times around the pot in a circle motion.
Turn on the stove, and place the pot on the burner.
**THIS IS A STEP FOR AN ADULT! ** Always make sure you tell an adult before turning on the stove, and you will need adult supervision while using it!
Add the onions, garlic, carrots, celery, and other hard veggies to the pot.
As mentioned earlier, harder veggies take longer to cook, and onions and garlic taste better when they cook longer. We start with these vegetables so that all the vegetables in the soup end up cooked at the same time. When the hard veggies are brown and tender, add the rest of the vegetables.
How do you know when the carrots are done? Gently press down on them with your cooking utensil. If they break apart easily, or have a bit of “give” to them, they are done. They don’t have to be cooked completely, they will continue to cook while the soup finishes.
When all the veggies are tender and cooked, add the Vegetable Stock.
You can use any type of broth or stock for the soup, we are using Vegetable Stock to keep this recipe vegetarian. Pour in an entire carton of the stock/broth, give the soup a stir to keep the vegetables from sticking to the pot, and wait for it to boil.
Now is a good time to check your seasonings!
We are just using salt and pepper for this soup, to keep it simple, but any number of herbs and spices would work! Give your soup a taste before it gets too hot, and add salt and pepper until it tastes good. Add just a little at a time; you can always add more, but you can’t take it out!
When the soup is heated all the way through, it is ready to serve!
Keep an eye on the soup, stirring it every few minutes. Once it starts to boil, you can turn off the heat and let it rest.
This is the fun part of cooking – making the recipe your own! Have you ever had vegetable soup at an Italian restaurant? It’s called “minestrone,” and it often contains white beans, or small pasta noodles, or both. It also often has a LOT of tomatoes – you can add a can of diced tomatoes directly to the soup without draining them. Add oregano to give it an Italian taste. You can also add in ground turkey, beef, or sausage to make it a heartier soup, or small pieces of cooked chicken. Serve it with some grated parmesan cheese if you want. Change up the vegetables for variety. If you want a thicker, creamier soup, ask an adult to help you ladle some of it (about one quarter to one third) into a food processor or blender, and pulse it until smooth, then add back into the soup and stir it up. The blended vegetables will act like a thickener and make the soup creamy without any added milk or flour.
There are a couple of things “wrong” with the marshmallows you can buy at the store. First, they are full of corn syrup and refined sugar, which are high on the list of “NO!” most parents have when it comes to treats for the kids. Second, they only come in marshmallow flavor!
The following recipe is a “healthy” version of Marshmallows. It uses honey instead of sugar and corn syrup, and creates a light and fluffy concoction you can customize to your own taste. Use caution when cooking with open doors and windows, as this recipe has been known to attract the local bees!
1 cup filtered water (split into half cups) 3 tablespoons gelatin 1 cup honey 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/4 teaspoon sea salt Natural food dye, optional Add-ins and extracts, optional (eg: caramel, chocolate, coffee extract, peppermint, etc.)
Pan, 8×8 or larger Parchment Paper Stand Mixer with Mixing Bowl Candy Thermometer
We are using small paper pans for our marshmallows so we can experiment with flavor in smaller batches. Spray some nonstick spray into each paper tray, and line with parchment paper. Leave enough parchment paper overhanging to use later as handles to pull the marshmallows out. Use a strainer to dust in a light coating of powdered sugar or cocoa powder to keep the marshmallows from sticking.
In your mixer bowl, add the gelatin with 1/2 cup of COLD water.
While the gelatin is softening, pour the other 1/2 cup of water in a sauce pan along with the honey, vanilla and the salt. Turn the burner to a medium high heat, bringing the mixture to a boil. Place a candy thermometer in the sauce pan and continue to boil the mixture until it reaches 240 degrees (the soft ball stage). This will take approx. 7-8 min. Immediately remove from the sauce pan from the heat.
Turn your mixer to low. Slowly pour the honey mixture into the bowl, aiming for the side of the bowl and combining it with the softened gelatin. Turn the mixer to high and continue beating the mixtures until it becomes thick like marshmallow creme (about 15 min).
Turn off the mixer and transfer the marshmallow creme to the prepared pans. Remember, if using a coating, add it to the bottom of the pan first before transferring the marshmallow creme. Now is a good time to add in your chosen extracts, chocolate chips or sprinkles, anything you are using to customize your marshmallows. Then smooth the top (add more powdered sugar or cocoa powder if using). Pat to smooth again.
Marshmallows need to set AT LEAST 4 hours, preferably overnight.
Turn out the marshmallows onto a dusted cutting board. Use a pizza cutter to cut into squares. Coat all sides with powdered sugar or cocoa powder – these are sticky candies, and the powder coating will keep them from sticking to each other.
Gourmet hot chocolate, anyone? You can find easy recipes online for making your own cocoa mix, and adding your home made gourmet marshmallows would be a great touch. Or you can make gourmet s’mores, with some specialty chocolate and your original marshmallows on some crackers. If you want to use the marshmallows over ice cream, you can do that while they’re still soft and pourable, right after making them. Use just like marshmallow fluff from the jar. Gourmet S’mores and Gourmet Hot Chocolate Mix make excellent gifts! Package s’mores with some roasting sticks from the Dollar Spot at Target, a small package of graham crackers and high-quality chocolate, and a little can of sterno for at-home campfire goodness.
Gelatin is made from the protein Collagen, which is to say that its molecules are made of long chains of amino acids. These are arranged in three mutually twisted chains - a sort of triple helix. Adding various chemicals will separate the collagen triple helix into individual long chains, which dissolve more easily in water and form what’s known as gelatin. When dissolved in liquid, the long chains of amino acids form a tangled network reminiscent of a big plate of spaghetti, with water molecules stuck to the spaghetti in layers. The huge surface area of all the strands means they can hold a lot of water, and because the strands are so tangled, you can pick it all up as a lump.
Pizza can be made on just about any bread-like, doughy surface. English muffins, pita, tortillas, bagels, toast... But you have to have a good sauce, slightly sweet and somewhat tangy, to hold it all together and stand up to the other toppings. This is a sauce that does not require any cooking, so it is ideal for kids to make on their own.
Tomato Paste: 1 can Water: 3 oz Hungarian Paprika: 3/4 tsp Cumin: 1/4 tsp Fresh Oregano: 3/8 tsp Fresh Basil: 3/4 tsp Garlic Powder: 1/8 tsp Salt: 1/8 tsp
Mix it all up and let it sit in the fridge for a few hours, or while you prepare the other toppings. This sauce tastes better the next day, and larger batches would be perfect for canning for future use or gifting.
What is Yeast, why does it do what it does? Yeast are single-celled fungi. As fungi, they are related to the other fungi that people are more familiar with, including: edible mushrooms available at the supermarket, common baker’s yeast used to leaven bread, molds that ripen blue cheese, and the molds that produce antibiotics for medical and veterinary use.
Yeast cells digest food to obtain energy for growth. Their favorite food is sugar in its various forms: sucrose (beet or cane sugar), fructose and glucose (found in honey, molasses, maple syrup and fruit), and maltose (derived from starch in flour).
The process, alcoholic fermentation, produces useful end products, carbon dioxide (gas) and ethyl alcohol. These end products are released by the yeast cells into the surrounding liquid in the dough. In bread baking, when yeast ferments the sugars available from the flour and/or from added sugar, the carbon dioxide gas cannot escape because the dough is elastic and stretchable. As a result of this expanding gas, the dough inflates, or rises. Thus, the term “yeast-leavened breads” was added to the vocabulary of the world of baking.
Video Explanation: https://youtu.be/FqxkMqsEQI0
Orange Marmalade http://www.yummly.com/recipe/external/Honeyed-Orange-Marmalade-1073932
Pectin is a carbohydrate found mostly in the skin and core of raw fruit. In nature, it functions as the structural "cement" that helps hold cell walls together. In solution, pectin has the ability to form a mesh that traps liquid, sets as it cools, and, in the case of jam, cradles suspended pieces of fruit.
Pectin needs partners, namely acid and sugar, to do the job of gelling properly. Acid helps extract pectin from fruit during gentle simmering and helps the gelling process, which will not take place unless the mixture is fairly acidic. If fruits (such as apricots) aren't sufficiently tart, a recipe will call for added lemon juice. Sugar enhances the strength of the gel by attracting some of the water away from the pectin. In the absence of sufficient water, pectin molecules are more likely to unite with each other. Sugar also acts as a preservative, firms the structure of the fruit, and helps the jam or jelly hold its color and flavor.
If for some reason the marmalade does not gel, use it as a syrup over ice cream, pancakes, or waffles! I recommend Pomona's Pectin if you want to adjust the amount of sugar in the recipe, or use honey instead, as it will gel no matter the sugar content.
Use a clean jar. Any size will work, from baby food to spaghetti sauce, but a smallish jelly jar will work best. Fill the jar halfway with heavy whipping cream. You can add a pinch of salt if you want, to bring out the flavor. Secure the lid tightly, and SHAKE SHAKE SHAKE! It will quickly start to come together, and if you take breaks between shaking you will see that the solids and the liquids are separating.
When it’s done, the solids will be butter and the liquid will be buttermilk. You can save the buttermilk for baking, just drain it out into another container. And the butter is ready to eat!
(Note: If you add sugar instead of salt, and don't shake it as long, you will get whipped cream.)
You can make a fruit pizza with leftover pizza dough! Use the marmalade as the "sauce" and bake, then add fresh fruit and white chocolate chips as desired! You can make whipped cream instead of butter to top it.
Homemade food items make great gifts, and many of the foods we’ve made this week would work great for holiday or teacher gifts.
Gourmet S’mores: make coffee s’mores and package with Ritz crackers and some gourmet white chocolate, roasting sticks, and a can of sterno.
Other flavor combinations would be peppermint marshmallows and white chocolate, caramel marshmallows and milk chocolate, raspberry marshmallows and dark chocolate… The list goes on. Switch up the crackers for a surprising treat, or chocolate-dip graham crackers to make them even easier to assemble.
You can find recipes online for homemade cocoa recipes. You can also pipe the marshmallows into lines instead of spreading them in a pan, and when they’re dry cut them into mini marshmallows with a pizza cutter, making sure to coat them on all sides with powdered sugar and/or cocoa powder. A mason jar filled with homemade cocoa mix and homemade peppermint mini marshmallows would make a lovely holiday gift.
Pizza sauce can be canned using the water bath method. A small pint-sized jar of sauce gifted with a pizza stone and a pizza cutter would make a nice gift. You can often find hard logs of uncut pepperoni that don’t require refrigeration at grocery or specialty stores, which would be nice to add to the basket along with a small jar of olives, and maybe a head of fresh garlic for ambiance.
Orange Marmalade, as with any jellies or jams, can be canned in a water bath canner, which is easy and inexpensive to set up. And the butter can easily be made in a blender, mixer, or food processor (we used small jars to get the kinetic experience in class). A tiny little quarter-pint jar of marmalade and an accompanying jar of homemade butter would be adorable in a little basket with a small baguette and maybe a coffee gift card. The butter won’t be shelf stable and should be consumed immediately or stored in the refrigerator, but the marmalade, if canned, will keep indefinitely, and is perfect for gift baskets. Otherwise, you can include a small ice pack (or frozen sponge in a baggie) to keep the marmalade and butter fresh until the recipient can get to a refrigerator.