Week 1: June 9-13

Tuesday, June 10 - Day 2

We started off the day by decorating our own macaroni noodle name tags that we will keep throughout the week!

Say (macaroni and) cheese!

Here is our birthday girl, Sophie, showing off her adorable banana snowman! This snack is fun and super easy to make at home - you can use banana pieces for the body, pretzel sticks for arms, and dried fruit for eyes/buttons! What other animal snacks could you create with these ingredients?

Today, we had breakfast for lunch with veggie scrambled eggs, fruit salad, and toast! We all got to practice cutting up bananas, grapes, strawberries, and raspberries to go into a delicious and colorful fruit salad.

Fruit was one of the hardest things for us to chop - but only because we had to try really hard not to eat it! :)

Wednesday, June 11 - Day 3

Today we took a trip through time to learn about the history of New Orleans cuisine. Miss Zeynep talked about a lot of our favorite dishes, including red beans and rice (on Mondays of course!), gumbo, po'boys, and beignets. We could hardly wait to find out what New Orleans dish we would be cooking today! 

Drumroll please... we found out we'd be making jambalaya, a traditional New Orleans dish with Spanish and French influences! There are lots of different variations of jambalaya - because we added tomatoes to our recipe, we actually made a creole jambalaya.
 (Common debate of the week: is a tomato a fruit or a vegetable?)

We decided to add turkey sausage to our jambalaya for a healthier twist! 

See those veggies on our cutting boards? We were preparing the "trinity" that forms a staple of many New Orleans dishes: bell peppers, celery, and onion. Yum!

We could hardly wait for Miss Paige and Miss Sam to scoop some jambalaya onto our plates! We loved all of the different colors and textures of the veggies.

We're not done yet! Before camp was over for the day, Miss Jennie showed us how to get our knives and cutting boards squeaky clean. A good chef never forgets to clean up when the day's done! 

Thursday, June 12 - Day 4

To start off the day, Miss Paige and Miss Zeynep talked about the food pyramid and the major food groups it includes: grains, fruits, vegetables, proteins, and dairy. Then, we came up with examples of food items in each food group. We found out that the turkey wraps we were making today contained ingredients from several groups: grains (tortilla), vegetables (spinach), fruits (tomato), and proteins (turkey).

Before we started cooking, we took a trip to the community garden with Miss Zeynep! The garden was full of different plants and herbs - tomatoes, spinach, mint, and rosemary, to name a few. We made sure to stop and check out the basil leaves on our trip before we used this herb to make...

...our very own homemade pesto mayonnaise! Miss Zeynep showed us how to make this pesto using fresh basil, spinach, and garlic. By mixing in a little bit of mayo, we made a delicious creamy spread for our turkey wraps!

Snack break! Today we made "ants on a log" with celery sticks, peanut butter, and raisins for ants! 

(Quick quiz: which food groups did we cover with this snack?)

Next we went outside with Miss Carolyn for some fun physical activities! We know that in addition to eating foods that are good for us, we should also stay active to maintain a healthy lifestyle. This is a picture of us hopping!

Even though we are serious chefs, we can always find time to be a little silly!

Another successful day, chefs!

Friday, June 13 - Day 4

Today was our last day of camp! We kicked it off with some expert onion chopping (no tears allowed!) to add to the marinara sauce for our pasta.

Miss Paige showed us all how to make garlic butter today! With a little softened butter and a few spices, we took our cheesy garlic bread to a whole new level of YUM.

We took a break from the kitchen to play Animal Sounds! Can you guess which animals we are?

Miss Sam gave us a sneak peek of our pasta noodles while they were cooking. We learned that the noodles are different colors because they are made with vegetables like spinach, tomatoes, and beets! 

Next, we all helped to decorate and autograph thank-you signs for our sponsors, Domino Foods, Inc. and the New Orleans Rotary Fund, Inc., and the staff at First Grace who made sure that we would have a great week at camp!

Congratulations to our first weekly class of Kids Culinary Camp graduates! We sent them out into the world with not only some serious cooking skills, but also some rockin' chef hats! Good luck to you all in your future culinary endeavors! :)