Upcoming Cooking Sessions......

This session, in addition to the dinner classes, I am adding a baking class per request. The upcoming class schedule is as follows:

Dinner Classes - Wednesday or Friday from 3:30 - 4:45
Wednesdays, February 11th - March 4th
Fridays, February 13th - March 6th
The cost of the Dinner class is $120.00.

- In our cooking classes, the children will make a complete dinner to feed your family. On the night of their class, they will come home with dinner all made and ready to be popped into the oven. I will have the oven preheat times posted before the classes so you can have the oven all preheated and ready to go when they come home.
- We try making different recipes that enable them to learn about and try a variety of kitchen appliances and gadgets so they feel comfortable using basic kitchen tools.
- Each student will have their own apron and cooking station, complete with their own set of basic kitchen equipment to use during class.
- At the end of every session, they will get a recipe book with all the recipes used in the class.

Dessert Classes - Mondays from 3:30-4:45
Mondays, February 9th - 23rd
The cost of the dessert class is $65.00

Basically the same things apply in the baking class as the dinner classes except the students will come home with desserts instead of dinner.

Please email me at anna@onceuponawhisk.com to register for classes.

Little Meat Loaves and Cheesy Potatoes!

"Meat loaf with lemons?!", the girls asked.

A little trick for chopping onions without crying, cut your onion in half and put it in the freezer for 10 minutes before chopping. Unfortunately for Makena, I forgot to put the onions in the freezer until right before the girls came so she got a little teary..... :)

The oven for today's dinner needs to be preheated to 350 for both dishes. The meat will cook for 45 minutes and the potatoes for 30 minutes, both at the same temp.

The girls had fun today juicing lemons and making homemade lemonade!

Maiya loved cutting the lemons and did a great job doing it!

Sidney loved juicing the lemons!

The lemonade recipe is as follows:
1 cup lemon juice
3/4 cup sugar
2 quarts water
Add more or less sugar to your liking!

Okay girls, you were sent home with lots of fresh lemon juice. Try this yummy recipe for lemon bars this week at home!

Lemon Bars

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2/3 cup powdered sugar

3/4 cup butter, softened

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 tablespoons flour

1/4 cup lemon juice

1/3 cup powdered sugar for decoration

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and grease a 9x13 inch baking pan.

2. Combine the flour, 2/3 cup powdered sugar, and butter and pat dough into prepared pan.

3. Bake for 20 minutes in the preheated oven, until slightly golden.

4. While the crust is baking, whisk together eggs, sugar, flour, and lemon juice until frothy. Pour this lemon mixture over the hot crust.

5. Return to the preheated oven for an additional 20 to 25 minutes, or until light golden brown.

6. Cool on a wire rack. Dust (dust means to sprinkle, using a fine strainer works best or you can can shake over the top with a spoon) the top with powdered sugar. Cut into squares. Yum-O!!

Friday's Class....

Here are some of the girls "tossing" their fresh salads. Putting your chopped up salad and veggies in a big ziploc, is a great (and fun) way to mix or toss the sald before putting in a bowl!

For next week's class, we will be making Little mini meat loaves with potatoes. For those of you who want to come home straight from class and pop it in the oven, the oven needs to be preheated to 350 degrees. See ya' next week!

Chicken Pot Pie, homemade applesauce, salad w/ homemade dressing....

>The girls have learned so much! It's so fun to hear and see them using the skills they learned in the last session! They did a fabulous job making a great, nutritious meal today. Who remembers how many food groups we covered in one meal? Most of which are from one dish!

Sydney's mom, Leslie, had a great idea with the applesauce. She suggested eating it warm, topped with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce after dinner! Yum! Sounds delicious! I'm going to have that for dessert tonight.....

A perfect example of what I hope the girls come away from these classes with - inspiration (among learning some cooking basics!) I hope cooking these dishes inspires you girls to think of different combination's, try substituting things, changing things and creating your own recipes! That's one of the things I love most about cooking.

What else can you do with homemade applesauce? What else could you put in your chicken pot pie? What other meal could you make using the idea of the pot pie?

And, will someone please remind me to take pictures?! Each week I leave it out so I can capture your cute faces as you eyeball your measuring cup or have your tongue hanging out the side of your mouth while you carefully pour something in and, I FORGET!! Too many things going on I guess......so please help me remember!!

Hope you enjoyed your dinner, you did such a great job with everything!

The January dinner menu

For the dinner classes starting in January, we will be making the following meals and adding them to out recipe books!

Chicken Pot Pie

Little Meat Loaves

Southwestern Spaghetti Bake

Crazy Crust Pizza

There has been a little bit of confusion on the dates of the January classes so let me clarify.
There will be two classes, a Wednesday class - same time as the current one, from 3:30-4:45 and a Friday class which will be at the same time 3:30-4:45. (Basically, the Monday class has been moved to Friday to accommodate schedules.)

I will send out an email to the people I have currently enrolled in the class to verify your day/time.

We've been having so much fun in our baking class, I can't wait to start the dinner session!!!

One too many pots....

Today was candy making day! On the agenda? Christmas Lollipops and Easy-Peasy Toffee.

The girls learned a great lesson today about cooking in the kitchen. Too many unwatched pots on the stove leads to burnt sugar which in turn leads to yucky tasting lollipops! I had each of the girls try one anyway so they knew what it tasted like. They learned just how important it is to watch closely what you're doing, especially when making candy! Not what I intended for them to learn today, but a good lesson to learn, nontheless! Here's what they were supposed to look like! I don't have a picture for the toffee, but the girls' looked de-lish!

Next week we'll be making cookie bars! I also promised the girls we would do our lollipops again while our bars are in the oven.

Next week is our last baking class and I will have recipe books for the girls to take home. If they are taking the dinner class in January, they can continue to add to it with those recipes. I will have the menu for the January session posted here in the next couple of days. This way, you know in advance what the girls will be bring home for din-din! They are so excited for that session, as am I.

Cream Puffs!

Today we made homemade cream puffs and learned to make a yummy whipped cream filling!
These girls took on a big project a did a fantastic job! We had a lot of fun especially with the whipped cream..... :)

To try at home - This week, girls, try making just the homemade whipped cream at home. Use it to top any dessert (cakes, brownies, pies), put a big scoop on top of your hot cocoa, top your ice cream with it, put a spoonful on your pancakes or waffles, put it on jello, or my personal favorite...fresh strawberries, yum!

Here's a the basic whipped cream recipe (without the cream cheese mixture we added):

1 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon powdered sugar (regular sugar will work too if you don't have powdered on hand)

Mix it will an electric mixer (or by hand but it takes longer) just unitl soft peaks form.

Remember these tips from class?
- The cream should be really cold.
- If you put your beaters and/or mixing bowl in the freezer for a few minutes before you mix it or use a metal bowl, it will also help keep it cold.
- Don't over mix or it will become lumpy and more of a butter consitency.

The girls learned to use an electric hand mixer and by the third time we used it in the recipe, they had become quite efficient!

stay tuned, next week we'll be making more homemade goodies......