Fundraising Dinner for the Rainier Valley Food Bank Connecting our personal histories with the community through food Tuesday, March 31st 6:30-8:30 Lakewood Seward Park Community Center 4916 S. Angeline Street $10 pre-pay/$12 at the door Under 3 years: free/Under 12 years: $5 Seating is limited to 60 people! Buy your tickets now! Comfort Food Menu Adobo Chicken Cornbread/Mashed Potato Muffins Pasta with Roasted Vegetables Texas Caviar Tangy Orca Slaw Pineapple/Berry Upside-Down Cake Please join us!
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I'm asking Cooking Club members to come up with a formal recipe as part of the class requirement. I'm using elements of these recipes to come up with the final menu for our event (fast approaching!). The first draft of these recipes are due this Friday (3/13) and the final draft is due Friday (3/20). Most of you are well on your way to completing this task but some of the recipes need work and all of you will need to work on the personal connection statement part (see below). Elements of a Recipe
Here is an example of a recipe that includes all of these elements: Homemade Cheez-its Snack foods are ubiquitous in the American diet. Although convenient, they often provide little nutritional value. The ease of these foods contribute to the practice of "eating-on-the-go" without thought or connection to the process of cooking. Many of us grew-up eating Cheez-Its somehow thinking we were eating something full of cheese and good nutrients! This is my homemade version of this snack which contains more real cheese, has a lower sodium content and just tastes fresher! It is basically a pie-crust recipe with cheese added. The spices I added give these crackers extra flavor but also color the dough to make them look more like the store-bought version. I don't know if cooking from scratch always adds nutritional value, but it does add intention and my hope is that leads to a better eating experience and greater satisfaction. Yield: about 100 crackers (depending on size) 1 1/2 cups cheddar, grated (about 6 oz.) 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) cold butter, grated 3/4 cup flour 1/4 teaspoon salt 1/4 teaspoon paprika 1/4 teaspoon chili powder 1-2 tablespoons cold water sea salt, for sprinkling In medium sized bowl, mix cheese, butter, flour, salt and spices (if desired) together with a spoon. Then slowly add cold water until dough forms a ball (It may be necessary to knead the mixture together by hand). Divide the dough in half and roll out to about 1/8 inch thick, trying to keep the dough roughly in a square shape. Using a pastry wheel or knife, cut the dough into small squares. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet and poke each cracker with a fork or skewer (to avoid the crackers puffing up too much). Sprinkle with sea salt. Bake at 350ºF for 8-12 minutes (depending on the size of crackers), until lightly browned on the edges. Cool on the baking sheet, and store in an airtight container. We still have a ways to go on planning the menu. I'm hoping that the recipes start flowing as well as ideas for promoting our dinner. Looks like Adobe Chicken will be on the menu! Thanks Dominic! Don't forget to post recipes in the comments section. There has been mention of other chicken dishes, too. We also need side dishes - salads, vegetable, pasta, rice, etc., maybe another dessert. I will be asking you to do a short project on whatever recipe you choose, so consider that as well. Good luck with planning next week and I will see you on 2/27. Great chopping today! The calzones were amazing. Looks like our event is well timed. Check out this campaign by the food bank: "Rainier Valley Food Bank (RVFB) now serves more than twice the number of families they fed in 2009, and saw a staggering 32% increase in demand in 2014 alone."
So now we just have to make it happen! Within the next 7 weeks we need to:
When coming up with our menu, we need to consider:
My favorite part of cooking, is being in a kitchen chopping, stirring, tasting together while chatting in a relaxed way with my fellow cooks. This week in Orca Cooking Club, I learned, among other things, the correct way to break up with someone and how sticky rice paper can be. I'm hoping that we can build community and trust at Cooking Club in this way. These bonds and ability to work together make it easier to pull off an event like the one we have planned as a culminating event for our club. I went ahead and reserved the Lakewood Community Center for Tuesday, March 31, 2:00-9:00pm! Between now and then we have to practice cooking together, come up with a menu, do some research about the historical/political context of our recipes and promote the event. On the day of the dinner we will need to gather ingredients and utensils, cook, serve our audience and clean-up. Lots of opportunity for chatting! Question of the week: Have you ever felt yourself, read about or observed (other people or in a film, video, etc.) the shared feeling of community that can come from cooking together (give examples!)? Vietnamese Vegetable Summer Rolls with Peanut Sauce 8 rolls Peanut Sauce:
Whisk together all the ingredients for the peanut sauce until smooth in a small bowl and set aside. Heat a medium saucepan full of water until almost boiling, then turn off the heat, add rice noodles, and let them sit for 5-10 minutes. Drain the noodles, put them in a bowl, and toss with sesame oil and dash of red pepper flakes. Cut cucumber, carrot, red pepper and radish into thin strips. In a large bowl, whisk together the rice vinegar, sugar, fish sauce, and lime juice. Add the vegetables and toss to coat. Fill a round cake pan halfway with warm-hot water. For each wrapper, immerse it in the hot water bath until it softens, which takes about 30 seconds. Use both hands to pull it up out of the water, being careful so it doesn't collapse on itself, and spread it immediately on a plate. Fill the center of the softened wrapper with about 4 cilantro sprigs down the center. Then fill with about ¼ cup of noodles and then about ¼ cup of the vegetable mixture. Add another couple sprigs of cilantro. Fold the top and bottom edges of the wrapper over the filling, then fold in the edges towards the center and continue rolling the filled wrapper until it's closed and snug. To serve, slice in half with a sharp knife and serve the peanut sauce on the side., Orca Cooking Club!!!! Did you guys hear Zaiah talking about Puligi? It is a Samoan steamed pudding served with a custard sauce and in her family they steam the pudding in a pillowcase. So cool. Zaiah was skeptical about researching the historical/political roots of recipes but did you know that most likely this dish came about due to the influence of New Zealand’s occupation of Samoa from 1914–1962? Still boring? OK, so COLONIALISM (which also brought debilitating inflation, a catastrophic flu epidemic in 1918, etc., etc.) is part of the back-story of this sweet, moist coconut pudding with spices. But what do I know? Zaiah and her family are the ones with the personal connections to Samoan recipes, history and stories. Question of the Week: I started off our club with the question: Why do we eat what we eat? What is YOUR question related to food/food history/food politics? (Or you can reflect on mine.) Comment below. Thank you to Katherine and Iman for setting up this site! You both are very awesome! Oh, and here is a link to one Samoan family's story about puligi:
http://1samoana.com/blog/samoan-puligi-steamed-pudding/ |