The Recipe Club at Camp FRESH
July 29, 2015
The Food Bank of Delaware’s SNAP-education team has been busy this summer educating children and teens up and down the state about the importance of good nutrition.
Earlier this month, Leah, our Community Nutritionist, and Lindsey, our Summer Nutrition Educator, hosted a series of recipe club meetings for teenagers participating in Camp FRESH at Christiana Care’s Eugene du Pont Preventive Medicine & Rehabilitation Institute in Wilmington.
Camp FRESH is designed to empower Wilmington youth to become agents of change within their communities, and is focused on improving health and quality of life by expanding access to quality foods. By becoming ambassadors for good nutrition and healthy lifestyles, the Camp FRESH teens hope to give their families and neighbors the tools to build a healthier lifestyle! Leah and Lindsey visited two groups of campers for a total of four days.
The campers learned the basics of following a recipe. The premise of the recipe club is simple – if you can follow directions, you can cook! Thanks to the recipe club, campers learned how to alter recipes to make them healthier and how different cooking methods change the healthiness of a recipe.
On Leah and Lindsey’s second visit to Camp FRESH, they focused on preparing a healthy pasta dish called “Green Pasta.” (Don’t worry, it’s not some scary food straight out of a sci-fi movie!) The teens were split into groups and all had a specific task. One group was responsible for mincing garlic and shallots.
Once the mincing was finished, another group worked on sauteing the ingredients with olive oil. While the sauteing was taking place, another group chopped spinach and basil with a food processor. Once everything was chopped, campers added milk, spinach and basil to the saute pan with oil and garlic. They waited for the sauce to come to a boil and then reduced the heat to a simmer. Campers stirred occasionally until the sauce thickened.
The room was filled with the aroma of olive oil and garlic, and a few Christiana Care employees followed the smell from their offices!
Leah and Lindsey had already boiled spaghetti noodles ahead of time, so the teen cooks just had to add pasta and mozzarella cheese! Viola!
The green pasta received rave reviews from the campers. They were all impressed with how easy the recipe was to prepare!
Leah says the trial run of the recipe club for teenagers was a success and she looks forward to hosting more clubs! By the end of the four sessions, participants will:
- Analyze a recipe for completeness
- Identify and describe the five key parts of a recipe
- Practice following a recipe properly
- Know the four steps to being food safe
- Demonstrate one or more of the four steps to being food safe
- Practice measure equivalents
- Know the different types of healthy cooking methods
- Know how to pair what seasonings with what foods
- Review basic recipe substitutions
- Practice rehabbing a recipe
To learn more about nutrition education at the Food Bank of Delaware, please visit http://www.fbd.org/program/snap-education/. Check out some more photos from the Recipe Club!
