Reflection from cooking with ccyc - 9/25/21

Menu

With the boys:
Breakfast burritos
Tortizzas (tortillas with mozzarella, tomato, cucumber, avocado, feta, and a yogurt honey sauce)
Instant Pot applesauce with Jan’s homemade zucchini bread
Honeymooner (lemonade with tulsi tea and honey)

With the girls:
Bulgogi eggplant
Spicy miso eggplant
Tortizzas
Instant Pot applesauce with Jan’s homemade zucchini bread
Honeymooner

It was a great day! We were finally back with the boys, AND P. and A. were both still in the shelter. We’ve been trying to showcase ingredients two ways, so that the youth can develop an appreciation for food in different contexts. For the boys, we focused on tortillas, and prepared breakfast burritos and tortizzas, a recipe that Jan found. When she showed it to me before class, I wasn’t quite sure if it would be something that would go over well. I couldn’t have been more wrong! They were delicious. The boys devoured them. It inspired us to think of other tortizza flavor combinations that we could concoct for the cookbook. That is what is so great about Cultivating Change. We can test and troubleshoot recipes, and be pleasantly surprised by what is a big hit. The opposite is also true, and equally helpful. Sometimes I’ll think that a recipe will be a sure winner and it ends up being a complete dud. Well, there were no duds in this week’s class. The applesauce was also a snap and very tasty. I harvested some apples from the orchard on Friday and dug out my old fashioned manual apple peeler, corer, slicer. I’ve always thought that it was an amazing machine, and I was pleased to see that both the girls and boys enjoyed its magical simplicity. Especially the part at the end when you can pull the peeled and cored apple off of the spike and it twirls open in one beautiful, long spiral. We cooked the applesauce in an Instant Pot, which I’d never used before, so it was a learning process for all of us. I’m so glad that Jan thought of bringing it, because it allowed us to set it and forget it, which is definitely an advantage when you have such a short time to prep, cook, eat, and clean up. I was a little worried at the start of class about being able to complete everything on time, since this was our first week back with both groups (it makes me wonder how we ever used to cook with three classes!). When it was time to eat, I happened to set all of the plates of burritos at an empty table, and I was pleased to see that the four boys sat together, right where the plates had been set. Normally, the boys tend to spread out and sit alone, so we’ve never had that family dinner table feel that we get with the girls. I will make a mental note to continue to set a table with the food, so that boys get in the habit of sharing their meal.
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With the girls, we focused on eggplant as the theme ingredient. Eggplant is tough, because I feel like people either love it or hate it. We went with Asian flavors and had a spicy version and a sweeter version to prepare. A. was in charge of both dishes, and she totally nailed them. It is not easy to cook eggplant well, but she is really learning to read the ingredients to see how they should be cooked. I couldn't eat enough of the spicy miso eggplant. The girls enjoyed the tortizzas and applesauce as much as the boys. And it goes without saying that the zucchini bread disappeared as soon as it hit the table. P. does not like tomatoes, to the point that she wouldn’t even cut them for the tortizza recipe. But she said that she would taste the tortizza for me, and as soon as she took a bite, her eyes lit up. For her comment, she wrote, “I never liked any of this, but I like it now :)” She confided to us that before CCYC, she didn’t like avocados, which floored all of us, since per her request, we bring them every week to include in the meal. It’s inspiring to see their willingness to open up, be vulnerable, and try new things.