15 Jun Cooking Crew
On Monday, I took a trip down to Comegys to help out the kids with Cooking Crew Academy after school for the first time. I am a huge foodie and love cooking, so I was excited to see what all the hype was about! Cooking Crew is a food education activity where students create a meal to serve to their peers. Not only do they get to fight over which ingredients to use in their dishes, they also have the opportunity to get their creative juices flowing by brainstorming dishes to serve only using around 5-8 ingredients!
Everyone is called “Chef” and their name combined. This made me feel like a real chef and I couldn’t wait to get started!
The chefs are split up into two teams and each team gets to choose their ingredients in order back and forth. I loved seeing the sparkle in the kids eyes when they try to think of tasty food combinations to use in their recipes. My team chose cabbage, onions, rainbow carrots, yogurt, limes, and apples. We wrote our choices on pink post-it notes and collectively brainstormed 2 dishes to work on. 6 ingredients. Endless possibilities.
My team decided to make savory cooked cabbage with onions + seasoning and a sweet slaw with the rest of the ingredients. We assigned responsibilities and got straight to work. Everyone was helping out in some way and we had a lot of fruits/vegetables to cut. I decided to shred the cabbage because I have never worked with cabbage before while cooking and I wanted to learn something new in order to improve! Boy am I glad I did… It was much easier than I thought it was going to be! If you ever need someone to shred your cabbage, I’m your gal!
The mentors helped the chefs with technique and they really seemed to enjoy it! Jarrett was on carrot duty and did a wonderful job teaching the chefs how to cut carrots in different ways. Slice, dice, grate, peel, you name it!
After I chopped up all the cabbage, the next move was to experiment with our food to create healthy deliciousness! I opted for helping with the cooked cabbage with onions. We decided to put an Asian twist on it and I worked with two brilliant young chefs on the seasoning. One chef loves vinegar and spices just like me, so we added a lot of rice vinegar, soy sauce, sriracha, and salt and pepper. I was initially worried it was going to come out too spicy and sour, but I trusted the chefs in my group so I went with it.
It turned out so well! Tasty, flavorful, and the kids loved it. I was thoroughly impressed with our efforts. I heard one of the chefs say “It’s so good, it makes me want to make it at home in my own kitchen!” I couldn’t agree more.
Now, the time had come. Serving time for the after school kids! My favorite part of the day was seeing all of the kids’ reactions to our food. They loved it so much! Even the student chefs were encouraging their friends to “just try it!” They are ready to work for Rebel!
I had a great first time in the kitchen and can’t wait to come back for more this summer!
By Emily Irani
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