High Schoolers Can Cook

I’ve obviously not posted here in awhile.  I’ve been busier with a purely photo-based blog.

Check it out at http://adventuringin.tumblr.com/.

It’s been a rather long time since I’ve posted anything.

You know the story— busy, busy, busy, excuses, excuses, excuses.  I won’t fill in the details.

Early in the spring, we planted seedlings in our greenhouse.  Here’s how some of them turned out (I believe these are Kale plants):

The near to last week of school is spent on what Eunice termed “half education, half vacation.”  This year, I chose to help lead a group that spent the week laboring in the gardening and on some local farms.  It was a rough week.

My group was composed of Eunice, another female senior, and three Chinese students.  We worked at creating a new set of raised beds in the garden using cinder blocks, which was the brainchild of my faculty compatriot.  I didn’t think it was a good idea, particularly after lugging cinder blocks and carefully placing them in dug out trenches.  We also weeded, mulched, and planted.

The students were admirable in their attitudes towards the work, though I did have to scold Eunice after she spoke inappropriately to my colleague.  It was a tough conversation because I felt she was in the right, but I couldn’t say so.

But what does this have to do with food or the kitchen?

Everything that goes into the dishes created in my kitchen came from the ground in one way or another.  Planting and tending the garden brings me directly to the source of that food.  It connects me to the labor necessary in the nurturing of seeds into plants.  It reminds me that food requires work.

I’m commuting between home and work these days because a close family member has been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.  It’s not a great situation.

At school, I’m generally exhausted from not sleeping much at home.  I don’t have the motivation to complete my usual baking feats there.  However, at home, I’ve tasked myself with cooking, baking, and cleaning during the hours I’m not bedside.

This trip home, there were six blackening bananas on the counter.  My mother has all sorts of cookbooks; I perused a few and settled on a recipe from the American Heritage Cookbook, with some tweaks.  I also had to triple it on account of all the bananas.

Banana Bread

• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon (my addition)
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg (my addition)
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar (in my tripled recipe, I used 1 1/2 cups sugar total)
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• grated rind of half a lemon
• 3/4 cup mashed bananas
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional)

Begin by combining the dry ingredients in a separate bowl: flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

“Work butter until soft, then work in sugar, a little at a time, until smooth.”  I love that phrase.  You can tell this is a recipe from the days before electric mixers.

Next, beat in the eggs individually.

Add the vanilla, grated lemon rind, and bananas.

Stir in the dry mixture and the sour cream alternately.  Mix in the nuts if you chose to use them.

Though the book says “pour,” I found the consistency of the batter to be to thick for that operation.  Be sure to grease the pan— this will allow you to remove the loaves when they’re done.

I spooned the batter into mini loaf pans.  If using a full loaf pan, bake for 1 hour at 350 Fahrenheit.  For mini loafs, bake 30-40 minutes.

You can tell the loaf is done by sticking a toothpick or fork into the center.  If it comes out dry, pull it out!

Remove the loaf from the pan and cool on a wire rack.

References:

McCully, H., Noderer, E. & Bullock, H (Eds.). (1964). Banana Bread. In The American Heritage Cookbook (pg 25). New York: American Heritage Press.

The American Heritage Cookbook is a collection of recipes and menus first published in 1964.  In a note of explanation, the editors write that they chose recipes “for the most delectable and historically interesting dishes prepared in America from the time of its discovery to the beginning of this century.”  Many of the recipes were pulled from primary sources: the handwritten journals of Americans in the kitchen.

Though the editors speak of the adaptations made to suit modern technology (that of 1964), they left some original wording the same, giving the recipes an old-timey feel.  Chapters are introduced with historical background, and some recipes are given their own blurb.

The menus section includes menus from actual historical events, as well as some you might term “historical fiction,” which don’t represent real events, but rather compilations based on dishes commonly served at the time.

Overall, it’s a fascinating book.  I’m glad to have discovered it on my mother’s shelf.

I started this feat while students were passing around dead animal bones, gnawed up tree stumps, and bird wings.  I wish I could have stayed for the whole presentation, as it balanced the gnarly stuff with the informational well.  However, there was work to be done in the kitchen.

I first did prep work, slicing onions, eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes.

Our food came from the school kitchen; most of that comes from Sysco.  However, they do make an effort to purchase locally grown/produced foods.  Unfortunately, I don’t think anything from this meal fell into that category.

Croutons and lettuce for caesar salad.

We halved the bag of croutons— half for salad and half for eggplant breading.  I had one of the students on my crew put half of the croutons in a bag and smash them up to make “bread crumbs.”

The kitchen provided us with a shit-ton of pasta.  In case you haven’t read the cupcake-college-announcement post, “shit-ton” is a veritable measurement referring to an enormous amount of something.

I cooked up the pasta before my crew arrived.  I didn’t need to make all of it, but I have problems with portions.

We mixed the chopped tomatoes and peppers into the sauce along with some dried basil and oregano.

My intent was to fry the eggplant.  I soaked it for 20 minutes in water, patted it dry, and then salted and peppered it.

After that, I discovered that we had no flour, no oil, and only a few eggs.  Normally, I would flour each piece, dip it in an egg/milk mixture, and then dip it in breadcrumbs, to be fried in a pan of hot oil.  Having only half of the necessary ingredients, I improvised.  

One of the students whipped up an egg/milk mixture of mostly milk.  He dipped the eggplant into this and then breaded it with the smashed croutons.  We fried them in a pan with a very thin layer of butter.

It worked ok.  Not gourmet, but certainly edible and perhaps even enjoyably so.

In the meantime, another student fried sausage.  We made six pans of ziti— three sausage and two vegetarian.

Of course, the key to delicious ziti (or anything in my book) is cheese. 

 Lots of gooey, melty cheese…

I considered it the best meal of the trip.

(certainly significantly better than the refried bean, salsa, and bacon sandwich I had eaten for breakfast the day before… on account of the fact that we ran out of eggs)

Each year, just before our March vacation, the freshman students attend a retreat that focuses on class bonding and increasing their sense of place.  This is my third year teaching, but my first attending this retreat.

I didn’t really know what to expect.  We spend the first day on campus, doing team building activities, working on goals/expectations, crafting, watching snippets of Rivers and Tides (a documentary about Andy Goldsworthy), and another movie that is supposed to help them think about their sense of place (this year it was Groundhog Day with Bill Murray).

My charge for the time was the class quilt.  Each student gets a square to decorate and the product hangs in one of our public foyers in school.  I found help from an ex-student’s grandmother; she found all of the materials I would need and made sure the most technical thing the freshman had to do was iron— not sew.  We used glue paper; you iron the glue part to the back of the fabric you want, peel off the paper, and then iron the front of the fabric to your square.  Even that gave them problems.

The second day of the retreat we departed for the lodge at which we stayed.  It’s a gorgeous facility located in Western Massachusetts, usually dedicated to cross country skiing.  There were a number of structured activities designed to foster our goals of bonding and greater place-awareness.

Creating our own nature-art and preparing meals excited me the most.  We divided into three teams for the purpose of meals.  One team would prepare; one team would clean.  My team cleaned the first night; we prepared dinner the second.  I volunteered to handle lunch clean up to allow another faculty member to go skiing.  I stuck my hand into breakfast the next day.  

I couldn’t stay out of the kitchen.

School’s been on break for the past week and I’ve been in Iceland… I have lots left to post here from the 2+ weeks before vacation, but in the meantime, I’ve been working on a side project.

Check it out here. 

Eunice’s college announcement went spectacularly.  I had very bold ambitions, most of which were realized.  First of all, I made a shit-ton of cupcakes.  Yes.  A shit-ton.  That’s the official measurement for a number greater than 150 when you’re talking about cupcakes.

Though I don’t love to admit it, I had to employ the help of the dough boy.

THE SHAME.

But it was a shit-ton of cupcakes.  I baked from 1:45 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.  These materials cost me about $50.  I can’t imagine the pricetag had I worked from scratch.  And, this was my own money.  And, I’m a teacher.  Fifty bucks means a lot to me.

It began with the vanilla, which I dyed green to match her choice school’s colors.

Then came the chocolate.

And then, my guilty pleasure, the funfetti.  It’s counter to all of my food sensibilities, but I love it anyway.

An army of cupcakes stood at attention on every available surface.

Presented with a visual of what I had done, I no longer felt so enthused about making a custom decoration for each cupcake.  And honestly, I suck at decorative frosting.  I’m aware of my weaknesses.  I did frost them all though.

However, this didn’t stop me in my attempt to make a few “Heron” cupcakes to represent the school’s mascot.  They turned out better than I had hoped, but would make a great post for this blog.

I used airheads to form the “wings.”  You can see the red shining through on this one.  The “head” was fashioned from an orange Dot and positioned with a candy stick.

Here they are awaiting delivery.

This is what 150+ cupcakes look like all lined up together.

I made the announcement during our all school meeting on Monday.  The announcement consisted of a video made by Eunice’s boyfriend, who is a current student at her college of choice.  I wrote a(n apparently hilarious) script for him, which he delivered with excellent timing.  It discussed the various options she has for her major and extracurriculars.

Everyone in our school got a cupcake.  One of my students ate 10 that day and then asked the following day if there were any leftover.

Success!  I really upped the ante on college announcements for this year.

Eunice found this recipe online in another kitchen blog that she reads regularly.  While I don’t want to fall into a habit of making dishes already written about and photographed on the internet, I couldn’t help myself with this one.  I particularly like the original author’s post as it mentions her trip down the 1 in California to Big Sur— a trip I made recently myself.  I knew exactly where she was from her photographs of the coast (before I began reading the actual post).  The bars were scrumptious.

Eunice and I worked on the recipe together while a gang of girls invaded my couch.  I wasn’t on duty, but it was a good way to spend a Saturday afternoon.  It also gave me a reason later on to invite over a certain male friend of mine in whom I’ve been somewhat romantically interested…  Who can deny delicious baked goods and a beer?!

Browned-Butter Pear Bars:

Crust:

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar
• 3/4 cup flour
• 1/8 tsp salt

Jam:

• 2 medium firm-ripe pears, peeled, cored and chopped into 1/2 inch chunks
• 1/3 cup fresh orange juice
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Brown Butter Filling:

• 5 tablespoons butter
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon finely grated orange zest
• 7 tablespoons flour
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

I began by prepping the orange zest and juice.  Eunice sat on my couch and did Calculus homework.

My juicing method was quite messy and literally consisted of me squeezing the orange in my fist.  There wasn’t much resistance without the peel in tact.



Once I finished, Eunice and I began with the crust, which begins with browning butter.  For in-depth instructions on this step, reference this post.

After browning the butter, pour it into a metal container and place it in the freezer.  While it hardens, combine the powdered sugar, flour, and salt in a food processor.  This allowed me the opportunity to finally test out my Christmas present from my sister.  I promptly broke it (by melting a round plastic piece within the plastic bowl), fixed it (lots of fine-tuned muscle to pull it out without shattering the bowl), and then successfully completed this step.

When the butter comes out of the freezer, it should be completely solid.

Scrape it into the flour mixture and pulse the food processor until it forms a dough.

Line an 8x8 pan with tin foil.  Smooth the dough into this pan and freeze it for about 15 minutes.


Bake in a 375 degree (F) oven for 18-22 minutes, or until the dough is nicely browned (mine could have baked longer, but we were getting impatient and it smelled soooooo good).  I used a glass dish and thus had to wait for it to heat to room temperature after pulling it from the freezer.  If you put a super cooled glass dish directly into a hot over, it will burst.  Be smarter than I am and use a metal pan.


While the crust bakes and cools, prepare the jam.  Combine the pear chunks, orange juice and sugar in a saucepan over medium-high heat.  Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring occasionally.  

When the pears have softened, mash them up a bit, but leave some chunks.  Cook until the jam thickens and most of the liquid has evaporated.  Stir in the vanilla extract and let cool.


On to the filling!  Brown the 5 tablespoons of butter as before, but this time, just set it aside to cool rather than placing it in the freezer.  Whisk together the other ingredients until smooth.


Slowly whisk in the browned butter until it is completely mixed.

The next step is the construction of the bars themselves.  Pour half of the filling onto the cooled crust and spread it evenly.

Next, spread the jam across this layer.



Top with the remaining filling.

Bake in a 375 degree oven for 35-40 minutes.  Cool completely on a wire rack before slicing.

They were delicious, but super rich.  Cut into small pieces to avoid being overwhelmed!

References:

Shauna. (2011, February 16). Pear-vanilla brown butter bars. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://pieceofcakeblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/pear-vanilla-brown-butter-bars.html. (2011, February 27).