School Year Wraps Up My Kids' Cooking Programs...

Another school year completes! One of my most precious experience this year was getting back teaching inclass (in the Spring) after a two year onsite hiatus as a Culinary Instructor and Consultant with TDSB Community Services. 

It was nostalgic to be starting in the same middle school- Beverley Heights in Downsview where we regularly held a newcomer cooking club over lunch pre-covid! Always healthy, colourful and fun! This time around, it is the period just before school lets out and the group is much larger- 30 grades 6s to 8s. We only got 45 minutes, so at times I devied students into stations to cook together (such as veggie wraps) or held a main area where students came up to help prep (cutting fruit en masse for fruit kebabs)!

For our very last week of schoool🔔 ... we went out with a splash whipping up a fun summer treat Mixed Berry Trifle (pound cake cubes, strawberries, blueberries, yes whipped cream, caramel and strawberry sauces plus choc chips).

I have been asked to come back in the Fall, and I look forward to it with more tasty and healthy delights up my sleeve! These grades 6s to 8s are gracious, good and appreciative kids 🤗. And the support staff here are truly the best! Thank you all for a fantastic term! Have a safe and happy summer 😎🌞!

These rival Starbuck drink desserts!

We are making Rainbow Veggie Pinwheel Wraps

Here we grow again 🌱🌷...

After the success of the first newcomer kids 6 to 12 years old after school Fall virtual cooking program at Culture Link, I conducted another Spring eight-week program funded by the Government of Ontario. CultureLink is a prominent settlement and community organization in the west end with over 30 years’ experience in developing and delivering services to meet the needs of our diverse communities. Recipes and their ingredients were provided to cook along with me weekly 👩‍🍳👨‍🍳💞! Here's to looking back at all the wonderful efforts. 

Veggie Pizza Baguettes and Salad with Homemade Vinaigrette

I always love to start off talking about fruits!

And making these rainbow fruit kebabs!

Keep the colours going in this gorgeous Caribbean Black Bean Mango Salad

Scratch-made crepes (jazzed up) and homemade lemonade to wrap up an awesome spring term teaching our online culinary afterschool program 🥞🍓🍋🍋🍋🥤!

What a great effort by all including Maida, our moderator who organized weekly grocery bags with recipe ingredients for families and reigned in the kids with questions and offered suggestions, the parents and older siblings who helped in the background while their cheflings shine and of course to this great group of inquisitive kids who wow me week after week with their platings and commentary. I will miss you all!

Have a safe and fun summer and wishing you a continual adventure trying and cooking new foods!

Basic Crepes
Makes about eight 8-inch crepes

1-1/2 cups milk
3 eggs
2 Tbsp. oil
1 cup all-purpose flour

Whisk milk, eggs and oil until smooth. Add flour; whisk until batter is well blended and smooth. Pour into bowl; cover. Refrigerate 30 min.

Lightly coat small pan with cooking spray. Over medium heat, pour 3 Tbsp. batter; rotate pan to coat evenly. Cook 1 min. or until golden on underside. Loosen edge with rubber spatula and turn out of pan onto a plate. Stack, browned side up. If storing to use later, place a waxed paper between each crepe.

Filling Options:
Strawberries, sliced
Blueberries
Raspberries
Bananas, sliced
Apples, sliced
Chocolate chips
Raisins or dried cranberries
Ground cinnamon
Whipped cream
Maple syrup
Icing sugar

A gallery of the kids' finest...

A must mention- What a fantastic graduation lunch cook off we had with the next cohort of ladies in June for the 'Amal Project' (Amal=Hope) at The Arab Community Centre of Toronto @acctonline, a program designed to assist newcomer women in integrating into Canadian society and forming friendships across cultures. Rita and Rasha, Thank you for inviting me again to supervise the kitchen activities 🤗!

Feast your senses on this gorgeous and delicious menu of the Arab and Sub-Suharan Africa. So impressed how humble staple ingredients came together to create extraordinary flavours and textures, that were taste-bud blowing 🔥! Take that Harra Osbao (translates to burned his finger) dish- it is essentially cooked lentils and pasta, pumped with cascading rows of crunchy fried pita chips, aromatic garlic cilantro oil and crispy fried onions (on repeat)... soooo 😋😋😋❤!

Oh, and the burned finger dish name you ask?... it originated when a cook put their finger in the pot to taste it and burned his finger, hence the name "Harra Osbao" "burned his finger" 😄.

- Spinach and Strawberry Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette

- Goat Cheese and Zaatar Fatayer

- Himbasha (Eritrean Bread)

- Harra Osbao (Syrian Lentil and Pasta)

- Roz 3a Djej (Chicken with Rice and Minced Meat Pilaf)

- Ethiopian Beef Stew and Injera

- Halawit el Jibn (Syrian sweet cheese rolls)

Preparing Harra Osbao (Syrian Lentil and Pasta)

Making Goat Cheese and Zaatar Fatayer

These ladies are so much fun...

Roz 3a Djej (Chicken with Rice and Minced Meat Pilaf)

Spinach and Strawberry Salad with Balsamic Vinaigrette

This was incredibly varied and delicious 😋!

Himbasha (Eritrean Bread) and Halawit el Jibn (Syrian sweet cheese rolls)

We cook together... We clean together 🤗

This summer I will be busy with a new term at Newcomer Kitchen's W2W Food Business Program for women and a few side projects on the go in my continual committment to food and community! As I don't have time to blog regularly, please Follow Me on Instagram to see all that I am doing... Hope To See You There 😀

On a different note- My blog has really taken a turn from consistently posting dinner and inspirational International food recipes since I started my blog 8 years ago. Focusing my time and energy to food educate, teach and cook whether in person or online over the recent years, I have not been able to regularly blog nor check how my site is doing. When I do blog, it is a recap of my continual commitment to impart food knowledge and skills in the schools and community- so a huge transition from the family table to the community table. I was pleasantly caught off guard when I noticed the milestone Total Pageviews over the weekend 😊. A testament that growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together. And that every success story is a tale of constant adaption, revision and change.

Thank you all for your support and love💗!