Food Revolution TO Community Cooking Class-- Plan It! Pack It! Eat It!...

Exciting day assisting Food Revolution Toronto ambassadors Carol Harrison, RD founder of Yummy Lunch Club and Monika Strzalkowska in their community cooking event at Sobeys` new Mississauga head office. The Plan it! Pack it! Eat it! hands-on class teaches kids how to help plan and pack AWESOME school lunches, and Carol`s the perfect person to instruct it. In two hours, we made up some tasty healthy smoothies, veggie-cheese muffin tin frittatas, fruity coleslaw, fruit kebobs with orange-honey yogurt dip and turned out four different lunch creations using egg salad! See the delicious recipes and photo gallery of 20 kids in complete cooking action-- chopping, whisking, sautéing, stirring, scooping, skewering, creating and the best part ever-- eating!!

I brought my two munchkins along for their second Food Rev TO cooking event! They were beyond ecstatic!

Emma Folkema, RHN from Sobeys Stratford kicked off the session by blending up some cool kid-friendly smoothies (that adults also love) such as Blue Monster and Green machine. The kids learned about healthy additions such as hemp seeds and liquid chlorophyll. Not everyone liked the taste of the chlorophyll-- and that's okay, at least they gave it a try-- and that's what discovering new ingredients are about :)

We had an amazing turn-out with more attendees showing up at the door than we had anticipated. It got a little hectic having the kids take turns at the cutting board station and needing more bowls and wares in a pinch, but Sobeys' helpers and the extra assistants on-hand were terrific and everything went well without a hitch! 

Carol Harrison introduced the four recipes for the session and explained how wonderful the main recipe of the day-- Veggie Cheese Muffin Frittatas are for lunch-packing. This is definitely a great and convenient recipe to stock in your freezer to make packing lunches easier. Busy homework nights are those nights you’d breathe a bit easier knowing you had a head start on lunches. Divided into three groups with a lead instructor, every group had a chance to make frittatas, and then separately each group made one other recipe-- enough to serve lunch for everyone buffet-style. What a great plan!

And a way they go with chopping and dicing in preparation for the frittatas, with me at the cutting station supervising. I was wary of the large knives at first, but I was surprised how careful these kids were-- with their parent`s monitoring and me close at hand, they were not short of amazing choppers! 

I prepared a veggie crudite platter for the lunch spread.

I loved this part the most when the kids are asked to identify the ingredients and what dishes they`ve tried them in. These kids along with mine were very keen on their vegetables... a beautiful thing!

I arranged the vegetables in a way that creates contrasting colours for an appetizing visual.

Isn`t she a beauty?

Ahhh.. the kids at the stove top. Gotta love hearing that sizzle and the kids getting excited over stirring!

Cooked veggies get scooped into the muffin tin, the shredded cheese goes on top and then everything hits the hot oven to bake. Love all the hands-on!

Fruit kebab time!!! Impaling bite-sized fruits with a coloured straw-- great safe idea that doesn't require close supervision as you would wooden skewers! These were being happily devoured at the same time... what enjoyment-- eating while you work :).

Yeah-- the frittatas are hot and done! Can't wait to dig into these yumminess!

This group made up egg salad creatures! And were they ever creative!

Tada.... lunch is served! Wow-- everything looks so appetizing, vibrant and nutritious!

Frittatas, Fruity Coleslaw, Egg Salad Creatures, Fruit Kebabs with Orange-Honey Yogurt Dip and Vegetable Crudites.

Everyone enjoying the fruits of their labour- NOM NOM!

Here are two fabulous resources developed to help your families get started with planning lunches and getting the kids involved:

http://yummylunchclub.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/YLC-PlanIt-PackIt-EatIt.pdf

http://yummylunchclub.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/YLC-LunchIdeas.pdf

Awesome goodie bags courtesy of Sobeys for everyone to take home!

Toronto Ambassador and Sobeys Communications Specialist Monika Strzalkowska

Amazing work team!! 

Looking forward to another round of kids in the kitchen fun in the near future!

With a smile on parents' and their kids' faces, it was undeniable that they all had great fun and I'm certain learned something new to take away with them when thinking and planning packed lunches. Yummy Lunch Club is regularly dishing out new recipe ideas and tips, so check in often. Thank you Sobeys and Egg Farmers of Canada for your sponsorship and support at our entertaining and tasty Food Revolution Toronto event!