Tag: Culinary

The History & Science of Cream Puffs

I love teaching students how to make desserts that look elegant, but sound difficult! After learning about The History & Science of Cream Puffs, they are always surprised to learn how simple they are to actually make. Read on to learn how to incorporate this into your pastry or dessert unit.

Knife Skills Workbook for E-Learning

Sending out a big THANK YOU to Barbara Scully for sharing her Knife Skills Workbook for E-Learning! Her adapted knife skills workbook for E-learning covers almost everything you want or need to know about knife skills from handling the knife safely to various knife cuts! So sit back and take a look…you’ll be here for a bit so grab a cup of coffee and enjoy!

Cooking Methods JIGSAW Puzzle Project

Once again, I was in need of another way to teach cooking methods to my foods class that wasn’t a copycat of what I teach in the foods unit of my comprehensive FACS class. As always, I wanted a lesson that was engaging and interactive for my students. So, the cooking methods jigsaw puzzle project was created! This lesson assigns a cooking method to each student who must do the research to complete the informational puzzle piece. Once completed, students move their way throughout the room as they collect notes on all of the other assigned cooking methods. Students will use their notes and apply the techniques as they move through various cooking labs.

Food Preparation Video Project

There’s a big push in education to incorporate more technology into the classroom!  Because of this, Kara Emig of Oxford, PA  wanted to develop a project that would be interesting to her students.  She also wanted them to  be able to add their own element of creativity.  The fun and engaging food preparation video project she designed has students creating their own recipe videos just like the ones you see all over social media!  Kara’s students created their videos during the cookie unit, but the beauty of this project is that it is versatile enough to use with any food unit!

The Basics of Soup!

Did you know that January is National Soup Month?  Soup is the perfect comfort food for a typically cold, winter month or any other day for that matter!  To celebrate this meal which has so much to offer in the way of health benefits, versatility in its types, and cultural ties, I’ve created a Hyper-Slide of activities to help students learn more about soup.  Read on to see how you can add a mini soup unit and lab to your repertoire!

Student Led Mini-Lessons for Food PreparationTerms & Kitchen Tools

The trend in education is to create student led activities, projects and presentations! After being inspired by a literary term assignment that my son had to create and teach to his AP Literature class, I thought, why not do this with food preparation terms and kitchen tools, letting students compile the information in a presentation and teach each other the materials!  This easily became a template that I could share with my students via Google Classroom, keeping entire presentations together. Since students had to orally, present their term or tool, I could grade as they presented, making my life easier at the end of the day!  

Cheese Balls Pantry Raid Lab

Cheese balls are often associated with parties, holidays and potlucks! But why limit them to just those events? I get to a point in the year when I have “a little of this and a little of that” leftover from other labs and taste tests. So I decided to have a pantry raid lab and have students make “cheese balls”. All I had to do was buy a block of cream cheese for each group and provide some parameters for the challenge. See below for more details.

Food Origin Project

In the Ethnic Foods class, students study all of the regions of the world. The course begins with “Why do we Eat the Foods we Eat?” This lesson was created to stimulate the ‘investigative minds’ of students, encouraging them to ask questions and seek answers. In the study of American Culture, each region is celebrated with an authentic foods lab. This project was created to get students to understand the influence of other cultures on our own American favorites.

The English Muffin Challenge

The English Muffin Challenge was a spur of the moment lab! One of our school clubs had two packages of English Muffins left over from an event that they generously donated to us. In addition, I had several left over ingredients from some other labs that I didn’t want to waste. So, I threw it all together for a challenge lab! Students had 40 minutes to create an aesthetic, edible product using the English Muffin and following the parameters of the challenge. Overall, the results were successful, albeit some interesting! However, students walked away knowing they could put together a filling dish, using only available leftovers. The beauty of this type of lab is that the challenge and follow-up assignment could revolve around any food you have an abundance of and wish to use up!

Scrambled Eggs: Experimenting with Liquids

A student recently asked me why scrambled eggs tasted different at their friends and relatives houses compared to scrambled eggs made at home. Great question! I decided to let my students conduct an experiment by preparing scrambled eggs with different liquids in order to discover the effects each had on the eggs’ appearance, taste and texture. Not only did this experimental lab get the students into the kitchen to teach them how to make scrambled eggs, but it was a great way to incorporate a little food science into the curriculum as well!