FaCS Meat Lab

To demonstrate tender-cut meat cookery, my students made recipes from Cook This, Not That!: Kitchen Survival Guide. Books from the whole Eat This, Not That! series are excellent because they offer lots of flavor for low calories. The recipes are fairly simple to make and can easily be adapted to use less expensive ingredients.

Thai beef lettuce wraps (I used a flat iron steak)

Chimichurri Flank steak (I used a sirloin)

Grilled Pork Chops with Pine Nuts and Peaches

Pound for pound the most expensive part of this lab may have been limes. $1.50 each!

Chopped! Chicken Lab Results

After my students didn't send me their recipes on time I had them do a "Chopped" style lab. In the Food Network show, contestants are given several mystery ingredients that must be made into a specified dish. The students each drew a market cut of a whole chicken and had 50 minutes to create an entree.

Batter-fried chicken thighs with fried flat bread, giblet gravy, and cheddar cheese

Chicken-noodle soup with baking powder biscuit

Barbecue chicken wings with oven baked fries 

Cajun chicken tenders with mashed potatoes

And the winner was... The GIBLET GRAVY group!

FaCS Demonstration: Cutting A Whole Chicken

Probably my least favorite farm task, although my parents were supportive of me getting out of it, was cutting up chicken. It is, however, a very economical way to purchase meat for a family. Instead of market cuts families can take advantage of the "extras" like bones and giblets to stretch meals.

Students got started with their study guides, Culinary Essentials Study Guide, Chapter 22: Poultry. We watched the last ten minutes of Cutthroat Kitchen which shows contestants cutting a whole chicken and preparing chicken giblets.

Good Eats Season 14 [HD] Grillis Domesticus does a great job explaining various market cuts of chicken as well as a demonstration of cutting up a whole chicken in the first ten minutes. My set of DVDs does not include this episode but it is only $1.99 at Amazon.

Last week my students drew cards for various chicken parts. I demonstrated cutting up a whole chicken and reviewed student study guides using this outline.

Students worked in groups to decide what to make with their assigned market cut. Their grocery orders are due today at the end of lunch. I look forward to seeing what they come up with. I've heard rumor of fried chicken with waffles and giblet gravy. :-/

FACS Olive Garden Soups Copycat Lab

I owe my survival during my college years to Olive Garden and their soup, salad, and breadsticks. It was a great place to work and I never grew tired of their food!

I often encourage my students to take their first foodservice job at a Darden restaurant. I know that they treat their young workers well and that my students will have an opportunity to be promoted. I have a student who started as an alley coordinator and will be moving into food prep and management!

Other than their great work environment, Olive Garden is most well known for their endless soup and breadsticks! Their variety of soup is perfect for our soup lab.

Students could choose what Olive Garden soup to make:

• Zuppa Toscana
• Pasta e Fagioli
• Minestrone

We had a unsweetened chocolate/broth cube mixup with the Minestrone, but the Zuppa and Fagioli were fantastic! And what would Olive Garden soup be without their infamous breadsticks? The recipe calls for the bread to rise for 45 minutes. My students mixed the dough one day, refrigerated it overnight, and baked them the next day with great success.

Mangia, mangia, mangia! 

FACS Culinary Essentials Chili Cookoff 2014

This week the Culinary Essentials held a chili cookoff. They learned to adapt recipes to suit their own tastes. We also touched on regional cuisine. This fits nicely between the sauces unit and the soups unit.

We invited the teachers to taste our chili during conferences. We got rave reviews for the creative combinations! The results are still being calculated.

Stay tuned to find out which talented students are the Chili Cookoff 2014 Champions!

How much money can we save by cooking our own beans instead of using canned?

The Culinary Essentials students are hard at work preparing chili for their cook off tomorrow afternoon. Teachers have conferences right away after school and won't have time to eat. That makes it the perfect time to have them vote on our chili.

The teachers are paying $5 for 16 ounces of chili, four side dishes, and a bottle of water. To maximize our profits we will be using dried beans instead of canned. 

My math question posed to my students is: How much money are we saving the department by cooking our own beans?

A 15 oz can of beans costs $.89.

One pound of dry beans equals about two cups. They triple in size when cooked.

I am giving Instagram a try! You can follow me @kaylapins and #chilicookoff2014.

Five Mother Sauces Culinary Essentials FACS Lab

Yesterday I demonstrated an Espagnole sauce to my students. It takes several hours to make. Today students demonstrated the other four basic sauces:

• Macaroni and Cheese (Bechamel)

• Rigatoni with Meat Sauce (Tomato Sauce)
• Eggs Benedict (Hollandaise)
• Chicken Supreme (Veloute)

The students were so proud of themselves, especially the ones who made the Hollandaise sauce. I was so impressed by their hard work!

Attractive Plate Contrast Project

Students are understanding the importance of the visual appeal of food and how food can be attractively arranged on a plate.

We started by watching Confessions of a Food Stylist which is a very interesting look into, of course, the career of a food stylist. The students are always interested to see how the food they see photographed is often inedible! It is a nice video, only 18 minutes long, from Learning Zone Express.

Then I assign our Attractive Plate Contrast project. Our textbook, Culinary Essentials, refers to seven contrasts that should be considered when plating.

• Color
• Temperature
• Garnish
• Texture
• Height
• Shape
• Flavor

Students trace a platter onto large construction paper.  Then they search through magazines to find examples of beautifully designed plates. I require students to include at least five pictures because many plates show more than one contrast. They write a sentence about how each contrast is demonstrated on their plates.

A Pinterest board could work for this project as well, but I like the tactile experience of the magazines.  There is a great discussion that happens as students leaf through the magazines.  Sometimes technology just makes things too easy. :)

Tilapia Cooking Methods Lab

Today students demonstrated various cooking methods with tilapia.

Parmesan crusted tilapia demonstrated baking,

Cracker-crusted fish demonstrated frying,

And poached fish demonstrated poaching.

It was a nice lab for this time of year because there are excellent sales on fish. I do not have a seafood unit in my curriculum so it is nice to give the students some experience.

You can download my recipes and materials here.