Cooking Class

Another occupation filling my time of late has been teaching a cooking class at the local elementary school. I know, I know, like I have so much free time! As anyone who knows me or reads this blog is aware, I home school, but that doesn’t prevent me from participating in the community. It is much like my teaching confirmation classes at the local parish despite my traveling to the TLM whenever I can. If I am needed, I will do my best to oblige.

The program at the school is funded by the parent/teacher organization. The PTA requires submission of lesson plans, in advance. Apparently they’ve had some classes go bust due to poor planning on the part of well intentioned volunteers who couldn’t quite get their act together. As a dutiful volunteer, I submitted my plans. I was asked to teach ten students in the kindergarten/first grade level.

Four days before my first class I get a phone call from the school secretary who informs me that due to some new district regulation we are not permitted to cook or bake on the school premises outside of regular school hours. Hmmm, a monkey wrench if I ever heard one! Original plans included homemade graham crackers, hot chocolate (from scratch), muffins, that sort of thing. Now we’ve had to retrench and do things like dips, fruit salads, and no bake treats held together by peanut butter, lol. Not so much cooking and baking as food preparation and presentation. Oh well.

Today, we will be making party foods, CHOCOLATE to be precise. First up are chocolate top hats made by dipping vanilla wafers into chocolate, then a marshmallow is dipped and stuck onto the cookie. While the chocolate is still wet, little decorations will be stuck on. Very cute for little ones, don’t you think? The second treat is a chocolate covered banana rolled in sprinkles. For a drink...party punch! Not exactly a nutritionally balanced meal, but then again it is a party for cooking class where cooking has been prohibited!

Yet another roadblock was thrown up today...no sterno either! So, whilst I have one crockpot (dip sized if you can imagine) which will work nicely for dipping bananas, the tiny little fondue pot I planned to use for the top hats is a no-go. Good thing I’m a creative sort. We shall use microwave safe mugs and hope for the best. Hopefully the chocolate will stay a warm enough temperature to work with.

I’m bringing some of my less expensive yet still pretty platters to serve the snacks on, a table cloth, my punch bowl and glasses. If nothing else it should be a pretty sight, and the chocolate covered kids will be much appreciated by their parents at bath time this evening, lol.

Image nicked from here.