Feeding kids well

[culinaryartistas]

Recipe for life

We’re nearing the end of our second semester of cooking classes with the kids and I am truly amazed by the growth of the kids in these last 9 weeks. 

The kids have made and tasted daikon, miso, fish sauce, Indian spices, lemongrass, green papaya and so many other unique and delicious ingredients. They are expert choppers, pickers, mixers, and all around food enthusiasts. 

I even get surprised at times by the foods we make that the kids are fully engaged in and find delicious. Of course there have been dishes that were not as popular (I’m talking about you green papaya salad), but what has been the most enriching is to see recipes that I approached with skepticism and uncertainty about kids liking them (I’m talking about you Indian spiced broccoli and turmeric rice), be made with interest, precision and care, and then devoured by many of the kids.

In our kitchen we strive to create a space of openness and adventure, safety and comfort, and to spark a genuine passion in kids in what they cook and eat. This semester I’ve watched a little boy too nervous to come to class, become a confident and diligent veggie cutter, a little girl who eats everything with passion and gusto be described as a picky eater at home, and a group of kids become a community of chefs sharing a meal they made at our big wooden table.

My biggest lesson has been to realize how the unfamiliar can become familiar, and the scary manageable, as long as you have a little time and a lot of passion. 

[culinaryartistas]

Pizza Party

We had a pizza party and it couldn’t have been more fun. Each kid made an individually customized mini pizza and calzone. From fresh dough to toppings, the kids made it all! 

Having a family night pizza party is a great way to cook together and make sure everyone gets to choose just what they want.

A pizza making tip: After rolling out dough use a small thin edged metal bowl to cut out perfectly sized mini pizzas.

Making pizza dough from scratch is really simple.

Pizza Dough Recipe.

Ingredients:

1 tablespoon sugar

2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

2 tablespoons olive oil

3 1/2 cups of pizza flour (plus more for dusting)

1 1/2 teaspoons of salt

1 1/3 cups of water

Add yeast and sugar to 1/3 cup of warm water, mix and let sit for 10 minutes until yeast activates. Add the yeast mixture and 1 cup of flour and the olive oil to a large bowl and mix, add in the remaining flour, salt  and most of the water until you have a rough dough. Knead for 10 minutes until the dough is soft and smooth adding in extra flour if it is too sticky. Coat the dough in a light layer of olive oil, place in a bowl, and cover. Leave the dough in a warm area (think on top of the oven) until doubled in size, about an hour. Once ready, knead the dough lightly and roll out thinly for pizza.

A Pizza Party at Culinary Artistas is the easiest most delicious way to celebrate your next event! Email us at [email protected] for more details.

[culinaryartistas]

Exploring South East Asia

Our classes are exploring the delicious and healthy foods of South East Asia, which center on rice, fresh herbs, and combinations of sweet, sour and salty.

We’re exploring foods new to many of the kids, with Vietnamese Spring Rolls and Coconut black rice. Kids love making spring rolls, exploring how rice comes in different forms, from rice wrappers to rice noodles. And for those with peanut concerns, sunflower seed butter is a perfect substitute in peanut sauce.

Enjoy this super simple and delicious recipe perfect for an easy gluten free dessert or breakfast!

Sweet Coconut Rice

Ingredients: 2 cups of forbidden black rice, ¼ cup coconut cream, 1 tsp sugar, ¼ cup shredded unsweetened coconut, 1 ripe mango.

Cook the forbidden black rice as directed on package, once done, mix in the coconut cream and sugar, and allow it to sit for 10-15 minutes. Toast coconut on a baking tray in a 350 degree oven for 3 minutes, stir, and add a few more minutes until toasty brown. Coconut can burn easily, so check on it regularly. Cut mango into cubes. Put a scoop of black rice in a bowl, and top with mango and coconut as desired.

Our Spring classes are now open, and are a 9 week series, before we roll into our amazing summer camps, with $50 off week long camps available until March 1st with code SUMMERCAMP50

[culinaryartistas]

Potstickers + Bao: a lesson in veggie love

In honor of Chinese New Year we made delicious vegetarian potstickers, and steamed buns, also known as bao, some of our most popular dishes to date.

One of our goals was to explore how foods some kids were pretty upfront about not liking (mushrooms) become delicious once mixed in with other foods. We converted one brave eater who said "I don't really prefer vegetables" into a veggie potsticker lover.

Our approach is to give space for the kids to talk about what they do and don't like while exploring and preparing the ingredients. And when it comes time to eating, we just give them space to eat, without reminding them of the mushrooms or other offending vegetable, and talk about the potstickers and how they taste.

Making ponzu sauce gave kids time to explore the ways salty, sweet, and sour combine to make something different and can balance each other out. They were able to do almost the whole recipes themselves, other than cooking the ingredients and the potstickers.

You can always make extra potstickers, freeze them on a baking tray and place them in ziplock bags for a healthy fast snack or meal. Just add 3-4 minutes of steaming time to cooking.

Happy cooking + eating!

[culinaryartistas]

Our first 3 weeks of class have been all about Japanese small plates. Kids love making Onigiri, a simple and easy snack.

This recipe is perfect for developing small children’s motor skills, and the combination of two familiar foods, seaweed and rice, in a new combination is a great way to keep kids mindfully open to new foods. 

Onigiri are perfect packed away in lunches and are a great use of extra rice.

To Make:

Follow the instructions on your sushi rice (we like kokuho brand), once cool enough to handle, mix in your favorite rice seasonings (if using), wet your hands, and scoop a 1/4 cup of rice in your hands, create an indent and add your favorite filling, form in to a lightly packed ball, wrap in seaweed and enjoy!

Seasoning suggestions: furikake, black sesame seeds, seasoned wakame, etc.

Filling suggestions: smoked salmon, cube of cheese, umeboshe, etc.

Check out our classes here.

[culinaryartistas]

Picky Eaters

Hitting the bulls eye with a picky eater can be tough.

Do you find yourself in the trap of your picky eater saying she doesn’t like something and you reducing foods until you only have a few foods you trust your child will eat? Believe me, we’ve all been there.

One of our biggest lessons: “I don’t like this” usually means a lot more than we think. It might mean, I don’t feel like eating this right now, I would rather be playing, I don’t think I like this food, or a number of other things. 

What to keep in mind, what they love today, they might reject tomorrow and the reverse. So don’t take “I don’t like this” too seriously, reintroduce foods often, and don’t hesitate to give your child a little time to investigate this less than loved food.

Happy eating,

Janine

[culinaryartistas]

Fall Harvests

It’s hard to believe we are already into our second session of classes at Culinary Artistas. We have had the chance to cook with so many excited young chefs, who couldn’t wait to explore new techniques, skills, and flavors.

Our kids chefs have been hard at work in our kitchen bringing the best of the seasons produce to the table with delicious results. We expanded our palettes with the salty briny ingredients of a Nicoise salad, from olives, to anchovies, our chefs worked hard at prepping and plating this classic dish of Julia Child, and everyone agreed it was delicious!

In our camps we have enough time to really explore some recipes that take longer to cook. Making good use of the time, our kids used their dexterous hands to make their own tamales, from shaping the corn masa, and stuffing it with cheese, to wrapping each tamale and tying it with a bow carefully made from the husk. 

Come and check out a series of classes for the kid who is ready to fully dive in, a drop-in for the more unsure, and of course we have a number of camps for the holidays to ensure your little one is learning, growing, and eating well. 

For anyone wanting to give the gift of learning to explore food and to feed yourself well, email us at [email protected] and we will be happy to make a gift certificate in any amount.

Happy eating!

[culinaryartistas]

Baking cookies for our Grand Opening party on Sunday, 11a-3p! Come and bring the family to help decorate them! #cookiedecorating #cookingwithkids #kidscooking #sfmoms #ghirardellisquare

[culinaryartistas]

Dusting off those cookbooks

This week has been feeling a little like the 39th week of my pregnancy, or the week before my wedding... That fluttering of anxiety mixed with excitement, and the undeniable feeling that everything that ever happened in my life has culminated to this moment: school doors open and classes start this Monday! 

In reality, the fun really starts for me now - after Anna (my partner) has done all the business things that she so wonderfully does - when I start researching and coming up with recipes to teach, interacting with the children, making the kitchen my home, my lab, my play pen.

This week we are starting two brand new classes: San Francisco Classics and Famous Chefs. So many famous chefs to explore, how do I choose? How can I attempt to be fair and balanced to the world’s culinary traditions? 

However, there is no fairness in my game, even before I dreamed of this school, my own school, there is someone that I always admired and always wanted an opportunity to honor, and this is that time. I am talking about Alice Waters, the Godmother of California’s farm to table movement, the chef, the thinker, the revolutionary woman that lives in our very own backyard and whose lifetime purpose has inspired my own.

“The Art of Simple Food” is going home with me. And I am going to the farmer’s market tomorrow morning, pick what is beautiful and in the peak of the season, and the classes will be born from that beautiful combination!

[culinaryartistas]

We are opening our doors soon!

It's been a busy Summer of work and fog in San Francisco. While half the city has done their best to get out of town and escape the frigid weather, our team of architects, contractors, and property managers did an amazing job getting us from a raw concrete shell to an inviting, warm and gorgeous place in less than 2 months! I can't even take any credit for this speedy progress, as I was in Brazil for almost a month while construction was happening. Anna, on the other hand, was here making all sorts of decisions and following the project super closely.

Our official opening date is September 12th, when we kick off the first Fall series. I'm personally excited to be teaching some parent and child classes, as well as a Famous Chefs class series. It will be great to dive into the recipes of some of my favorite chefs and share them with the kids. For a list of all classes in the Fall series, take a look at: https://culinaryartistas.getgalore.com/?class=true. Even more importantly, for a $100 discount on all Fall classes, use the code CULINARYFRIENDS at checkout. What a sweet deal!

The grand opening party is on September 18th, and if you got all the way here on this blog post you are officially invited.  Party will happen between 11am-3pm and we will have face painting, refreshments, and a cup cake decoration contest!

Mark your calendar and come on down to toast with us!

Vanessa

[culinaryartistas]

Dear San Francisco

We love you. With all our heart. During our time together, we’ve learned from you to love food, know where it comes from, understand the people who grow it, admire the people who transform it into delicious works of art, and develop that little seed of passion for food that was inside of us.

Now we’re here to give back to you and the next generation of food lovers. In mid-August, we will be opening the doors to Culinary Artistas: Creative Cooking Classes for Kids. Our mission is to provide fun cooking classes for kids that help them develop creative minds and healthy bodies.

We believe that cooking is a language by which we connect to our cultures, stories, bodies, minds and souls. Cooking is a great tool that can help kids learn a multitude of disciplines, while creating great memories. At Culinary Artistas, we know that we learn best by engaging all our senses and working with our hands.

Please come visit us. We can’t wait to feed you!

Love, Anna and Vanessa