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It’s Pesto Time! - 4 Hour Class


 
Cooking with children provides a hands-on approach to learning what we put in our tummies. Children love helping to prepare food. It exposes children to a wide variety of ingredients and encourages them to try new foods.

Over the summer, our herb garden grew strong and we had an abundance of basil. Coincidentally, Teacher Mariam brought in a big bag of beautiful cherry tomatoes from her dad’s garden. So, off we went into our first cooking activity!

We wanted a simple recipe with just a few ingredients so we decided on cooking pasta with pesto sauce and cherry tomatoes.

Last class, we had intentionally placed some of the herbs out. We wanted the children to observe, feel, smell, and experiment with the herbs. In the next class, during our morning gathering, we passed basil leaves around for the children to feel and smell. Some children said they liked the smell, and some did not. The children who were playing with the herbs in the morning seemed to like the smell better than the friends who had not played with the herbs previously.

We then asked the children to help snip leaves off the basil plant. A few of our friends were very excited and wanted to cut the basil off the main stems. We explained that we needed to take care of our plants so that they recover and regrow more basil. The children then took turns and carefully snipped the leaves making sure they were not crushing or breaking the main stems. When we returned inside, we washed the basil and made sure we had just the leaves and not the stems.
 

While waiting for our water to boil for our pasta, we cut tomatoes. With eager hands and butter knives, children were cutting carefully to make sure the tomatoes were cut in half.
 
 
When the pasta was ready, we prepared the pesto sauce. We added parmesan cheese, sunflower seeds, olive oil, salt, garlic powder, and our special main ingredient, basil. We placed it in a food processor and turned it on. Children watched the ingredients being chopped and blended into a thick sauce. We added the sauce to the pasta and mixed in the tomatoes.

 
Some children liked the tomatoes, and some preferred the pasta without the tomatoes. Nevertheless, everyone enjoyed sitting together and trying the recipe.

 
Until next time,

Karen

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