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Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies

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JW Iron Chef Food Literacy Program (Chef Jen Carson)
Yield: about 2 dozen

Ingredients:

  • 1 stick softened unsalted butter
  • ½ c brown sugar
  • ¼ cup granulated sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 tablespoon water or milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • ¾ c all-purpose flour
  • ½ teaspoon baking soda
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 1 c old-fashioned oats
  • ½ c breakfast cereal
  • ½ c raisins or other dried fruit
  • ½ c unsweetened coconut flakes

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. In another large bowl, beat together the butter with both sugars. Add the egg, milk, and vanilla to the butter mixture and beat well until the mixture emulsifies. Add the combined flour, baking soda, and salt to the butter mixture. Mix until completely combined. Fold in the cereal, dried fruit, and coconut. Mix until combined.

Drop dough by rounded tablespoons onto parchment-covered or ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 9-11 minutes. Allow to cool one minute on the pan, then remove to wire rack to cool completely.

Granola

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Granola Parfait
PERFECT PARFAIT: Layer homemade granola with fresh berries and fruit and plain yogurt for a hearty and delicious brunch.

Ingredients:

  • 10 oz oats
  • 1 cup unsweetened coconut
  • ½ tsp. salt
  • 2 oz canola oil
  • ¼ cup brown sugar
  • ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 2 Tbsp maple syrup
  • 1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a big bowl, combine the salt, canola oil, brown sugar, vanilla, maple syrup, and cinnamon.

Add the oats and coconut and coat with the sweet, wet mixture. Pour mixture into parchment-covered or greased baking sheet. Toast in oven for 15 minutes. Stir, then toast another 10 minutes if needed. Granola is finished when oats and coconut are golden brown, and the Maillard reaction and caramelization has occurred.

French Toast

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Making French Toast
STOVETOP OR OVEN: Iron Chefs learned about egg chemistry by making French Toast at the JW Teaching Kitchens.

Yield: 8 slices

Ingredients:

  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 2 Tablespoons sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • ¼ cup milk
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 8 slices bread
  • 4 Tablespoons butter
  • maple syrup, fresh berries, or powdered sugar for topping

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

In a skillet, melt a tablespoon of butter over medium heat.

In a shallow container (like a pie plate), combine the cinnamon, sugar, eggs, milk, and vanilla. Whisk until combined.

Dip bread into egg mixture. Fry slices until golden brown, then flip to cook the other side. Keep slices warm in the oven while you dip and fry the remaining slices. (Add more butter to the pan as needed.)

Serve warm with maple syrup, fresh berries, and/or powdered sugar.

Supporting school gardens with OnePrinceton

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IMG_0584From the first spade of soil turned nearly a decade ago, we have worked as a community, sweaty shoulder to sweaty shoulder, deepening and broadening the reach of Princeton School Gardens Cooperative programs to improve all children’s self-reliance, health and appreciation of the natural world through garden- and food-based education.

Now we can all do even more – while making everyday purchases around town.

Here’s how it works: Local businesses partner with Heartland Payment Systems, a Princeton-based company, to offer the OnePrinceton card, similar to a debit card. When you sign up for a free OnePrinceton membership (click here for information and to sign up), you link your membership to your own bank account. Then, you use the OnePrinceton card to buy goods and services, as you would a debit card.

The benefit comes next: OnePrinceton members choose a local nonprofit to receive a donation of 1 percent of the total pre-tax purchase from the member merchant, who in turn pays a smaller fee for this kind of transaction processing than he/she would for a credit card transaction.

One percent here, 1 percent there, and pretty soon, we have the funds for a class field trip, a school-wide tasting, a scholarship for a teacher, or for a chef to teach cooking classes at an after-school program.

Delicious, right?

Please consider signing up for a free membership with OnePrinceton.
And please do choose the Princeton School Gardens Cooperative as your beneficiary.

PU, public schools, restaurants, markets unite to celebrate delicious power food

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food day - squashed v5
We thought we were riding high when Amy Mayer detailed her work with teachers, students and volunteers at Littlebrook Elementary to create the second annual garden celebration in honor of Food Day on October 24. Then, we learned from Stu Orefice, executive director of campus dining at Princeton University, that he was serving up butternut squash at all dining service venues on that day, too.

It made perfect sense to build on both. So we made a few calls to chefs, restaurateurs and food-based businesses who partner with us, and voila! We used Food Day to build community around good food and the the national event which is now in its second year.

Chef Rob Harbison, at PU, is working with Stu, ensuring that students from Frist Campus Center to Mathey College Dining Hall and all points in between will be served this delicious autumnal vegetable that is packed with Vitamin A and rich in Vitamin C, potassium and fiber.

Cindy Hill, dining services director for Princeton Public Schools, is serving up butternut squash at all four elementary schools, and students at John Witherspoon Middle School and Princeton High School will be treated to squash from New Jersey’s M. Dottavio Farm. (cindy_hill@monet.prs.k12.nj.us).

Wildflour Cafe, in Lawrenceville, will celebrate Food Day – and squash season – with a gluten free flatbread pizzette topped with roasted butternut squash, roasted garlic, and goat cheese, said Marilyn Besner, restaurant owner. (marbesner@hotmail.com)

Look for other participants either selling or serving butternut squash in the Get Squashed: Food Day 2013 campaign by the display of this poster (and speak up when you go there, in appreciation!).

Among them:

John Marshall and Main Street Bistro; Christopher Albrecht at Eno Terra; Raoul and Carlo Momo of Terra Momo Bread Company, Teresa Caffe and Mediterra; Jack Morrison of Witherspoon Grill, Nassau Street Seafood, Blue Point Grill; Josh Thomsen of Agricola; Lori Rabon of Nassau Inn; Alex Levine of Whole Earth Center; Aishling Stevens of Americana Diner; Steve Carney of McCaffrey’s; and Gab Carbone of the bent spoon.

PMS Edible Gardens, July 2013

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READY FOR SCHOOL: Fresh timbers and fresh straw mulch prepped the JW edible gardens for the school year.
READY FOR SCHOOL: Fresh timbers and fresh straw mulch prepped the JW edible gardens for the school year.

TRELLIS WORK: Old bamboo stakes were gathered into a teepee to create climbing space for cucumbers.
TRELLIS WORK: Old bamboo stakes were gathered into a teepee to create climbing space for cucumbers.

DELIVERY: Belle Mead Co-op dumped fresh garden soil atop a tarp for distribution by wheelbarrow to garden beds that needed topping off.
DELIVERY: Belle Mead Co-op dumped fresh garden soil atop a tarp for distribution by wheelbarrow to garden beds that needed topping off.

PMS Cooks+Gardens gets growing

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IMG_2492
Jen Carson and Fran McManus, who led the popular Iron Chef cooking program at John Witherspoon Middle School last spring, worked with Steve Carson, science teacher and faculty sponsor of the JW Environmental Club, to share use of the school’s raised bed edible gardens.

IMG_2481The two, aided by Steven Schultz, who owns Bountiful Boxes and donated the labor to build two new boxes, have new gardens planted with tomatoes, basil and other edibles to show for their effort. Students will benefit this fall; the expanded JW Iron Chef program will have garden-fresh produce available, only steps away from the kitchens.

Volunteers also made short work of weeding and mulching in the other beds, repurposing old bamboo stakes to provide a teepee trellis for cucumbers, and providing straw for the students’ burgeoning tomato crop to rest upon.IMG_2698