Good Food, Happy Bellies! Week 4 at Brainfood's Summer Institute

By Guest Blogger Cody Dunitz, Summer Intern

This week at Brainfood’s Summer Institute we made a veritable buffet of different types of delectable dishes.  We started the week off with an introduction to vegetarian and vegan foods, where we cooked delicious veggie burgers with homemade buns and banana berry smoothies with tofu (and despite some initial skepticism about the tofu, it ended up being a real hit!).  We then entered the wonderfully green world of salads, where we tossed together a strawberry chicken salad (with homemade mayonnaise!), a Caesar salad, and a cobb salad, all of which were a tasty triumph.

After that, we bid DC farewell as we took a trip around the globe for international cooking day.  We learned a little about each of the countries whose foods we were cooking, and then set off on our culinary journey.  Our metaphorical trip began in Jamaica, where we stirred up some flavorful curry shrimp with rice and peas.  With this dish, many of the students got to try pigeon peas for the first time.  We then hopped across the pond to Thailand, where the students had the challenge of making mango sticky rice, and they definitely did rice to the occasion!  The last stamp on our culinary passport was El Salvador, where the students learned to make pupusas with queso and frijoles.  ¡Que delicioso!

We finished up the week with a wonderful class taught by          guest chef Lisa Biedrzycki, where the students learned to bake sweet blueberry and peach galettes and blend up some refreshing watermelon mint slushes.  Overall, it was a great week!  And we look forward to our last week of class next week, where we’ll be having our Open Kitchen night, at which the students will get the opportunity to share their newfound skills and kitchen creations with friends and family.  With yummy food galore, it’s sure to be an enjoyable evening!

-Cody