Bite of Brainfood Blog

Spinach and mushroom lasagna – a cheesy, gooey, yummy bake that is sure to make its way into the annals of great recipes here are Brainfood. But Brainfood participants were not the only ones to enjoy this multi-layers masterpiece. As part of their ongoing community service commitment, participants made 4 extra lasagnas to donate to our community partner, N St Village, an organization committed to empowering DC’s homeless and supporting low-income women since 1973. Brainfood participants experimented with different recipes – a classic Bolognese and a mixed vegetable béchamel but the spinach and mushroom turned out to be the real crowd pleaser!

After a fall filled with comfort foods (lasagna, chicken noodle soup) and appetizing baked goods (carrot cake, sugar cookies), this week, it was time to break out the pickled ginger and the anchovies. With Nisha leading the charge, Brainfood students tasted their way through 24 different samples of "mystery" foods. The challenge was to get beyond the "good" and the "nasty", and really articulate the many elements, like texture, smell, and appearance, that influence how we experience new foods when we can't easily identify them as familiar dishes.

Channelling their inner-Bourdains, students proved they were ready to take on a veritable smorgasboard of unidentified food presented in a fleet of miniature Dixie cups. As could be expected from a class that appealed directly to students’ senses of adventure, tasting high jinks ensued. Some groups were meticulous about tasting foods at the exact same time, so no one person would be singled out as the guinea pig. Other groups were caught up in speculation, coming to hopeful conclusions like, “If it smells good and it’s orange, it can’t be that bad” and “I bet it’s just iced tea” (actually a very unpopular red ginseng drink).

At Brainfood we love an opportunity to be creative and try new things! After learning about the food pyramid, participants were given the opportunity to create their own Food Pyramid Signature Sandwiches.

There were a few rules: Participants needed to use at least 5 ingredients, including 1 ingredient that they had NEVER had on a sandwich before and participants needed to use ingredients from at least 3 of the food groups.

During our discussion at the end of the session, all participants shared with the group what was in their sandwich and then cut up their sandwich so we could all sample their creations. I was so impressed with the names of the sandwiches and ingredient combinations that participants came up with and was pleasantly surprised that many sandwiches had food from all the food groups!

Here are a few of our proud sandwich makers and their sandwiches....

So we really love muffins here at Brainfood and have spent three classes making a variety of these delicious treats.

After discussing low fat baking methods & substitutions, we made Carrot Cake Muffins with Low-Fat Cream Cheese Frosting.

Next up was a discussion of vegan baking. Our Vegan Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cupcakes with Cinnamon Icing were delicious!