Cooking Class!

 Cooking and Baking is a great way to incorporate learning in your homeschool, without it feeling like work. Besides, it's FUN!

Through our Gift Circle (see my post on that here) an amazing lady offered up her kitchen to our home-educating families to have a cooking lesson. We kept the groups small and the kids paired up. We talked about healthy eating, kitchen safety and the importance of hygiene around food. Then we dove in and made some delicious muffins!

5 year old Bee loves to be in the kitehen.

I was really impressed at everyone's willingness to try the muffins, even though spinach is not usually a favourite among kids.

7 year old Tee likes getting his hands dirty.

One of the things I love about educating at home, is that learning is always happening. You don't need to be sitting at a desk in order to practice math, science and literacy! For hands-on learners, the kitchen is a great place to explore!

 The recipe we used was from this book. It has great ideas for lunches and snacks outside of the usual pb&j (which is really helpful for me, as I tend to go into the kitchen at lunchtime, look around for awhile, then settle on making pb&j when I can't come up with something creative!)

If you would like to try your hand at making these awesome muffins, here is the recipe:

Spinach Cake Muffins

Ingredients
Cooking spray (optional)
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 large egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup packed fresh spinach leaves
1/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp vegetable or canola oil
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and use paper liners or crease a 24-cup mini-muffin tin or 12=cup regular muffin tin.
2. Place the applesauce, egg, vanilla, spinach, sugar and oil in a food processor and puree until smooth.
3. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
4. Pour the spinach puree into the flour mixture and stir until combined. Scoop the batter into the muffin pan, filling each cup 2/3 full.
5. Bake for 12 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean.
6. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

Makes 24 mini muffins or 12 regular muffins.