Kids Make Spaetzle

Spaetzle: messy but good

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Marco Polo notwithstanding, most food cultures seem to have some version of a noodle in their culinary arsenals. Germany may have the messiest. Called "spaetzle"--or "little sparrows"--this noodle starts with a sticky dough that falls somewhere between pancake batter and library paste and must be pressed through holes into a pot of boiling water.

What? You say you don't care for clouds of steam billowing up your sleeve? You aren't ready to make a gooey, sticky mess out of your favorite box grater? Pish, posh. Spaetzle, it turns out, are quite delicious and worth a little extra pain in the kitchen. Think of a noodle that's almost a pastry, flavored with a bit of nutmeg.

The great dilemma in non-German culinary circles is that most kitchens are not equipped with the standard spaetzle making tool, which looks like a long grater or a plain with large holes. It typically comes with a metal cup to hold the dough, the cup sliding back and forth over the holes. The holes cut the dough, which then dribbles into the boiling water to form the "little sparrows."

Some cooks improvise by pressing the dough through a colander. I think the holes in most colanders are too small, so I opt for my box grater. You have to hold the box grater at an angle over the boiling water so that the dough falls through the opening and not onto the opposite inside wall of the grater.

Once you've got all that figured out, making the actual spaetzle is a snap.

In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 cup all-purpose flour with 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper and 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg. In a second bowl, beat two eggs with 1/4 cup milk. Pour the egg mix into the dry ingredients and stir until a smooth, sticky dough forms.

Over a large pot of boiling water, using a stiff rubber or plastic spatula, scrape portions of dough against the large holes of a box grater (or your favorite spaetzle tool), allowing the dough to dribble into the water and cook. Repeat this process until you've used all of the dough. When the noddles are fully cooked, drain them into a colander.

For the finishing touch, melt about 4 tablespoons butter in a large skillet. Over moderately high heat, add the spaetzle and cook, tossing frequently, until the noodles show just the slightest hint of browning.

We served the finished noodles with some brown gravy. They make an ideal side dish to a typical German meal of sausage and braised red cabbage, in which case they are even better dressed with a little gravy.

No trick to making this delicious side dish

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

It's hard to believe anything as simple as cooking red cabbage in a pot could taste so good. But red cabbage may be one of the most underrated of vegetables. With so much nutritional value--to say nothing of the stunning visuals it brings to the dinner plate--we should find more occasions to use it.

"This is your brain on cabbage," I told the kids in my food appreciation classes. And the cross-section of a red cabbage sliced in half does look a bit brainy. At least I thought so. "I think it looks like the inside of a cathedral," said one of the more precocious kids.

In any case, what you'll need to make a family-sized helping of this delicious side dish is little more than a red onion, a red cabbage, some red wine and red wine vinegar and a few spices. It cooks best in a heavy lidded pot. I can't think of anything to go better with a gamy dish such as venison tenderloin, or perhaps your favorite German sausage.

Start by chopping the onion into medium dice and sauteing in olive oil (or bacon grease) over moderately high heat until softened, about five minutes. I like to season the onion aggressively with salt to draw out the liquid. Then add 1/2 head red cabbage, roughly chopped. Stir in 1/4 cup red wine (we used a non-alcoholic wine in our classes) plus 1/4 cup red wine vinegar. Add 1 apple, peeled and grated, and a bouquet garni consisting of 4 whole allspice berries and four peppercorns tied up in cheesecloth. Push this to the bottom of the pot so that it's submerged in the liquid.

Bring to a boil, then cover, reduce heat and cook slowly for about 45 minutes, or until the cabbage is cooked through and tender. After removing from the heat, fish out the bouquet garni and discard. Then for the finishing touch, stir in 1 1/2 tablespoons dark brown sugar and 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon. You can make this less sweet if you want. But red cabbage really calls for cookie spices to bring out its innate flavors.

I don't know any kid who doesn't like red cabbage cooked this way. You could almost serve it for dessert.

Kids Make Sauerrueben

Squishing grated turnips with your hands

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Touring Northern Europe, my food appreciation classes recently got their hands deep into the food. They were making sauerrueben, a version of fermented turnips very much like sauerkraut, but t0 my mind much better. Sauerrueben has a nuttiness and depth of flavor most sauerkrauts lack. Tossed with sauteed onions, it works great next to a Polish sausage, for instance.

All you have to do is grate some turnips and add salt. Truly, this is more a formula than a recipe. For every five pounds of grated turnips, mix in 3 tablespoons pickling salt (or substitute sea salt or kosher salt--no chemicals allowed, including iodine). You can make more or less, depending on your needs.

What you see in the photo above is one of my students mixing the turnips with her hands. This is the most fun part, although the kids are crazy for peeling and grating turnips as well. Anything involving a kitchen tool will keep them focused for hours. But there's nothing like squishing sloppy, grated turnips through your fingers to get the juices flowing--literally.

We are fermenting our turnips--about 10 pounds--in a ceramic crock made for that very purpose. Otherwise, I would use a plastic bucket from the paint store. You just need a tight-fitting ceramic or glass plate (or a piece of non-resinous hard wood cut to size) to lay over the top of the turnips. Salt draws the water out of the turnips, creating a brine that should cover not only the turnips, but whatever object you are using to hold them down. For good measure, place something heavy--like a plastic jug filled with water--on top to weigh everything down and keep it submerged.

What happens next is a kind of culinary miracle. A procession of bacteria will multiply in your brine, creating lactic acid that inhibits noxious organisms. The bacteria feed on the turnips to survive. So you might say that the finished sauerrueben--or any fermented food, for that matter--has undergone a process of rot.

Sounds rather unpleasant, and there is a bit of odor to go with the fermentation. But it sure tastes good. Just put your crock in a cool dark place for a few weeks, covered with a tea towel. And I love teaching kids how our ancestors dealt with food preservation before they had refrigerators.

The bacteria are happiest in an ambient temperature of around 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Check on their progress periodically. You'll know your sauerrueben is done by tasting.

You can store your finished sauerrueben in the refrigerator, which will slow the fermentation process to a crawl. I've had it as much as two years later and it was not only edible, but incredibly delicious.

This is one science experiment you can definitely eat for dinner.

Kids Make Pierogies

Pierogies lightly browned in the skillet

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Call them dumplings. Call them Polish pot stickers. Call them whatever you like. Pierogies are just plain delicious, and kids have a blast making them.

This is the first time we've attempted a stuffed dumpling in our food appreciation classes and pierogies--a huge favorite in Eastern Europe--do take a bit of practice. The trick is getting just the right amount of stuffing onto a circle of pasta dough so that when you fold the dough closed, the stuffing doesn't ooze out the edges. Then you have to pinch the edge several times all around to make sure the dumpling doesn't open up when you boil it and spill its contents into the water.

Otherwise, there's nothing terribly complicated about making the components for pierogies: along with a pasta dough much as you would use for Italian pasta, there's a stuffing, in this case a very traditional potato and cheese mix. Pierogies can also be filled with sauerkraut, mushrooms or other savory items.

We chose to roll our dough flat with a rolling pin, but if you have a pasta machine, you might want to use it instead. Eventually, you want your dough to be on the thin side of 1/8 inch. A thinner dough makes more delectable pierogies--plus the thinner you roll the dough, the more pierogies you'll have.

Start by making your dough. You'll want it to rest an hour or even overnight before using. In a large mixing bowl, mix together 2 cups all-purpose flour and 1/2 teaspoon salt. In a separate bowl, beat 1 large egg, then whisk in 1/2 cup water. Add the egg mix to the flour and mix thoroughly. If it's too sticky at this point, add more flour. Use your hands to shape the dough into a ball, then pour it out onto a floured work surface and knead the dough about five minutes, or until it is smooth and elastic. Cover with plastic and allow to rest.

Cutting circles of dough for pierogies

While the dough is resting, peel 1 large Russet potato and cut it into 1-inch dice. Cook the potato in a large kettle of salted water. (This will later become your water for cooking the pierogies.) When the potato is cooked through and soft, remove it from the water and drain in a colander. Place the potato in a mixing bowl and mash thoroughly. When it is cool enough to handle, add a like amount of farmer's cheese (or substitute cottage cheese or ricotta) and mix thoroughly with your hands.

On a floured work surface (or in your pasta machine), roll the dough to a thickness of 1/8 inch or even a bit less. As you're rolling the dough, you might want to flip it over from time to time and dust it with flour to make sure it doesn't stick to your work surface. When you have finished rolling it, cut the dough into circles with a 3-inch biscuit cutter. Save the scraps--they can be rolled again to make a few more pierogies. You should end up with about 30 in all.

Use your hands or a mechanical scoop to place a small ball of filling on one of the discs of dough. Holding the disc in one hand, use the thumb of the other hand to press the dough into place as you fold the disc in half to close the dumpling, making a half-circle.

Placing filling on the pasta dough

The trick at this point is not getting any of the filling onto the edges of the pasta disc, which means practicing a bit until you get a feel for how much filling each dumpling requires and carefully pressing the filling with the side of your thumb into the crease as you close the dumpling.

Now, while continuing to hold the dumpling in one hand, use the thumb and forefinger of the other hand to pinch the edge closed. Don't be afraid to pinch fairly hard, pushing the filling back toward the crease. Once you've pinched the edge closed, go back around and pinch it a couple more times to make sure the seal is good and tight. (You can find videos of this process at YouTube.)

Pinching the pierogie closed

Once you have your pierogies assembled, you can cook them in the same kettle of salted water you used for cooking the potatoes. Use a large amount of salted water for this. It should be at a rolling boil before you add the pierogies. Cook them in batches, perhaps 10 at a time. After you've added the pierogies to the water, give them a stir to make sure they don't stick to the bottom of the pot. Make sure the water returns to a boil. The dumplings will be done in about three minutes, when they are all floating at the surface. Use a slotted spoon or other tool to drain the dumplings well as you remove them from the pot and place them on a sheet pan to cool.

You can hold the pierogies for several hours after they've boiled. Just cover them with plastic. (They could also be frozen before boiling for use later). The final step, just before serving, is to fry the pierogies to a delicate crispness in butter. Again, do this in batches using plenty of butter (at least 2 tablespoons) in a heavy skillet or saute pan over moderately high heat. You don't want to burn the butter or the pierogies. When the dumplings are lightly browned on one side, flip them over and brown the other.

Serve with plenty of sour cream, either as an appetizer or as a side dish with your favorite Polish sausage and sauerkraut.

Pierogies are not the easiest assignment for an elementary school cooking class. But the kids in my classes really impressed me with how well they followed each of the steps. They did a great job folding the dumplings. And of course they were crazy about the final result. They were dying for seconds.

Kids Make Kielbasa

First step to sausage: grinding pork

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Our food appreciation classes continue on their world culinary tour, landing this week in Northern Europe and specifically Poland. And what would dinner in Poland be without kielbasa--Polish for sausage.

Making sausage is one sure way to get kids' attention. In short, it's a blast, from cutting and grinding the meat, to adding herbs and spices, squishing everything between your fingers and finally stuffing the mix into hog casings.

There's a hygiene lesson here, of course. We teach the kids to wash their hands frequently when handling raw meat and not to touch anything else--like tabletops, tools, door handles--before washing to avoid cross-contamination.

Normally we don't use electric gadgets in our classes. I like the kids to do everything by hand, like cooks would have done in the old days. They get a better sense of their ingredients and the process that way. But I do not own a manual meat grinder, so in this case we used my electric grinder/stuffer. As you might imagine, the kids were fighting for their chance to push the meat through the grinder every step of the way.

Traditional kielbasa are normally cold-smoked, but that wouldn't work for our classes. So we'll just make do with fresh kielbasa, which are also delicious, especially when you've just made them yourself with the finest quality pork and seasonings.

I've adjusted this recipe to call for two pounds of meat--plenty for the average family. In fact, you might want to freeze some for future use. The original formula called for a certain amount of fat back. But fat back--literally, fat from the back of the pig--is getting more and more difficult to find. So I simply look for a fatty piece of pork shoulder (aka pork butt). You want plenty of fat in your sausage or it will taste dry.

Also, when making sausage, you want to keep your cutting blades and meat well chilled whenever they are not in use. Things can get sloppy as the fat warms.

Is this fun, or what?

First, slice two pounds of fatty pork shoulder--the best you can find--into 1-inch dice (or a little larger). Run the meat through your grinder and into a mixing bowl using the largest cutting die you have. Then add 1/3 cup cold, 1 1/3 tablespoons finely chopped garlic, 2/3 tablespoon kosher salt, 1 1/3 teaspoons dried marjoram, 1 1/3 teaspoons ground black pepper, 2/3 teaspoon dried mustard, 1/3 teaspoon ground coriander. Mix well (this is where the kids got to squish everything together with their hands.)

Run the mix through the grinder two more times using successively smaller die, or until the mix is rather finely ground to your taste. At this point, you can taste for seasoning by frying some of your mix in a skillet. If necessary, adjust the seasoning, then stuff the mix into hog casings, twisting into individual links about five inches long. (Hog casings can be purchased online, or often from your neighborhood butcher. We got our at the Eastern Market on Capitol Hill, where a couple of old-fashioned butchers sell all sorts of pork products.)

Stuffing sausages works best with two people, one to push the meat through the stuffer and the other to handle the links. Try to pack the meat so there are no air pockets, but these are almost unavoidable. When you've finished stuffing, prick the sausages all over with a needle or poultry skewer (there is a special tool made for this). Doing this give the air a chance to escape and helps prevent the sausages from bursting open when you cook them.

We're saving ours for the parents night dinner in May. Stay tuned!

Brussels Sprouts Kids Crave

Sweet & sour Brussels sprouts are the best

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

After our food appreciation classes on Wednesday I got wind of a parent spreading the word that she had witnessed our kids fighting for helpings of Brussels sprouts.

Imagine, kids actually loving Brussels sprouts!

Well, the moral to this story is that sometimes food is all about the preparation, not necessarily the ingredients. Many vegetables, cooked badly, are simply unpalatable. And I suspect that badly is how most people cook Brussels sprouts. But not us. We have a special preparation that's darn near irresistible. Here's how it goes:

For a pound or more of sprouts, trim away the stem ends and cut the sprouts in half lengthwise, removing any loose leaves. Cook the sprouts until barely done in a large pot of salted water. Drain the sprouts into a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process, then dry the sprouts thoroughly on sheets of paper towel.

For the next step you'll need a heavy skillet liberally greased with olive oil over moderately high heat. When the oil begins to smoke, cover the bottom with sprouts laid flat-side-down. You'll need to do this in batches. Allow the sprouts to brown, then turn them over with a pair of tongs or simply toss in the skillet. Douse liberally with red wine vinegar--you'll get a burst of steam and noise--and toss again. Season with granulated sugar, salt and black pepper to taste. Continue cooking another 30 seconds, or until most of the liquid in the skillet has evaporated. Set aside and continue with the next batch of sprouts.

You might not believe it, but our kids could not get enough of these sweet and sour sprouts. Maybe it was the excitement of seeing that cloud of steam when we added the vinegar to the hot skillet, the popping and sizzling, or even the brief flames as we tossed the sprouts in the oil. Whatever--this is one way you definitely can get children to eat their vegetables.

Note: I neglected to take photos of this week's classes and for some reason don't have any pictures of sweet and sour Brussels sprouts in my files. The photo I've shown here is the closest thing--the carrots are an extra bonus.

Kids Go Wild for Cinnamon Buns

Cinnamon buns don't get much better than this

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

We had a near-riot on our hands this week when we made cinnamon buns in our food appreciation classes. Apparently word traveled fast around the campus how good they were. Kids crowded into our kitchen area. I had to send some of them back onto the playground so that we could actually conduct classes.

Even I was a bit surprised that a simple biscuit dough wrapped around some sugary cinnamon could taste so good. These buns were light and tender--but with a hint of cloves in the filling, they packed a powerful flavor punch.

The one tool you will find essential for this is a pastry scraper. That's to get under the dough and roll it into a log. Pry, lift, roll: that's the motion you want, all along the edge of a rather long rectangle, creating a pinwheel log, after you've pressed the filling onto the sheet of dough. If you don't have a traditional pastry scraper, you could substitute an extra-wide paint scraper or a drywall finishing tool. Just make sure it's very clean. You don't need any paint or drywall in your cinnamon buns.

Start by melting 11 tablespoons of butter (1 stick plus 3 tablespoons). The original recipe called for melting various quantities of butter at different stages of the production. But I think it's much easier just to melt all of the butter at once in a small sauce pan. Set it aside to cool.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, mix the filling by whisking together 3/4 packed dark brown sugar (we used light brown sugar), 1/4 cup granulated sugar, 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves and 1/8 teaspoon salt. Stir in 1 tablespoon melted butter, using your fingers to break up any clumps, until the mix looks like wet sand. Set aside.

In a separate, large mixing bowl, whisk together 2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, 2 tablespoons granulated sugar, 1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

In a liquid measuring cup, stir together 1 1/4 cups buttermilk and 6 tablespoons melted butter.

Pour the buttermilk mix into the flour mix and stir with a rubber spatula, scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl and pressing the liquid and dry ingredients together until a shaggy dough forms. Pour the dough onto a floured work surface and press it together as you would for biscuits, kneading it a few times. Press the dough into a rectangle with your hands, making sure both sides are dusted with flour. Then use a floured rolling pin to roll the dough into a larger rectangle--about 15 inches long by 12 inches wide. The dough should be about 1/4-inch thick or a bit more.

Rub about 1 tablespoon melted butter over the dough, then pour on the cinnamon mix, spreading it all over the surface of the dough and patting it lightly with your hands. Then at the near edge of the dough use your pastry scraper to lift the dough and roll it over onto itself to form a log. When you are finished rolling, you can squeeze and pat the log along its length to make it a bit more uniform.

Grease a 9-inch metal cake pan with 1 tablespoon melted butter. Use a serrated knife to cut the log into 1 1/2-inch rounds, patting each piece lightly to flatten it a bit, then transferring into the cake pan, packing them as tightly as necessary. Don't worry, they will separate easily after they've been baked.

Pour the remaining melted butter over the top of the buns, then place the cake pan on the middle rack of a pre-heated 425-degree oven for 25 minutes.

While the buns are in the oven, you can make an icing if you like. Stir together until very smooth 1 tablespoon soften cream cheese, 1 tablespoon buttermilk and 1/2 cup sifted confectioner's sugar.

When the buns have finished baking, set the cake pan on a wire rack to cool. When the buns are cool enough to handle, use a pointed knife to gently cut around the edges of each bun and remove them to the wire rack or a sheet pan to cool further. Before serving, drizzle some icing over each bun and watch them disappear.

Kids Make Bacon Cheese Bread

Is there anything bacon can't make better?

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

One of the adults at our school asked if we were using turkey bacon to make bacon cheese bread in our food appreciation classes.

"Heck, no!" I replied. "We do not use fake bacon in our classes!"

We teach kids to make traditional foods using traditional tools and techniques. Modern "healthy" alternatives, such as substituting a processed turkey product for real pork bacon, is an entirely different lesson But you could certainly opt for the ersatz bacon when making this bread at home.

And believe me, you will want to make this bread.

We love to torture the rest of the school with our cooking aromas. The smell of bacon sizzling on the stove top--followed by sauteed onions--started mouths watering all over campus. Add to the bread heaps of Parmesan and Gruyere cheese and you practically have a stand-alone meal that any southern chef would be proud to put on the menu. In fact, this bread would be even more perfect slathered with pimento cheese, another southern specialty.

And it's not at all difficult--or time consuming--to make. This is a quick bread, after all, where baking powder is the principle rising agent.

Start by grating 3 ounces Parmesan cheese over the large holes of a box grater. Set aside. Then grate 4 ounces Gruyere cheese and reserve separately.

Next, cut five slices of thick bacon into 1/4-inch pieces. Sautee these until almost crispy in a heavy skillet over moderately high heat, then drain the bacon onto paper towels, reserving 3 tablespoons of bacon grease in the pan. Next, sautee 1/2 medium onion, chopped fine, until lightly browned. Set aside.

For the wet ingredients used in this bread beat 1 large egg in a medium mixing bowl, then whisk in 1 1/4 cups milk, 3/4 cup sour cream and 3 tablespoons melted butter.

For the dry ingredients, whisk together in a large mixing bowl 3 cups all-purpose flour, 1 tablespoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper and 1 pinch cayenne pepper. Using a spatula, mix in the 4 ounces grated Grueyer cheese, tossing and stirring until the cheese is completely coated with the flour mix, breaking up any clumps of cheese as you go.

Grease a 9-inch by 5-inch loaf pan with cooking spray. We had some issues with the bread sticking to our pan, especially on the bottom. You might want to line the bottom of the pan with a piece of parchment paper and spray it well. Dust the bottom of the pan with 1/2 the reserved grated Parmesan cheese.

Pour the wet ingredients into the flour mix and mix well with a rubber spatula, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl until all of the ingredients are incorporated. Scrape the batter into the prepared load pan, smooth out the top and dust it with the remaining grated Parmesan cheese.

Place in a 350-degree oven for 50 minutes, or until the loaf is golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Allow the loaf to cool in the pan for about 15 minutes, then invert and place the loaf on a wire rack to cool further.

Make sure to get a slice for yourself. This bread does not last long!

Kids Make Cranberry Nut Bread

A quick bread loaded with fruit

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

The original recipe for this delicious quick bread originally called for fresh cranberries. But with cranberries out of season, we had a choice to make and opted to use sweetened dried cranberries instead. The result is perhaps more like a fruit cake than a bread. So much the better. The kids couldn't get enough.

The kids in my baking classes know by now what a chemical rise is, as opposed to a rise created with yeast. Baking soda and baking powder react with acidic liquids to make dough expand, giving us a tender bread or biscuit instead of a cracker. In this case, we use both baking powder--which contains both alkaline and acidic ingredients--and baking soda to create the rise when combined with orange juice and buttermilk, both of which bring an acid to the equation.

Lots of orange zest, in addition to the juice, also lends a ton of fruit flavor to the bread, complementing the cranberries nicely. Heck, you could serve this bread as a replacement for your traditional cranberry mold. It would be delicious toasted and slathered with cream cheese.

Start with your dry ingredients, whisking together in a large mixing bowl 2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 cup granulated sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon baking soda. To this add 1/2 cup coarsely chopped and toasted pecans (we skipped the toasting part) and 1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped cranberries, or dried cranberries.

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, beat one egg, then the grated zest and the juice of 1 large orange, plus 2/3 cup buttermilk and 6 tablespoons melted butter.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well with a rubber spatula, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl. When all of the ingredients are incorporated, scrape the batter into a 9-inch by 5-inch loaf pan greased and dusted with flour (we sprayed with Baker's Joy).

Pay careful attention to the baking instructions. Place the loaf in a pre-heated 375-degree oven for 20 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350 degrees and bake an additional 45 minutes, or until the top of the loaf is mahogany brown and a tooth pick inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Allow the bread to cool in the pan 10 minutes, then invert onto a wire rack.

Kids Make "Healthy" Blueberry Muffins

No processed sugar in these muffins

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

If you're trying to reduce the saturated fat and processed sugar in your diet, these muffins definitely fall into the category of "healthy." Orange juice, apple sauce and the blueberries lend a bit of sweetness. And for fat, we have canola oil, which contains even more mono-unsaturated fatty acids than olive oil.

But we can't advertise muffins as "healthy" to the kids in our food appreciation classes. The last time we tried, they turned on their heels and ran back onto the playground. No, the best way to market these muffins, we found, is to just have the kids make them. Through the magic of hands-on participation, kids somehow overlook the fact that in this case, a delicious muffin doesn't have to knock them over with its sugar content.

The only trick to these muffins is assembling a somewhat unconventional list of ingredients. For instance, you may not have oat bran--full of vitamins and fiber--or whole wheat pastry flour on your pantry shelf. But we found these readily available at the local Whole Foods. The blueberries in this case were the frozen variety, a stock item in most supermarkets.

Start by whisking together your dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl: 1 1/2 cups oat bran, 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour, 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour, 2 teaspoons baking soda, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon salt.

In a separate bowl, beat 2 large eggs, then mix in 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened apple sauce, 1/2 cup orange juice, 2 tablespoons canola oil, 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix together, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl, just until everything is incorporated. Then fold in 1 1/4 cups blueberries.

Grease a standard muffin tin (we used cooking spray) and spoon in the batter. Scatter about 1/4 cup rolled oats over the tops of the muffins and give them a gentle pat. Then place the tin in a 400 degree oven for 18 minutes.

The finished muffins turn out light, moist and bursting with blueberries. Pour yourself a tall glass of cold buttermilk to wash it down.

Note: You can also add 1/2 cup coarsely chopped walnut pieces to the muffin batter for a bit of crunch.

Kids Make Zucchini Bread

Squeezing water out of zucchini

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

The secret to a great zucchini bread, apparently, is getting the water out of the zucchini.

You don't want a wet, leaden bread. And as the kids in my food appreciation classes learned, squash--like most vegetables--is mostly water. Salt or sugar added to grated zucchini penetrates the cell walls on a molecular level, drawing out copious amounts of liquid. Left standing in a colander over a bowl for an hour (or overnight) will produce a cup of water or more from a pound of squash. You can then squeeze out even more with your hands, or by twisting the zucchini in batches in a tea towel.

(One of the kids wanted to taste the water after we'd given the sugar treatment. We did. Not bad! Green and sweet.)

So start your zucchini bread with a pound of squash. Trim off the ends, cut into manageable pieces and grate using the large holes of a box grater. Placed the grated zucchini in a colander set over a bowl and toss in 2 tablespoons sugar. Allow to sit at least an hour--or overnight--then squeeze as much of the remaining liquid out of the zucchini as you can. Set aside.

Meanwhile, whisk together 2 cups all-purpose flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon salt. These are your dry ingredients for the bread.

In a separate bowl, beat two eggs. Add 1/4 cup plain yogurt, the juice from 1/2 lemon (strain out the seeds), 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar and 6 tablespoons melted butter. Combine well. These are your wet ingredients. Stir in the grated zucchini.

Add the wet ingredients to the flour mix and gently combine with a rubber spatula, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl. Pour the mix into a 9-inch by 5-inch loaf pan that has been greased and dusted with flour. (We sprayed with Baker's Joy).

Place the loaf pan in a 375-degree oven and bake for 55 minutes, or until the top is nicely browned and a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean. Invert the pan to remove the loaf and allow to cool on a wire rack.

Scraping batter into the load pan takes teamwork

Our kids loved the zucchini bread just as it was. In truth, even though the bread is flaked with zucchini, making it quite pretty, you can't really taste the vegetable. In an ideal world, you would serve the bread warm, slathered with cream cheese and washed down with a tall glass of cold buttermilk.

Kids Make Spinach and Mushroom Quiche

Filling quiche takes teamwork

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

How do you get kids to eat spinach? Make quiche!

Even I was surprised by how eagerly kids took to quiche when it was filled with spinach and mushrooms. Well, not every kid was overjoyed about the mushrooms. Or the spinach. Still, this quiche was a huge hit in our baking classes this week, leaving me to wonder why, in all the years I've been teaching food appreciation at a private elementary school here in the District of Columbia, quiche had never made it onto the menu before.

It's a great project for the kids, loaded with all kinds of kitchen skills to learn.

First, the crust. No store-bought crust for us. The trick to a flaky, delicious, made-from scratch pie crust is to keep the ingredients--especially the butter--very cold and add only enough water to get the flour to bind together. You don't want to add too much liquid, or work the dough at all. And ideally you'll want to start on this a day ahead, or at least several hours.

To make one 9-inch quiche, whisk together in a large mixing bowl 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon sugar. Add to that 1/2 cup (1 stick) chilled, unsalted butter cut into pieces. Using a pastry cutter or two knives (most people would do this pulsing in a food processor), cut the butter into the flour until the mix is granular, with a few pea-size pieces. The butter should be thoroughly incorporated into the flour, but you don't want to work it too much. In fact, when you roll the dough out later, you will see flecks of butter in the flour.

To this mix add 1 or 2 tablespoons ice water. That's right, we're dealing with tablespoons of water. Use a spatula to turn and press the flour to incorporate the water. Continue adding water a tablespoon at a time until a dough begins to form. It won't look like a dough yet, but you should be able to gather it with your hands and press it together. When it just holds together, you can stop adding water. Pour the dough onto a floured work surface, press it into a disk about 3/4-inch thick and wrap in plastic. Store the dough in the refrigerator several hours or overnight.

Pre-bake your crust by again turning the dough onto a floured work surface and rolling it out into a circle large enough to overlap the edges of a 9-inch pie plate. Now, wrap the dough around your rolling pin--dusted with flour--lift and transfer the dough to the pie plate. Press the dough into the bottom edge of the pan. Use a sharp knife to trim away the excess dough from the edges and crimp the edge with your fingers to make a decorative presentation. (We then lined the inside of the dough with aluminum foil and filled the bottom with ceramic pie weights--little marbles that hold the crust's shape while it's in the oven. Skip this if you don't have the pie weights.)

Do try this at home

Bake the dough in a 375-degree oven for 20 minutes, or until it is fairly firm to the touch and beginning to lightly brown. Remove and set on a wire rack to cool.

Meanwhile, for the custard, mix together in a large bowl 2 large eggs plus two yolks. (The kids always have a blast with this. We separate the eggs by cracking them into their cupped hands.) Add 1 cup milk, 1 cup heavy cream. Stir in 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon white pepper and a generous pinch nutmeg.

Use about 2 ounces each chopped frozen spinach (wrung dry), chopped mushrooms and grated Gruyere cheese. The original recipe I used as a guide for this called for a ridiculous amount of these ingredients. We just eyeballed it, adding only enough to make their presence known in the finished pie. Add too much, and you won't have room for the egg custard, which binds everything together. As it was, we had some of the egg mix left over.

Place the crust with the filling on a sheet pan and place this on the middle rack of the oven heated to 375 degrees. Only now do you pour the egg mix into the pie shell. You don't want to be to carrying a shell filled to the brim with egg liquid across the kitchen after all.

Bake for 38 minutes, or until the quiche is firm to the touch and cooked through. Allow to cool for a while--but do try serving it warm. It makes such an impression, fresh from the oven. Serve with your favorite salad, breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Kids Make Coconut Cake

It tastes as good as it looks

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

Coconut cake is a tradition in southern parts of the United States, but it also reminds us that somewhere in the world it's warmer, even when the snow flies here.

Traditional coconut cake calls for at least two layers. That presented a bit of a problem for our baking classes, since a whole cake made according to the original recipe would have been far more than we could have eaten. I talked about this with my wife, the baking expert in our family, and we decided to cut the recipe in half, but use a smaller, taller cake pan so that we could cut the finished cake in half and still end up with two layers. So instead of baking in two standard 9-inch pans, we chose a single 6-inch pan that's 3 inches tall.

The only problem with this approach is that it throws the cooking time off a bit. The taller cake takes somewhat longer to cook all the way through the middle. After a bit of experimentation, we came up with an ideal cooking time of 58 minutes in a 350-degree oven. I also placed a sheet of aluminum foil over the cake when there was about 10 minutes left on the clock to prevent the top from browning too much.

The result is just a teensy bit of crustiness around the edges of this cake. But no one notices when the cake is finally frosted. And the finished cake is just the right size for a class of 12 kids, and more than enough for the typical family. Otherwise, you can simply double this recipe and go back to making two layers in separate 9-inch pans.

Start by creaming together 1 1/2 sticks butter (16 tablespoons) and 1 cup sugar. Most people would do this in an electric mixer, but we do everything by hand. I make it easier by allowing the butter to come to room temperature and soften overnight. After incorporating the sugar into the butter, beat at least five minutes with the back of a wooden spoon or a firm rubber spatula until the mix is fluffy and lighter in color. Then, beat in 3 eggs, one at a time, as well as 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract and 3/4 teaspoon almond extract. At this point, the mix will look like scrambled eggs but smell more like marzipan.

Creaming butter and sugar

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, sift together 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour along with 1/2 teaspoon baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Fold about 1/2 cup of the flour mix into the batter, followed by 1/4 cup milk, then another 1/2 cup flour mix and another 1/4 cup milk. Finally, fold in the remaining flour mix until it is just incorporated. Stir in 2 ounces shredded, sweetened coconut.

Prepare your can pan (or pans) by greasing well with butter or oil spray. We also cut a piece of parchment paper to fit into the bottom of the pan and gave it a spray of oil as well. Scoop the batter into the pan and tap it hard on your work surface to smooth it out. Place in the middle of a 350-degree oven and bake 58 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Allow the cake to cool for 20 minutes in the pan. Then use a sharp knife to trace around the edge of the pan. Invert the pan to remove the cake and place it on a wire rack at least an hour to cool. If making a smaller, taller cake as we did, slice the cake cross-wise to create two layers.

Cutting parchment paper

For the frosting, cream together 1 stick butter and 1 8-ounce package cream cheese. As I did for the cake, I left the butter and cream cheese out overnight to soften. Creaming them together with a rubber spatula is easy at that point. Add 3/8 teaspoon vanilla extract and a dash of almost extract. Stir well, then work 1/2 pound sifted confectioner's sugar into the mix and stir until very smooth.

Spread frosting over one of the cake layers, top with the second layer and spread the frosting all over the top and sides. Sprinkle the top of the cake liberally with shredded coconut and pat more coconut along the sides.

Hard as this may be to believe, some kids don't like coconut. But the ones who do will love you for making this cake. (So will your adult friends.)

Kids Make Orange Poppyseed Cake

A delicious cake with seasonal fruit

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

What kind of fruit is seasonal in January?

That's the question I put to the kids in my food appreciation classes this week. The answer, of course, is citrus fruit. And where can you possibly grow fruit in the middle of winter? That's how cooking becomes a lesson about geography and climate. Toss in baking soda, baking powder and buttermilk and you also have a science experiment.

Everyone who tries this cake has the same reaction: "It's not too sweet." That's because the final flourish isn't a thick layer of sugary icing, but a drizzle of orange and lemon juice with just enough sugar added. It's an incredibly simple cake with just a few ingredients, but the poppy seeds also set it apart. The kids thought they looked like tiny blueberries, but then they remembered seeing them on bagels. Come to think of it, you don't see poppy seeds in many other foods.

Start by creaming 11 tablespoons room-temperature butter (1 stick plus 3 tablespoons) along with 1 cup sugar, the grated peel of 2 oranges, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and 1/4 teaspoon salt. We grated the oranges on our old-fashioned box grater. It doesn't take long at all. But you could do the same thing with a micro-plane. And while we did the creaming with the back of a wooden spoon, most people would opt for an electric mixer. Just keep beating until the mix turns a lighter color and becomes somewhat fluffy.

Grating orange peel the old-fashioned way

To the butter mix beat in 2 eggs, one at a time. Then add 2 tablespoons poppy seeds. Mix in 2/3 cup buttermilk, then gently add 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour. Stir, scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl, until the flour is completely incorporated.

Grease a 9-inch bunt pan (we used Baker's Joy) and pour in the batter. Actually, this batter doesn't really pour. We scraped it out with a rubber spatula, then smoothed the top even. Give the pan a good tap on your table top to help spread the batter around.

Bake in a 350-degree oven for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Invert the pan over a wire rack and let the cake cool.

To "ice" the cake, poke it all over with a toothpick. This will help the orange-lemon mix seep into the cake, rather than running off the sides. Then, in a measuring cup, squeeze out 1/4 quarter cup orange juice and the juice from 1/2 lemon. Add 3 tablespoons granulated sugar and stir until the sugar is complete dissolved. Carefully drizzle the liquid all over the top and sides of the cake. Slice and serve.

This cake would go perfectly with a cold winter's afternoon tea.

Kids Make Danish Pebber Nodder (Christmas Cookies)

A little taste of Denmark for Christmas

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

These may be the easiest cookies you'll ever make. In fact, you might say they're downright rudimentary. But one of my favorite spices--cardamom--gives these little shortbread nuggets--called pebber nodder in Denmark--a huge lift.

I was looking for something quick and easy for our last baking class before the holiday break. These cookies certainly filled the bill, but they looked a little too plain when they came out of the oven, so we dressed them up with a sprinkling of confectioner's sugar. They would work great in a selection of holiday cookies. And they get the kids in our food appreciation classes fully involved--creaming butter and sugar, mixing the dough, rolling it out, then taking turning cutting the dough into these little pillow shapes.

Start by creaming 1 cup (2 sticks) room temperature butter with 1 cup granulated sugar. Beat until the mixture lightens in color, then add 2 eggs, one at a time, beating until the eggs are completely incorporated. We do this by hand in a mixing bowl using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, but of course you can also do it at home with an electric mixer.

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, whisk together 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour and 1 teaspoon each ground cinnamon and ground cardamom.

Cutting a log of dough into pebber nodder

Add the flour mix to the butter mix and gently blend until you have a smooth dough. Divide the dough into six balls--you might want to roll them in a little flour. Then, on a floured work surface, roll out one of the balls into a long, thin log--about the thickness of a cigar. Cut the log into 3/4-inch lengths and place these on an ungreased baking sheet, leaving some room around each nugget. Place in a 375-degree oven and bake 14 minutes, or until the pebber nodder are firm, the undersides lightly browned. Use an inverted spatula to move them to wire racks to cool.

Working through each ball of dough individually, we filled a total of three baking sheets. In other words, this recipe makes a lot of pebber nodder. As they cooled, we transferred them to a basket where we dusted them with powdered sugar as you see in the picture above.

They are quite delicious. I'll bet you can't eat just one!

Kids Make Norwegian Lefse

Ricing potatoes for lefse

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

There could be no greater compliment for our Norwegian lefse than the one we got from our school nurse, Elizabeth, who said the lefse--or potato crepes--we made in our food appreciation classes tasted just like the ones her Norwegian grandmother used to serve.

Who knew? The Norwegians have their own version of a French crepe, except it's made with potatoes instead of flour and eggs. So instead pouring a thin crepe into a pan, you have to roll it out. Apparently the mark of a truly gifted lefse maker is rolling a perfectly round, paper-thin crepe. For this, Elizabether loaned us her grandmother's special wooden lefse roller. The roller is textured, leaving a distinct pattern on the finished crepes.

Otherwise, lefse are fairly easy. There are only only six ingredients: potatoes, heavy cream, butter, sugar, salt and all-purpose flour. The finished lefse are so simple, but delicious and comforting. Sprinkled with sugar or perhaps a dollop of fruit preserves, they make an easy dessert. Or you can stuff them with cheese for a savory snack or side dish.

Recipes vary, calling for more or less potato, more or less flour. I found that 2 1/2 pounds potatoes make plenty of lefse for our needs--about 15 large, finished crepes. We measured the flour loosely, eventually just taking handfuls from the bag until we had a manageable dough that wasn't sticky.

A day ahead, peel 2 1/2 pounds baking potatoes, cut into large dice and cover with plenty of water in a large saucepan. Cook until the potatoes are tender, then drain in a colander and pass the potatoes through a ricer into a large mixing bowl. Add 1/2 cup heavy cream and 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) melted butter, along with 1 teaspoon salt and 1 tablespoon granulated sugar (omit if making savory lefse). Mix well, cover and refrigerate overnight.

The next day you'll want to have some sort of griddle on hand along with butter to grease it. The Norwegians have a special electric griddle for this purpose. We made our lefse on our portable butane stove at the prep table so the kids could watch the crepes cook, using for a griddle our cast-iron Mexican comal, essentially a skillet with no sides to interfere with our efforts to get under the crepes and flip them with an inverted spatula.

To the prepared potato mix, add 1 1/2 cups flour and work it in with your hands. Continue adding flour until a soft dough forms that is no longer sticky. You may need another 1/2 cup flour or more for this. Dump the finished dough onto a floured work surface and roll into a log about 3 inches across. You will cut pieces from the log to form individual lefse.

Slice enough doughfrom the log to make a small fistful, roll it into a ball and, using your floured work surface and a rolling pin, roll the dough into a paper-thin, round (--ish!) crepe. Carefully work an inverted spatula under the crepe, then lift and move the disc to a buttered griddle over moderate heat. Within a minute or two, brown spots will appear on the underside of the lefse. Flip it with the spatula and cook another minute more. At this point you can sprinkle the lefse with sugar (or with grated cheese, if making savory lefse). Fold the lefse in half twice to make a triangle shape.

Finished lefse, hot off the griddle

You can line the finished lefse on a platter to cool. You need do nothing more at this point than serve them, or perhaps dress them with a dollop of lingonberry jam. For savory lefse, you might want to place them into a hot oven to melt the cheese inside.

Lefse are a simple peasant food that must have brought great comfort to Norwegian families during long. dark winters. Elizabeth also encouraged us not to worry too much about rolling our perfectly round ones. She said hers usually turn out more square.

KIds Make Norwegian Christmas Cookies

Wire release scoop for making cookies

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

What's special about Norwegian Christmas cookies?

They look like ordinary sugar cookies at first blush. But one bite is all you need to tell the difference: These cookies are chewy and full of almond, coconut and oats.

What? You say you've never heard of oats in Christmas cookies?

Our food appreciation classes have started their annual baking segment and with Christmas just around the corner I decided to lead off with these cookies so we could serve them at tonight's parents night dinner, which features a buffet of all the Scandinavian food we've been making lately.

As simple as the cookies look, they do require quite a bit of elbow grease if you're making them by hand. They're much easier if you're using an electric mixer. But in our classes, the mixer consists of a wooden spoon and kid muscle.

Start by placing 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted room-temperature butter in a large mixing bowl, alongwith 1 cup sugar and 7 ounces almond paste, grated. For the almond paste, we used the Odense brand, which comes wrapped in foil looking like a small sausage. It's somewhat soft, so grating it on a box grater takes a bit of work--great if your trying to keep a group of kids busy.

Mix until the ingredients are combined, then add 1 egg plus 1 egg white and beat on high for 3 minute. Picture a group of third-graders armed with a wooden spoon, imitating an electric mixer turned to "high."

Meanwhile, sift 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour with 1 teaspoon baking powder and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Add this, plus 1 cup rolled oats and 1/2 cup sweetened coconut flakes. Mix until well combined, then form into balls and place on greased cookie sheets.

Using a fine seive for sifting dry ingredients

To make balls out of the dough, we used a 1-inch metal scoop with a wire release. If you have one a little larger, so much the better. It all depends on how big you want your cookies (or what kind of scoop you have on hand). I suppose you could do this with a spoon if you didn't have a scoop with a wire release. Once the balls are on the cookie sheets, you want to pat them down a little, either with the palm of your hand, or using the flat end of a glass moistened and dusted with granulated sugar.

We then decorated our cookies alternately with red and green sugar sprinkles. Place them in a 350-degree oven and bake just until they begin to show a little brown around the edges, or 10-11 minutes. An inverted metal spatula works best to remove the cookies from the pan and place them on wire racks to cool.

Merry Christmas from Norway!

Kids Make Rutabaga Souffle

The lowly rutabaga, transformed

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

This was the last week in Scandinavia for my food appreciation classes on our virtual world culinary tour. We couldn't very well leave without sampling one of the Nordic region's favorite vegetables: rutabaga.

I know what you're thinking: Rutabaga! Yuck! This underground cousin of cabbage and kale is so closely associated with Swedish tastes that it's often called "swede." I happen to like it--especially home-grown rutabaga--but a survey of rutabaga recipes online left me cold. I wanted the kids to try something a little more inspiring than the usual root vegetable casserole or rutabaga-potato mash.

Then I remembered one of our favorite preparations, from an old Gourmet magazine article: rutabaga souffle. This 20-year-old article that I've saved in my recipe files describes several ways to elevate the lowly rutabaga into something sublime. Rutabaga souffle makes an elegant--and delicious--side dish.

Truly, you can turn almost anything into a souffle. It's just a matter of transforming your base ingredient into something you can fold into egg whites. The basic steps are cooking the rutabaga and grinding it into a paste; mixing that into a sauce made with a basic roux and some of the rutabaga cooking liquid; flavoring with cheddar cheese and fortifying with egg yolks; then finally folding the mix into egg whites and baking in the oven.

When you break it down into these steps, it's really not so complicated. But it is a bit of a workout in a classroom situation, especially if you have to run back and forth from the prep table where the kids are working and the stove at the other end of the room. That's why I've started using my portable butane burner more and more for our classes: I can cook right on the prep table where the kids can see what's happening. Not only can they see what's in the pot, but they can take turns stirring, something they love to do.

There's plenty for the kids to do to make this souffle. They get to peel the rutabaga. (Most had no idea what it was, but several surprisingly guessed the connection with cabbage from the aroma.) There's the grinding of the cooked rutabaga in a food mill, the cracking and separating of eggs (always fun, because they get to separate eggs in their bare hands). There's the stirring of the roux and the mixing of the sauce, the beating of the egg whites and the folding of the final ingredients. And seeing the finished souffle emerge from the oven with its glorious brown top is a show-stopper.

Here's how to do it. First, peel 1 pound of rutabaga and cut into 1-inch cubes. Cover these with water in a saucepan, season liberally with salt and cook, covered, until the rutabaga is quite soft, about 30 minutes. Drain the rutabaga but reserve the cooking liquid.

Meanwhile, in a separate saucepan start a roux by melting 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter. Add 1/4 all-purpose flour, stir and cook over moderate heat, stirring continuously, for a couple of minutes. You don't want to brown the flour, just cook it a thoroughly. Add 1 1/2 cups of the rutabaga cooking liquid and continue stirring. You might want to raise the heat at this point as flour won't fully thicken until it reaches the boiling point.

After two or three minutes, you will have a thick sauce. You can now add 6 ounces grated cheddar cheese. (My wife, the professional cook, suggests half cheddar and half Gruyere for more depth of flavor). Stir until the cheese has melted and is completely incorporated. Remove the pan from the heat and add your cooked rutabaga ground fine either in a food processor or in a food mill. We do everything by hand in our classes--no electric gadgets--so we used a food mill for this. Just as well, as it gives the kids something to do with an appliance they find utterly fascinating.

Rutabaga in the food mill

Separate 6 eggs. Stir the yolks into the rutabaga mix. In a large mixing bowl, beat the egg white to stiff peaks. You can add 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar to the whites if you have it. This chemical--potassium hydrogen tartrate--is an acid salt that helps give egg whites more volume and stiffness. Again, we do the beating by hand with a wire whisk, but feel free to use an electric mixer. Just don't go overboard or your stiff peaks will start to get grainy.

Stir about 1/4 of the whites into the rutabaga mix, then pour the mix into the bowl with the beaten whites and gently fold everything together with a rubber spatula. Folding is an acquired skill in our classes. We monitor the kids closely so they are stirring or beating the mix. You're trying to maintain the air in the egg whites--that's where "souffle" gets its name, from the French word for "breathe."

When everything is incorporated, pour the mix into a greased, standard-size souffle bowl fitted with an aluminum collar, also greased. (You can grease with butter. We used a cooking spray.) This collar is made from a sheet of aluminum foil cut large enough to completely encircle the souffle bowl. You can fasten it in place with a piece of butcher's twine, but I found it just as easy (and more convenient) to just hold the two ends of the foil together with a large paper clip. The idea is to contain the souffle when it rises up over the top of the souffle bowl. You'll see: the final mix will come up to the top of the bowl, and if you've done your job well with those egg whites, it will rise from there.

Place the bowl on a baking sheet and then in a 400-degree oven for about 60 minutes, or until the top is deep golden brown and the souffle firm. Don't worry--souffles are not all that fragile. It won't collapse if you open the oven door to take a peak. You'll know it's done when the souffle is puffed and no longer sloshing around in the bowl.

To serve, dig a spoon through the crust all the way to the bottom of the dish. You want everyone to see some of that glorious crust on their plate.

As for the seasoning of your souffle, be your own judge. It does pick up quite a bit of salt from the rutabaga cooking liquid and from the cheese. You can add more when you are mixing the base ingredients. But taste it first.

This is one lesson that left me exhausted, but the kids stayed busy and they had a great time. In fact, I would rate this as one of our all-time best cooking lessons.

Kids Make Poached Salmon with Dill Sauce and Cucumber Salad

No skimping on the dill

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

It's not always easy getting kids to eat fish. Some automatically gag at the very aroma of seafood--even when it doesn't smell at all. But the kids in my food appreciation classes adored the poached salmon we made this week, especially when it was smothered in a creamy dill sauce. (Some requested it without the sauce, and I have to admit the really little kids--pre-K and Kindergarteners, were not entirely enthusiastic.)

We're still in Scandinavia and I was inspired by a recent "Nordic Day" in D.C. Public Schools sponsored by various embassies. The Norwegian embassy, for instance, flew in 10,000 pounds of salmon for the event. Salmon and dill go naturally together, as do cucumber and dill, completing our meal with a classic Scandinavian salad.

Poaching is one of my favorite cooking methods for fish. It's so gentle and results in the most tender and moist salmon with the essential flavor of the fish intact. Plus, we can easily set up a skillet with poaching liquid on our portable gas burner so that the children can actually watch the fish cook in front of them on our prep table.

Salmon also is rich in heart-health Omega-3 fatty acids.

But you may want to start with the cucumber salad. The flavors need time to meld, and you can easily make it hours or even a day ahead and refrigerate it. Peel three large cucumbers, then slice them in half lengthwise. Use a teaspoon (or even better, a grapefruit spoon) to scoop out the seeds. Cut the cucumbers into thin crescents and toss these with 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt in a colander. Set the colander in a pan and allow the cucumbers to drain for 1 or 2 hours. Use your hands to squeeze more liquid out of the cucumbers.

In a mixing bowl, combine 1/3 cup white vinegar, 2 tablespoons cider vineagar and granulated sugar to taste (about 1/4 cup). The finished dressing should be sweet and sour. Stir until the sugar is dissolved, then add 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill. Toss the cucumbers in the dressing and serve.

Likewise, make the dill sauce ahead so the flavors have a chance to develop. It's easy. Simply mix together 1/4 cup mayonnaise, 1/4 cup sour cream, 2 scallions, thinly sliced, the juice from 1/2 lemon, 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill and salt and pepper to taste. You can keep it in the fridge until it's needed.

To make the poaching liquid for the salmon, peel 1/2 onion and cut into thin slices. Toss this into a medium saucepan along with 1 small carrot, peeled and sliced into thin rounds, 1 small celery stalk, thinly sliced, 4 sprigs thyme, 2 sprigs parsley, 1 generous piece lemon peel and 3/4 teaspoon salt. Cover this with 5 cups water, bring almost to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes. Strain the liquid and discard the vegetables. (You can use 3/4 cups dry white wine, such as Sauvignon Blanc, and reduce the amount of water, but I chose not to bring wine to school.)

To poach the salmon, use individual 6-ounce fillets. If possible, choose wild-caught Alaska salmon rather than farmed salmon. For environmental reasons, ocean scientists continue to discourage the consumption of farmed salmon. But most salmon sold in stores--typically labeled "Atlantic salmon"--is farmed. To find wild caught salmon, you must seek it out. It usually comes from Alaska.

Place the fillets in a heavy skillet and cover with the finished poaching liquid. Bring the liquid almost to a boil (200 degrees, as measured with an instant-read thermometer), then reduce heat and simmer until the fish is just cooked through.

This is always the hardest part poaching fish--deciding when it's done. I've found the easiest way is to insert the point of paring knife into the middle of a fillet at its thicket point. Wait 5 seconds, then press the knife tip to your lower lip. It should feel very warm, but not hot.

Use a spatula to remove the fish immediately from the pan. You can serve it warm, or chilled. with a big dollop of dill sauce and cucumber salad on the side.

Kids Make Swedish Split Pea Soup and Pancakes

Sour cream of lingonberry jam on your pancake?

By Ed Bruske

aka The Slow Cook

If it's Thursday, it must be split pea soup and pancakes with lingonberry jam. At least that's the custom in Sweden where our food appreciation classes happen to be visiting on their virtual world culinary tour.

Concidentally, this was happening at the same time D.C. Public Schools were celebrating Nordic day, with traditional foods being supplied by the embassies of Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.

The split pea soup I remember from childhood was thick as mud and full of little bits of gelatinous fat from the ham bone that was cooked in it. The soup we made is over-the-top delicious. Still, it's not especially pretty, except for the bits of carrot (not fat) swimming around in it, and getting the kids to eat it takes a bit of cajoling. But once they find out how good it tastes, they come back for more. And it's such an inexpensive way to make a family meal, even if you just serve bread on the side instead of the pancakes.

Why pancakes with split pea soup? Frankly, I don't know. I guess you'd have to ask the Swedes. It's a bit like dessert--especially if your stuff your pancake with jam. The pancakes are bit more like eggy crepes than the thick, floury pancakes we're used to here. Personally, I like the combination of sour cream and lingonberry jam on mine.

The Swedes are especially proud of their berries, which thrive during the long, northerly days in summer. Lingonberries are a bit tart, like cranberries, which makes for an interesting jam. I was surprised to find it at our local Harris Teeter's. But then my wife brought some home from a shopping trip to Ikea, the Swedish furnishings store, and it was $2 cheaper. It's rather a long way to drive for jam, though.

Make the soup a day ahead so the flavors have a chance to develop. Start by place 1 pound dried yellow peas (we got ours from the bulk section at Whole Foods), 2 onions peeled and finely chopped and 2 carrots peeled and finely chopped in a stock pot and cover with 8 cups water. Add 1 onion studded with two cloves and 2 ham hocks. Bring to a boil, then cover, reduce heat and cook slowly for 3 hours. Remove the onion with cloves and the ham hocks. If there's any meat on the hocks, you can chop it up and add it to the soup if you like. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

About 30 minutes before serving, bring the soup back to a simmer and stir in 1 teaspoon dried thyme leaves and 1 teaspoon ground ginger.

The pancakes can also be made ahead and held warm in the oven. This recipe makes about 2 dozen, each about 4 inches across. You can make the batter in a blender or a food processor, but we don't use electric gadgets in our classes. We simply whisked it together by hand. I think the kids get a better feel for the ingredients and the food preparation process working this way.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk until frothy three eggs. Mix in 1 1/2 cups milk, then add 1 cup flour, 1 tablespoon granulated sugar and finally 3 tablespoons melted butter. Continue whisking vigorously until the batter is perfectly smooth, without and lumps.

Over moderate heat, melt some butter in a small, well-cured or non-stick skillet. Pour in some pancake batter. You can make the pancakes as small or as large as you like. When the underside has lightly browned and the top is nearly dry, use an inverted spatula to flip the pancake onto the other side. Cook for about 30 seconds and remove. Repeat this process until all of the batter has been used.

Serve with sour cream and lingonberry jam.