What’s Cookin’ in Your Neighborhood: Community Kitchens
The participants of this Community Kitchen (minus one).
Five participants, three hours, one kitchen.
Surprisingly, this is not the start of a new reality cooking game show; this is the New Westminster Community Kitchen program. The program, supported by New West non-profit organization Cameray Child and Family Services, has been running out of churches in the city for five years. Their main goal is to promote healthy, low cost, eating by teaching participants how to make delicious and nutritious meals.
I stopped by one of the by-monthly Community Kitchens, at Shiloh 6th Ave Church, this Tuesday to see what they were all about. Each Kitchen is about three hours long, with number of participants varying from three to ten. There are four recipes made, under the direction of one program coordinator, with the participants broken up into groups, helping each other make something new.
This time they were making Peach Jam, Hyson Salmon, Pineapple Carrots and a Summer Fruit dessert. As much as I wanted to fully photo-document all of the recipes, it was a bit challenging to be in four places at once, so I got snippets of each one. The recipes are available at the end of the post, as well as information about how you can get involved with the Kitchens.
The four stations:
Station 1: Pineapple Carrots
Station 2: Summer Fruit Dessert
Station 3: Salmon
Station 4: Peach Jam
The process:
Grating Carrots
- Blueberries and Peaches
Making the sauce for the salmon
Pealing Peaches
The end result: Unfortunately, I missed getting a finished picture of the dessert. When completely done, the fruit mixture sits on a tasty little sponge cake. So good!
Just finishing off cooking the carrots in the pineapple juice and ginger.
Yummy!
There were 12 of these tasty pots of jam
Recipes:
Pineapple Ginger Carrots
- 2 tbsp. Butter
- 1/2 tbsp. grated Ginger
- 1 bag of carrots
- 1 cup of Pineapple Juice
- Melt butter in pan, add ginger, heat and stir for about 2 minutes.
- Add carrots and sprinkle with salt and pepper, stir until coated.
- Add in pineapple juice, stir, cook covered for about 8 minutes (until carrots are tender and crisp)
- Remove carrots from juice, continue cooking juice until liquid is evaporated. But carrots back in pan and stir until carrots are glazed.
- 2 lbs. fresh Salmon Steaks or Fillets
- juice of 1 Lemon
- 1 clove of Garlic
- 1 cup Hoisin Sauce
- 2 Scallions, chopped
- Place Salmon on a broiling pan and squeeze lemon on top.
- Add garlic to Hoisin sauce and spread evenly over salmon
- Broil for 10 – 15 minutes (check with fork to see when fish is cooked — should be flaky)
- Place on serving dish. Garnish with chopped scallions and serve with rice and a steamed veggie.
- 5 cups of chopped Peaches
- 2 tbsp. of Lemon Juice
- 3 1/2 cups of white sugar
- 1 box of Certo Light Pectin Crystals
- In a large sauce pan stir together prepared fruit, and lemon juice. Combine Certo Crystals with 1/4 cup of sugar. Add to prepared fruit.
- Bring to boil over high heat.
- Add the rest of the sugar.
- Return to a hard boil for 1 minute.
- Remove from heat. Stir and skim for 5 minutes to prevent floating fruit. Pour into warm sterilized jars to 1/4 inch from rim. Cover with lids and screw rings on tightly.
- Fresh Fruit (Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, peaches)
- Sponge Cakes or Angel Food Cake
- 1 can of Ambrosia Custard
- Line bowl with prepackaged sponge cakes or angel food cake.
- Toss some of the fresh fruit, just lining the bottom and sides.
- Pour in can of Ambrosia Custard.
- Fill the rest of the bowl with the rest of the fresh fruit. Cover and refrigerate for 1/2 an hour to an hour to chill. Serve.
For more information about the Community Kitchens please contact the program coordinator Patricia Davison @ 604-763-1358 or pmdavison@telus.net
Check out this video as well! Community Kitchen Video
