Cooking Up a Storm

   Welcome to the first week of 4-H Summer Fun!  This is our 4-H Summer camping program that includes neat opportunities for youth of all ages.  This week we are working with out 9-13 year olds as part of Jr. Chef Day Camp.  Our 12 campers met for the first time today and had an absolute blast.

We started the day by figuring out our rules and what we could all live by.  So far so good, everyone has agreed to be cautious in the kitchen and respectful of each other and those around us all the time.  We split into two groups and one went into the kitchen to learn how to make some breakfast items while the other group worked on a signature project.  

  Our group in the kitchen worked on chopping up items for our egg muffins (they had bacon, sausage, onions, green peppers, and spinach to choose from) and pancakes.  YUM!  The group learned knife skills, kitchen safety, and proper measuring.  After a little more than an hour working on these items it was time to take a break and have snack together,  After we switched and our project folks went to the kitchen while our other group worked on their project.

    Our project this week is charcuterie boards.  We are making our very own and they are going to be fabulous.  We started by sanding our boards and then creating our own designs.  We used scorch markers and a heat gun to make it look like the designs were wood burned into our boards.  That's just the beginning...we will be working on these during the week to make them fabulous!

  We took a break for brunch and enjoyed all the delectable things we made in the kitchen.  We even prepped strawberries and blueberries for the pancakes and other toppings.  Believe it or not we devoured every last morsel of the items we made and had nothing left to share with the staff.

  After a little digestion time we split back up and one group headed to the kitchen to work on chocolate chip muffins while the other group worked on their boards and then had some fun building team building skills with games.  After a brief break (and snack) we switched groups again and one worked on blueberry muffins while the other group worked on their boards and team building games.

  At the end of the day we all brought home muffins, and new skills, that we hope to share with our families soon.  Tomorrow we are looking forward to our sweet field trip. 

To see all of our fun from today check out all of our photos.