On November 12 a group of twelve teens completed the six-week Cooking Matters for Teens program. The group met every Wednesday for six weeks to learn about making nutritious meal choices and how to prepare healthy recipes. All of the participants were teens who are in foster care and who will soon be aging out of the system. Their case managers were eager for them to learn skills to help them make healthy choices once they are living on their own.

Each session of the course included an hour-long nutrition lesson followed by an hour-long cooking lesson in which the participants worked together to prepare 3-4 recipes. At the end of the course participants received a certificate, a book with nutrition information and recipes, and prizes like oven mitts and aprons.

Teens check a recipe while making chocolate cake

Credit for the success of this course goes to Master Food Volunteer Nancy Broff. Nancy heard about a similar course that we did two years ago and wanted to repeat it. She contacted the woman in charge of educational programs for foster care teens at Arlington County’s Department of Human Services and told her that she was interested in organizing this course. After learning that there was no money available through either the county or Extension to purchase food for the classes she solicited donations from six different grocery stores so that there would be enough food for each class. Nancy approached the stores on her own and drove to them each week to pick up the ingredients. She organized the lesson plans, led the instruction, selected recipes to prepare, and arranged all the details for the course. The course would not have happened without Nancy’s dedication and commitment.

Participants indicated that the course taught them a great deal. One teen commented: “I learned to be more healthy in my eating habits and I learned a lot of information that was useful.” Another said “This class has taught me basics about cooking and what to know about food. I learned how to cook some foods and how to make healthier meals.”

Chopping garlic for a sauteed green bean recipe

Many other Master Food Volunteers came out to help with the cooking and instruction each week. Thanks to Brigitte Coulton, Maiko Daizen, Andrea Durkin, Barbara Gomez, Jeanne Lewis, Katie Potestio, Aisha Salazar, and Sharon Simkin for all of their support. Thanks also to Share Our Strength, creator of the Cooking Matters program and provider of the books used in the course.

Last week a group of ten teens in the Arlington foster care system attended a week-long Cooking Matters for Teens course taught by program assistant Ellen Mathis and extension agent Jennifer Abel. Each day participants learned about healthy eating and prepared two-three recipes. Healthy recipe selections included turkey tacos, sweet potato fries, baked mozzarella sticks, fruit salad, mango salsa, fruit and yogurt parfaits with homemade granola, and many others. On the last day of the course, the teens had honed their cooking skills to such a degree that they were divided into teams with a captain for each team and assigned one of three recipes to prepare on their own with minimal guidance from the instructors. Teams prepared baked French fires, flaked baked chicken, and fruit smoothies.

Upon completion all participants received a textbook with recipes, certificate, and aprons and potholders. The teens expressed a great deal of enthusiasm for the course and said that it inspired them to do more cooking on their own and for their families. One teen even said that she wants to volunteer with VCE at other nutrition classes in the fall.

The Cooking Matters program was created Share Our Strength, a national anti-hunger organization, and provides curricula and resources for healthy cooking and nutrition programs for kids, adults, teens, families, and child care providers.

A Cooking Matters participant prepares a baked chicken recipe.