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Kids Creole Cooking

Creole cuisine is a style of cooking that originated in Louisiana and is best known for its emphasis on blending the culinary influences of African, French, Spanish, American Indian, German and Italian cuisines. While this type of food is enjoyed by adults all over the world, it's also a great way to sneak in some extra vegetables for picky kids.

If you're looking for fun cooking activities that your kids will enjoy, give them a taste of healthy soul food here at Prep Kitchen Essentials. Some of our most popular cooking classes give kids a glimpse into a different culture by teaching them how to make Creole cuisine. While the list of recipes that made Louisiana cuisine famous in its own right is endless, there are some fan favorites that we focus on when teaching kids how to make precious cuisines.

Kids Creole Cooking - Let's Make Creole Food!

The Creole culture is known for its resourceful people - and you'd be surprised what a population of people used to working with very little can create using just a few ingredients. Traditional recipes including ingredients like onion, garlic, shrimp, and green beans can be used to create delicious cuisine that the entire family is sure to enjoy. Foods like popcorn shrimp, gulf shrimp etouffee , and spicy red beans and rice are Creole favorites

What Is Creole Food?

What is Creole cooking? Louisiana Creole cuisine is a hybrid style of cooking originating in southern Louisiana, United States, that combines French, West African, Spanish, Indian, and other regional influences, along with influences from the wider regional cuisine of the Southwestern United States. It differs from its traditional cousin Cajun cooking in the sense that it incorporates a greater number of regional flavors and influences, frequently by substituting more "French-style" ingredients for "American" ones.

Today there is a relatively wide variation in recipes among the different regions of the United States, where the demand for Creole meals is high. In addition to New Orleans, many cities like Austin, Houston, Atlanta, Memphis, and St. Louis (St. Louis style) have also become major markets for Creole food. Many restaurants in these cities have emerged which specialize in this style of cuisine. However, it is now slowly making its way inland to areas in the northeast where availability and affordable ingredients are better. As a result, there is now a new focus on regional cooking, with restaurants specializing in a particular region creating unique dishes.

How Is Creole Food Different From Cajun Food?

Creole recipes are characterized by their heavy usage of cream, butter, eggs, spices, green bell pepper, onion, and carrots; they are typically rich in vegetables, meats, and seafood. Though the term is sometimes used to describe any kind of food prepared in the manner described above (sometimes even containing white rice instead of white flour or pasta), this term is most commonly used to refer to certain special dishes. For example, one of the biggest differences between Cajun and Creole cooking is the heavy use of cream in their recipes; this is both a result of different regional styles and an attempt to preserve the traditional ways in which these regions began their diets. Creole recipes tend to be higher in fat and lower in carbohydrates than those of Cajun cuisine.

Red Beans and Rice

From saveur.com

Ingredients:

1⁄4 cup canola oil

8 cloves garlic, finely chopped

6 ribs celery, finely chopped

2 large yellow onions, finely chopped

2 green bell peppers, stemmed, seeded, and finely chopped

Kosher salt, to taste

1 tbsp. ground white pepper

1 tbsp. dried thyme

2 tsp. dried oregano

1 1⁄2 tsp. cayenne

1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

1 lb. dried kidney beans, soaked overnight

4 bay leaves

2 smoked ham hocks

1 tbsp. hot sauce, such as Tabasco

Cooked white rice, for serving

Thinly sliced scallions, to garnish

Instructions

Heat oil in an 8-qt. Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add garlic, celery, onions, and peppers, season with salt, and cook, stirring, until soft, about 12 minutes. Add white pepper, thyme, oregano, cayenne, and black pepper, and stir until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Add beans, bay leaves, ham hocks, and 6 cups water, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, and cook, covered, until beans and ham hock are tender, about 2 hours. Remove hocks from pot, remove and discard bones and skin, and finely chop meat; return to pot along with hot sauce, and stir until combined. Serve over rice in bowls and sprinkle with scallions.

Buttermilk Beignets

via epicurious.com

YIELD Makes about 4 dozen beignets

INGREDIENTS:

3/4 cup whole milk

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

4 teaspoons active dry yeast

2 1/2 tablespoons sugar

3 1/2 cups bread flour plus extra for flouring work surface

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

Peanut oil for frying

Confectioners' sugar for serving, as much as you think you'll need—then double that!

PREPARATION

Heat the milk in a small saucepan over medium-high heat until small bubbles form at the surface. Remove from the heat, add the buttermilk, and then pour into a stand mixer bowl. Whisk in the yeast and the sugar and set aside for 5 minutes. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt, and mix on low speed, using a dough hook, until the dry ingredients are moistened, 3 to 4 minutes. Increase the mixer speed to medium and continue mixing until the dough forms a loose ball and is still quite wet and tacky, 1 to 2 minutes longer. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set the dough aside in a draft-free spot for 1 hour.

Pour enough peanut oil into a large pot to fill it to a depth of 3 inches and bring to a temperature of 375°F over medium heat (this will take about 20 minutes). Line a plate with paper towels and set aside.

Lightly flour your work surface and turn the dough out on it. Sprinkle the top of the dough with flour, gently press to flatten, fold it in half, and gently tuck the ends under to create a rough-shaped round. Dust again and roll the dough out into a ½-inch- to ¹/³ -inch-thick circle. Let the dough rest for 1 minute before using a chef's knife, a bench knife, or a pizza wheel to cut the dough into 1 1/2-inch squares (you should get about 48).

Gently stretch a beignet lengthwise and carefully drop it into the oil. Add a few beignets (don't overcrowd them, otherwise the oil will cool down and the beignets will soak up oil and be greasy) and fry until puffed and golden brown, turning them often with a slotted spoon, for 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to the prepared plate to drain while you cook the rest. Serve while still warm, buried under a mound of confectioners' sugar, with hot coffee on the side.

Make ahead:

The beignet dough can be made up to 8 hours in advance of frying. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and spray it with nonstick cooking spray. After cutting the dough, place the beignets on the paper and place another greased sheet of parchment paper, sprayed-side down, on top. Wrap the entire baking sheet with plastic wrap and refrigerate. The beignets can be fried straight from the refrigerator.

The "Holy Trinity": A Creole Version Of A French Mirepoix

via louisianatravel.com

Ingredients:

approximately 2-3 tbsp. pan drippings, butter or vegetable cooking oil (adjust amount as needed to ensure veggies do not stick)

green bell pepper

onion

celery

Method of Preparation:

Using the same pan drippings from the meat you may have just browned for your dish — or starting with a healthy splash of oil, butter or (gasp!) bacon grease, if you don’t have pan drippings — heat the fat in a skillet over medium heat.

Add finely chopped green bell pepper, celery and onion to your pan in a 1:1:1 ratio, or use the amounts favored by many local chefs of 2 cups onion to 1 ½ cup celery to 1 ¼ cup green pepper.

Sauté the mixture, stirring just enough to prevent burning, until the vegetables start to soften and release their moisture, forming a glaze-like liquid in the pan. Reduce heat to low and continue cooking slowly, stirring often, until the vegetables are fully caramelized and darker in color.

Contact Us Today!

Prep Kitchen Essentials is the premier choice for fun cooking activities that the whole family can enjoy. Contact us today!

source https://www.prepkitchenessentials.com/blog/kids-creole-cooking

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Virtual Activities Austin TX

Team Virtual Online Activities and Events

Many of these activities and exercises are designed to help your team bond in a work-friendly manner outside the workplace! We have a variety of activities available for your corporate team to enjoy.

Moreover, once you get into the actual activities, you’re enabling your employees to learn cooperative and corporately valued skills relating to their ability to work more efficiently as a team. In the long run, having your team of employees participate within activities at our company will allow your company to solve problems as a team. Call Prep Kitchen Essentials for more information today.

Prep Kitchen Essentials 12207 Seal Beach Blvd, Seal Beach, CA – 90740, United States hello@prepkitchenessentials.com (562) 430-1217

Virtual Events Are Still In-Person Events

Prep Kitchen Essentials provides Austin, TX, with team virtual online activities

With the pandemic still chugging along at full force over a year after being discovered in the United States, we understand some people aren’t comfortable congregating with others in person.

If someone on your team happens to be immunocompromised or otherwise especially vulnerable to the complications of COVID-19, we can accommodate everybody just the same. We believe that virtual events are still in-person events, and we never have a shortage of virtual activities available to do at home.

Virtual activities offered by our company include online culinary competitions and cooking classes designed to build your team’s collaborative skill through offering satisfying rewards for everyday activities. Videos of the activities can be found on our website if you’re a manager trying to get a closer look at the types of team building activities offered here.

Activities in a virtual format work best for those who aren’t comfortable with gathering in-person, but they feel just like the in-person cooking classes and culinary competitions we offer in our top-tiered kitchens. Therefore, they work in the same way to build teamwork skills among your employees.

Virtual Classes and Tastings

Our virtual classes and wine tastings are the perfect getaway from your usual work environment. People who love to eat are the best people, while food and drink brings like souls together. Here at Prep Kitchen Essentials, we help your team enjoy time spent together while promoting the concept of corporate bonding through both virtual and in-person events.

Contact Us Today!

Activities offered in a virtual format are just as effective as in-person events for building collaborative skills among your corporate team and increasing workplace efficiency as a direct result. While we offer many types of team building activities at our company, we’re also open to hearing your ideas for future team-building activities!

If you have any questions for our company, feel free to contact us using the information listed above or through the short contact form on our website.

Also offering these services in Austin, TX:

Cooking Classes - Austin, TX

Virtual Team Building - Austin, TX