Les Petits Chefs Cook the Books: Supergrains (and the 10 Days, 10 Grains Supergrains challenge for Random House Canada)

Welcome back to Les Petits Chefs. This term, we’re “cooking the books” 😉 Yes, given my stance on why kids don’t need their own cookbooks and why I believe they can cook most anything from any cookbook given the right guidance and hot on the heels of their foray into recipes from The Smitten Kitchen and Dorie Greenspan, I felt that a term of working through some of my favourite cookbook authors with the boys was called for. We have a smaller group of boys for this very short term so I figured we could handle the challenge!

This week, I just happened to have been working on some recipes from Supergrains by Chrissy Freer (a project for Crave by Random House Canada, more on that later…) and came across a recipe I thought *I* would love to try (hey, it’s my prerogative to pick recipes I might like, no?) – Buckwheat, Corn and Chive Fritters with Crisp Bacon (and hey, there was some zucchini hiding in there too!). The boys seemed excited, especially about the bacon – a cunning ploy to make them not focus as much on the ingredients I wasn’t sure about (zucchini!).

This term I am going to try experimenting with the boys working in groups and each group preparing a recipe’s worth, as opposed to giving each boy one ingredient to work with for the whole group. It was a little bit hairy (read, messy) yesterday but I liked the rhythm of this and the boys seemed to take it in their stride.

We didn’t have enough graters for the zucchini and the cheese so some of the boys got to practice their dicing skills.

I love that they just got on with their tasks, working pretty cooperatively in their little teams to get this done in under an hour.

Yes, as noted by one Petit Chef, the buckwheat does not make the batter a very attractive colour.  But once they are fried, they turn beautiful and golden.

You’ve never seen so much fun in one room as a bunch of boys frying fritters.  Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, one of the Petits Chefs mums lent a hand by frying the bacon (because otherwise there would have been arguments about who was frying that – it was definitely the hot ticket item of the day!). Thanks Daniela 🙂

And one Petit Chef had the idea to fry his group’s fritters in bacon fat. The boys were positively drooling!

And the result of all this (apart from hair not-so-delicately perfumed with bacon)?

Yes, I made them take the “green stuff” (baby spinach). I am sure most of them probably didn’t eat it but it looked pretty and it was one of the serving suggestions in the book. I’d say this was a hit Many of my new Petits Chefs told me they didn’t eat a lot of the fritters but they did try them. This is all I ask 🙂 Others’ fritters didn’t even make it home. So I’d say this was a success. Bonus? Veggie quotient!!! Plus a supergrain (buckwheat!).

About those Supergrains and the 10 Days, 10 Grains challenge…  Crave by Ransom House challenged staff and bloggers to work with some of the “supergrains” featured in Chrissy Freer’s newly-launched book and I gladly accepted. It’s one of my goals this year to branch out and try some different grains and also, to learn to incorporate more gluten-free cooking and treats into my repertoire (I have a couple of colleagues who do not eat gluten so it’s nice to include them when I bring in treats!) so I was happy to have a starting point with this book and challenge.

I chose to work with buckwheat because, apart from knowing it under the guide of a galette au sarrasin (buckwheat crepes, sweet and savoury), I hadn’t really had much experience working with it. I chose a savoury noodle bowl recipe and homemade granola bars…

You can read all about my experience working with buckwheat over on the Crave by Random House blog.

Check out Supergrains on Amazon or Amazon Canada. Or for free worldwide shipping, buy from The Book Depository.

And don’t forget to check in next week to see what book Les Petits Chefs cook from next….

Disclosure: I was provided with a copy of Supergrains by Random House Canada for the purpose of taking part in the 10 Days, 10 Grains Challenge. I was not asked, nor compensated, to write this post and all opinions are my own.