We were thrilled to welcome Emily Richards into the Petits Chefs kitchen lab again this week. She is a highly experienced Professional Home Economist with over 15 years experience in the food world. If you were a regular viewer of Canadian Living Cooks on Food Network. you might recognise Emily!
It’s always wonderful to have chefs who come back time and time again to work with the Petits Chefs and Emily is one of those. This week was her seventh time working with the boys! She’s taught them how to make gnocchi from scratch, strawberry and rhubarb pies, sticky date pudding, how to grind meat and make their own sausages, how to bake hors d’oeuvres for the holidays and last December, they made gnocchi from Emily’s latest book, Per la Famiglia.
For this week’s session, Emily chose to make pasta shells stuffed with ricotta and spinach (a surefire way to get kids to eat veggies is to cook them with pasta and cheese and have them help you make the dish!). There was some impressive chopping action as the boys prepped the filling…
The filling was easy to prepare (especially with so many hands helping!)
A touch of pepper here….
Adding the greens…
And stirring well…
Then we got to the fun part…
Et voilà:
The next time you need a giant pan of pasta shells stuffed, I know just the group of boys to help!
And all ready for the oven!
The eternal question of “What will be do while it bakes?” was answered by Emily who showed the boys how to make fresh ricotta from a few simple products – right before their very eyes…
The boys watched as the cream transformed into fresh ricotta – and then got to taste! I was so interested to watch this as many, many of them couldn’t wait to taste this. As a child, I had a bit of an aversion to warm cream and milk products (still do) so I was impressed that so many of them were do gung-ho about tasting!
Meanwhile in the oven:
Whoah, right? Doesn’t this look amazing?
I actually got to taste some leftovers the next day for my lunch and it was so very good. Reminded me that I need to make these more often – so easy and such a great meal for a chilly day! Get Emily’s recipe for the ricotta and spinach filling here.
We’re so grateful to Emily, who is in the middle of a very busy time (if you’re in the food business, December is the equivalent to a teacher’s June!) for taking the time to come to work with the boys. It’s always great when they boys learn a recipe from another culture with an expert to guide them! Check out what Emily’s up to by visiting her website or check out her blog and follow her on Twitter @ERiscooking.
Buy Emily’s latest book Per la famiglia! on Amazon (this link should bring you to the Amazon store in or closest to your country) or for free worldwide shipping, buy from The Book Depository.
Please note: The product links from Amazon and The Book Depository are affiliate links, meaning if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price (at no extra cost to you!) which goes towards maintaining eat. live. travel. write. Thank you in advance!
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Disclosure: I received a copy of Per la Famiglia for review purposes. I was not asked to write about the book or work with Emily, nor am I being compensated for doing to. All opinions 100% my own and I only recommend products that I really love. FULL disclosure: Emily is my good friend too!
Its so great when the boys look so interested in the class! I do believe it helps with the boys wanting to taste new foods by being involved in the group. YOU are doing a good job of keeping up with the classes.
Of course your pictures of the pasta are great 🙂
Thanks so much Christine 🙂 I love what we do in Petits Chefs 🙂
Well… one thing that came through very clearly in the pics… LPCs were having a very good time. Lovely post.
We certainly did have a lot of (messy) fun!