COOKING CLASSES

Unity House offers tasty lessons

TROY, N.Y. » Kids learned how to cook some healthy meals this week through a new Family Cooking Class program at Unity House.

The Troy nonprofit offered the free cooking classes to local families every day this week, making simple, low- cost and nutritious dishes like muffins, carrot coins and zucchini moons, dressed-up noodle soup, a salad bar and pizza.

The classes were taught by Unity House’s food secu-

rity case manager AmyHalloran, author of “The New Bread Basket,” along with some guidance from children’s cookbook “Pretend Soup and Other Real Recipes,” of which children received a copy to take home and try the recipes in their own kitchens.

Participants used childsized cooking utensils during the classes and cooked

with fresh fruits and vegetables, some that the youngsters got to try for the first time at the class.

This new class series was made possible through a Ronald McDonald House Charities grant, which paid for the kid-friendly equipment used to make the meals.

A few of the youth attendees were inspired to further pursue careers as chefs, while others were just happy to have some fun making tasty food at the end-of-summer program.

Halloran said the purpose of this new Family Cooking Class initiative is simply to get people, particularly young people, engaged with cooking. “Cooking as a kids is what gave me my lifelong passion for cooking food and feeding other people,” she said. “So being able to share a good cookbook, fun recipes, especially about fruits and vegetables, is a really great way to bring people into self-sufficiency and excitement about food.”

Cooking also teaches skills like measuring, counting, safe food handling, a sense of pride in their accomplishments and, perhaps most importantly, the joy of discovery.

The recent grant not only provided tools needed for this week’s program, but allows Unity House to be able to build out the educational side of its programming in the future.

Another Family Cooking Class will take place in the fall at Unity House, with de- tails to be announced.

In addition to the cooking classes, Unity House’s food pantry and regular community meals also serve to assist families living with food insecurity and to help them best use available food resources.

More information about Unity House and its programs is available online at www.unityhouseny.org.

LAUREN HALLIGAN — LHALLIGAN@DIGITALFIRSTMEDIA.COM Unity House’s food security case manager Amy Halloran, author of The New Bread Basket, conducts a Family Cooking Class on Thursday at Unity House in Troy.

LAUREN HALLIGAN — LHALLIGAN@DIGITALFIRSTMEDIA.COM Da’Marcus, Zayon and Zayonna chop vegetables for soup and salad at a Family Cooking Class on Thursday at Unity House in Troy.

LAUREN HALLIGAN — LHALLIGAN@DIGITALFIRSTMEDIA.COM Four-year-old Zahnae Thomas of Albany chops vegetables for soup during a Family Cooking Class on Thursday at Unity House in Troy.

LAUREN HALLIGAN — LHALLIGAN@DIGITALFIRSTMEDIA.COM A noodle soup prepared by kids in a Family Cooking Class is served on Thursday at Unity House in Troy.