Blogs

Sanctuary TV producer Yaminay Nasir Chaudhri is reporting regularly from Pakistan, where she is staying with family while developing a new documentary project.  This, the first of her visual narratives of life as a migrant in cities she calls home, focuses on a worrisome phone call she received days before embarking on her journey...

"An incident that brought the unstable political situation in Pakistan uncomfortably close to home occurred on September 19 when a car bomb exploded a mere kilometer from my family's home in Karachi, Pakistan.

August 11, 2011/ Zucchini and Corn Pancakes

Today we had two stations going on--Ellie making zucchini pancakes and Amy making corn pancakes. But before we started cooking, the kids measured and made their own pancake mix to take home. They also took home a cookbook with all the recipes we made together this past weeks.

Zucchini Pancakes:

2 cups whole grain wheat (or combination of oats, cormeal, etc)

2 Tbsp brown sugar (optional)

2 Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

4 Tbsp oil

2 eggs

2 cups milk

1 tsp cinnamon (optional)

2 cups grated zucchini

Grate zucchini. In a bowl add beaten eggs and all other ingredients. Scoop ¼ cup of batter and cook over a medium heat on cast iron or a sprayed pan until you see bubbles forming. Turn once. Serve hot or cool and freeze.

August 9, 2011/ Pinapizza

Slices of pineapple for the crust

yogurt for the sauce

fruit for toppings: strawberries, grapes, bananas,

seaweed sheets for the plate--ok, out of dozen kids maybe 3 tried seaweed, but it made for good conversation and beautiful art :)

August 4, 2011/ Spinach Quesadillas with black beans salsa

Spinach Quesadillas

Serves 8, but we made more :)

16 whole-wheat tortillas (8-inch)

4 cup thawed frozen spinach, squeezed dry (2 bags of washed)

2 cups mexican blend cheese mix

Sprinkle cheese over one tortilla, top with spinach; season with salt and pepper, garlic powder, onion powder. Top with another tortillas. Place quesadillas on a cast iron or skillet and cook until cheese is melted and heated through, turning once. Top with salsa and sour cream.

 

Black Bean and Corn Salsa
2 cups of cooked yellow corn

DIY SnackShop at the Collard City Growers lot

August 2, 2011/Veggie Slaw

Today we had another hot afternoon, but we had a nice shade at the CCG lot where we worked on our slicing, grating and combining skills. Here the recipe:

Veggie Slaw

2 cups shredded zucchinis

DIY SnackShop at the Missing Link Ministry

July 28, 2011/Smoothies. Photos by Brian Jones

For our smoothies we start with one banana

Add ½ cup of liquid of choice—we used orange juice and grapefruit

½ cup of yogurt—we used low fat vanilla

½ cup of mix of differents fruits and veggetables—including strawberries donated from the Capital District Community Gardens (www.cdcg.org), 

and most importantly: IMPROVISE AND HAVE FUN MIXING AND EXPERIMENTING—WE DID! The kids thought one of our mixes was a bit heavy on the beats, so we added extra bananas.

DIY SnackShop July 26, 2011 at Collard City Growers lot.

Today we made Date Cocoa Truffles, right after a thunderstorm dumped a lot of rain in the Capital Region. The past week we experienced very high temperatures, so we celebrated the much needed rain with mud looking treats.  The kids were "not eating that" or "not touching that", but they tried and licked their fingers.

Date Cocoa Truffles

2 tbsp to ¼ cup tahini (sesami paste) or peanut butter (we made both kinds)

1 cup of chopped dates

¼ cup cocoa powder

Mix all ingredients by hand. Roll into small, truffle sized balls. Roll in cocoa powder, coconut, other nuts if desired. Keep refrigerated.

DIY SnackShop  July 19, 2011

Amy and Ellie made hummus with the kids at the Missing Link today. Thank you Capital District Community Gardens (http://www.cdcg.org/) for a donation of vegetables and fruits.

Kids were great at trying the cooked chickpeas before it became hummus, but several thought it was not that tasty—it was better appreciated once we added the lemon, olive oil and tahini. We also talked about the vegetables and which ones we pill and some ways we can use them. So here is our recipe:

Hummus

2 cups cooked garbanzo beans

save 3/4 of a can of juice from one can of the chick peas or liquid if you cook the beans.

2 large tbsp of tahini

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 teaspoon salt

DIY SnackShop

July 7, 2011/ Watermelon Gazpacho

Today was Abby's birthday and she had requested something refreshing like watermelon for hot days of summer; so we made a twist to the cold soup gazpacho. We were out again at the Collard City Growers and came just in time to fill the hot workers with a cool treat and energy to finish the job of spreading mulch and planting celery.

We started with one large seeded watermelon

2 cup peeled, seeded cucumber, diced

½ seeded cantaloupe, diced

1 teaspoon salt

Juice of 2 limes

2 tablespoon fresh mint, minced

In a blender, puree half of the watermelon until smooth and freeze it.

Welcome to “DIY SnackShops” a hands-on experience cooking at the Missing Link Kitchen taking place during “Uptown Summer”, a six week program for young people (ages 10-15) in the North Central neighborhood of Troy, NY.

During “DIY SnackShops” we look forward to cooking healthy snacks from scratch, building community, and having fun.

“Uptown Summer” participants will also garden in the Collard City Growers lot, fix bikes and learning bike maintenance at the Troy Bike Rescue workshop, and document their experiences through digital storytelling techniques with Youth Media Sanctuary.

On on First meeting we made pretzels.

Here's the recipe we made. They were GOOD!  I came to the church with 2 big batches of dough rising in a big spaghetti pot. When I opened the pot it looked an awful lot like naked butt. Oops!