Live Healthy America Class- Italy!

Yesterday our Live Healthy America class was on Italy! The students were super excited to learn about Italy since it was a country they were very familiar with.  We learned that Italy is a peninsula, which is a body of land surrounded by water on 3 sides.  We also learned that the Alps are the mountains in northern Italy.  In italy they eat traditional Italian food and the students have personally eaten many of these foods before!  We learned about Venice transportation and that there are no cars or trucks in Venice!  They use boats to do everything incluidng construction and trash pickup.  Gondolas are a fancy way to travel in the canals.  Lastly, we learned about italian cooking tools like a pasta drying rack, pasta maker, and a tomato press used as an aid in making sauce. 

The recipe that we made was called extra-ordinary eggplant.  The students got to mix the wet and dry ingredients.  We dipped our eggplant slices in the wet first and then the dry bread crumbs.  I explained to them that you have wet ingredients so the dry ingredients stick to the eggplant!  I have attached the recipe below so you can make it yourself!

I have also added a picture of some of the students in my class! You can see our eggplant pieces in front of us as they are ready to cook! :)

Live Healthy America Class Starting Up Again!

Now that school is back in session and winter break is over Live Healthy America is now back in full swing until the end of April!  I will still be teaching my special needs class every Monday.  For the next few months we will be learning about different cultures and their healthy food from around the globe.  This past week we learned about the American South.  We went over on a map of the United States the states that make up the American South and then did a work sheet on it.  We learned about traditional southern foods like okra which has many names including Lady's Fingers and is often used to thicken stews.  We also learned about collard greens which are the official leafy green of South Carolina.  The other traditional southern food we learned about were black eyed peas which are traiditionally eaten on New Year's Eve for good luck. 

The recipe that we made in class was called Soul Stew. With all of the vegetables in this dish, it is very very healthy!  All of the students loved it and many students had tobasco sauce for the first time!  The students told me they had missed our lessons over break and were very eager to cut up and prepare our delicious meal.  I have attached below a picture of the recipe so you can make Soul Stew yourself! 

Here are two of my star students, Jessie and Sarah working hard to prepare food in our Live Healthy America class!