Cooking With Anne

Brought to you by: Pathways Ottawa 

“My mom comes home and she’ll ask, ‘what’s the recipe of the week?’. It’s something that we can do together as a family, a way to connect and have fun. For my mom, it’s also a way to get us to cook more often. So, it’s a really big plus.” 

A Pathways Student 
Teen Prepping Ingredients

Program Activity Snapshot:

  • We created an asynchronous virtual cooking class with weekly demonstrations by a registered dietician to share on Instagram 
  • Youth watched the video and shared a nutritional tip with us weekly  
  • Youth were sent an e-gift card to purchase the ingredients for the recipe provided in the video, prepare the healthy dish, and share photos of their creations with Pathways staff and their friends  

Objectives:

  1. Increase students’ knowledge of healthy eating and skills that can support employment  
  2. Teach students the skills necessary to prepare a recipe with simple ingredients on a budget  
  3. Provide youth with a virtual social community for them to share recipes and engage with other youth and community members

What was the result?

  • Created opportunities for youth to connect with and learn from their families 
  • Students completed the Safe Food Handling training and certification that’s necessary for employment in the food industry 
  • Students earned mentoring hours for sharing photos/videos of their completed meals

Want to try this out?

What you’ll need:

  1. Staffing Support: One Program Facilitator working 1 hour per week for 20 weeks 
  2. Duration: One session per week for 20 weeks 
  3. Teaching Aids:    
    • Access to social media  
    • A Nutritionist  
    • Video production equipment  
    • Digital grocery gift cards for participation 
    • Pre- and post-activity surveys  

What you’ll do:

  1. Survey students on food interests and knowledge before the activity  
  2. Provide Safe Food Handling training and certification to students (not required)
  3. Plan and record virtual cooking sessions with a nutritionist (or use ours!)  
  4. Facilitate and manage the Zoom platform during the virtual cooking sessions, as well as track student attendance, manage student communications and questions, and coordinate any post-video follow up 
  5. Once the instructional video is complete, conduct a post-video survey and send students a grocery gift card with a recipe card that includes pricing and aisle locations of ingredients and tools for them to purchase  
  6. Students recreate the meal at home and share photos/videos with program staff for upload on Instagram  
  7. Award students with mentoring hours once they share their photos and videos

Downloadable resources (e.g. templates, examples used):