In February, PRFC helped bring the Cooking Matters program to Dover-Foxcroft. Cooking Matters is a program through Good Shepard Food Bank with partnerships with Maine SNAP-ed, Eat Well Nutrition Program and 5-2-1-0 and other organizations. https://www.gsfb.org/programs/cooking-matters-maine/ I signed up as sort of a guinea pig, who could obviously (if you've followed any of my Facebook posts) use the help.
Whitney Gould Cookson and Tyler Parkhurst from Mayo Regional Hospital teach the class. How it works is we have a little talk/lesson with Whitney and Tyler and then we split up into groups for cooking. We usually make 2 or 3 recipes. Each participant gets a bag of ingrediets to take home so they can make a recipe at home. So far, I have been to 3 out of the 6 classes. I have learned so much! Whole wheat pasta virtually tastes the same as the regular stuff, and it has a lot of fiber in it. I'm totally making the switch. And I have become a sweet potato convert! I have only in the last few month tried sweet potatoes, and they're really good, but I always felt, "eh, who has time for that?" Last week we made sweet potato fries, and not only was it so simple, they were delicious! I can't say that I will *never* eat white fries again, but I know I'll definitely be eating sweet potato ones at home! I don't even want to dip them in anything because I learned how to season them. I actually made them last night at home, and although I did burn them a little, they were still awesome. I feel like a culinary genius!
I'm really glad I signed up for these classes. They have gotten me out of my food comfort zone enough so that I see that I can make better choices for myself and my health. I have learned some knife skills so when I cut carrots at home they don't go flying across the room. I highly recommend you check out the link above to learn more about the program. They hold the classes all over the state of Maine. I'm hoping they have more classes in our area! (PHOTO CREDIT: TRISHA SMITH)
