Sweet Pea Zucchini Slaw
Sweet Pea Zucchini Slaw
Crunchy, colorful slaw is a fun experiment AND a tasty side dish. Kid chefs get to try their hands at grating, chopping, and slicing to see which method produces the smallest bits of zucchini for the slaw. Next, they’ll whisk up a tangy, homemade dressing while learning about emulsions. Science + Cooking = Delicious!
Happy & Healthy Cooking,
Fun-Da-Mentals Kitchen Skills
- chop :
to cut something into small, rough pieces using a blade.
- dice :
to cut foods into small pieces of equal size so that the food is cooked evenly or looks uniform and pleasant when used in the recipe.
- grate :
to reduce food, like a carrot, to very small shreds or pieces of the same size by rubbing it on a tool with an outside surface that has holes with cutting edges (a grater).
- knife skills :
Bear Claw (growl), Pinch, Plank, and Bridge (look out for trolls).
- toss :
to lightly lift and drop food items together or coat food items with flour, or a sauce or dressing, as in a salad.
- whisk :
to beat or stir ingredients vigorously with a fork or whisk to mix, blend, or incorporate air.
Equipment Checklist
- Medium bowl
- Small bowl
- Cutting board
- Kid-safe knife
- Grater
- Dry measuring cups
- Measuring spoons
- Whisk
Ingredients
Sweet Pea Zucchini Slaw
- 1 to 2 fresh zucchini
- 1/2 C fresh or frozen and thawed peas
- Dressing:
- 2 T olive oil
- 1 lime, juiced
- 2 T granulated sugar, brown sugar, or honey (or 3 stevia packets)
- 1/2 T salt
- 1 pinch fresh thyme leaves
Instructions
Sweet Pea Zucchini Slaw
chop + dice + grate
The idea here is to have small bits of 1 to 2 fresh raw zucchini in a very tasty salad! Have kids choose the best way they think they can get the smallest bits into a medium bowl. Will the kids decide to chop, dice, or grate the zucchini into little bits?
measure + add
Have kids measure 1/2 cup of peas and add them to the zucchini.
slice + squeeze
Slice 1 lime in half and squeeze out all the juice into a small bowl.
scrumptious science
Making salad dressing can be a little tricky. The density of oil and all the other ingredients is so different that they won’t stay combined. You will notice that oil-based dressing separates into its original ingredients. To fix this issue, you will create an emulsion or combination of two ingredients that don’t naturally stay combined. There are three kinds of emulsions: temporary (salad dressing), semi-permanent (e.g., Hollandaise sauce), and permanent (e.g., mayonnaise). By whisking the ingredients, you can create the most temporary form of an emulsion. The whisk incorporates friction (the force created when two things rub together), forcing the oil and vinegar or lemon or lime juice to combine for enough time to drizzle over your salad.
measure + whisk + toss
Have kids measure 2 tablespoons olive oil, 2 tablespoons honey, 1/2 tablespoon salt, and 1 pinch of fresh thyme leaves into the small bowl of lime juice. Whisk the dressing ingredients together for 20 seconds and pour over the vegetable slaw. Toss together and pop it into the refrigerator until you are ready to eat!
Hi! I'm Zucchini!
“I'm very fond of summer, aren't you? After all, I'm a summer squash! I have beautiful, tender green skin, so don't peel it off before cooking, or you'll lose some of my fiber and nutrients. I may be a small gourd, but you wouldn't like my taste as much if I got too big. You can do all sorts of things with me to fit your recipes: slicing, dicing, grating, and even making spaghetti-like noodles out of me using a vegetable peeler or a fancy device called a spiralizer!"
History
- Zucchini (Cucurbita pepo) is a summer squash of the same family that includes cucumbers and melons. Summer squash is a squash that is picked when immature, while its peel is still tender.
- Like many other veggies we've seen, zucchini is technically a fruit, not a vegetable!
- Central and South American people have been eating zucchini for several thousand years. However, the zucchini we know today is an Italian variety of summer squash developed from those of native Central and South America.
- Christopher Columbus brought squash seeds to the Mediterranean region and Africa.
- The Native American word for zucchini is "skutasquash," which means "green thing eaten raw."
Anatomy & Etymology
- Zucchini grow on vines just like cucumbers do.
- Zucchini plants produce male and female flowers on the same plant, with the female flowers directly attached to the fruit and the male flowers attached to a long stem on the plant. Therefore, insects must pollinate the plants for the fruit to grow.
- Zucchini can rapidly grow to several feet long, but the smaller ones taste sweeter.
- The record for the longest zucchini is 8 feet 3.3 inches. The heaviest zucchini was 64 pounds 8 ounces!
- It's "zucchini" in the US, Canada, and a few other countries. The word is a plural of the Italian "zucchino" (masculine form—the feminine form, "zucchina" is preferred), which is a diminutive (smaller version) of "zucca" or "gourd."
- In France, they say "courgette" (koor-ZHET), which the British also use. It's a diminutive of the French "courge," which also means "gourd."
How to Pick, Buy, & Eat
- Harvesting zucchini when they're between 6 to 8 inches long and 3 to 4 inches in diameter ensures they will be more tender and sweet.
- A "bumper crop" of zucchini is an overload of zucchini that grows faster than a home gardener can cook and eat it!
- When buying zucchini, choose firm and heavy ones for their size. In addition, fresh zucchini should have bright, glossy skin free of bruises or nicks. Zucchini stay fresh for up to a week when stored in a plastic bag in the refrigerator.
- Zucchini is very versatile, and you can use them in both savory and sweet dishes, like ratatouille and zucchini bread.
- Fresh zucchini blossoms can be cooked and eaten raw. You can remove the pistils from the female flower blossoms and the stamens from male flower blossoms, but you don't have to. Both have flavor and are edible.
Nutrition
- Potassium: helps reduce blood pressure and increase blood flow to and from our hearts.
- Manganese: helps wounds heal and bones grow.
- Antioxidants: help keep us healthy and healing faster when we're sick.
- Fiber: helps us digest our food and absorb nutrients from our food.
History of Coleslaw!
- Coleslaw or just "slaw" is a salad made from a "cole" plant of the Brassica species, like broccoli, cabbage, and kale.
- The word "coleslaw" came from the Dutch "koolsla," from "kool" for "cabbage" + "sla" (shortened from "salade") for "salad."
- A 1770 Dutch cookbook, The Sensible Cook, has a recipe with thin strips of cabbage, melted butter, vinegar, and oil. Common ingredients today are shredded cabbage, shredded carrots, onion, sugar, and black pepper, dressed with vinaigrette or mayonnaise and cider vinegar.
- You can eat coleslaw alone as a side salad, popular at picnics and potlucks. You can also put it on a sandwich, like a barbecue pulled pork sandwich. The Rachel sandwich, a counterpart of the Reuben sandwich, has coleslaw instead of sauerkraut and turkey or chicken instead of corned beef.
Let's Learn About Italy!
- Italy became a unified country in 1861, only 150 years ago. It is sometimes called "bel paese" or "beautiful country."
- Italians invented the piano and the thermometer!
- In ancient Roman mythology, two twin brothers named Romulus and Remus founded Rome, Italy's capital city. The myth says the twins were abandoned and then discovered by a she-wolf before being found and raised by a shepherd and his wife. Eventually (and after many exciting adventures), they found themselves at the location of Palatine Hill, where Romulus built "Roma." The Italian wolf became Italy's unofficial national animal.
- In the 1930s and 40s, Mussolini, Italy's prime minister, and dictator tried to eliminate all foreign words from the Italian language. How did he do that? He just changed them! For example, in soccer, "goal" became "meta." Disney character names changed, too: Donald Duck became "Paperino;" Mickey Mouse became "Topolino;" and Goofy became "Pippo." Although they're not banned anymore, these words and names have stuck. So now if you go to the Italian Disneyland, called Gardaland Park, you will see Topolino and Pippo!
- About 60 million people call Italy home, and it is 116,350 square miles, slightly larger than the US state of Arizona. If you compare that to the United Kingdom, 67 million people live there, and it is about 94,350 square miles. So, the UK is smaller than Italy but has a bigger population!
- The Italian flag is green, white, and red. These colors represent hope, faith, and charity.
- The average Italian eats close to 55 pounds of pasta annually. If you think about how light pasta is, that is a considerable amount! There are more than 500 different types of pasta eaten in Italy today.
What's It Like to Be a Kid in Italy?
- Kids begin school at 6 years old. They grow up speaking Italian, but they learn English in school, so many become bilingual in Italian and English.
- The most popular sport for kids is football (soccer). The Italian word for soccer is "calcio," the same word they use for "kick." A favorite of younger kids is "Rody, the bouncing horse," a plastic horse that a small child can hop onto and bounce around the room. Rody was invented in Italy in 1984.
- The family ("la famiglia") is a central characteristic of Italian life. Children have great respect for their older relatives. It is traditional to name the first male child after the grandfather and the first female child after the grandmother.
- If kids live close to school, they can go home and have lunch with their families! Lunch at school might be pasta, meat with vegetables, a sandwich, or a salad with lots of ingredients. Families typically eat dinner later (7 to 8 pm), so kids end up staying up later, too!
- Between lunch and dinner, kids often enjoy "merenda," which is an afternoon snack that translates to "something that is deserved." It is really a mini-meal that can include both savory and sweet foods. Examples of savory foods are a salami or mortadella sandwich, a slice of rustic bread rubbed with a cut, raw tomato, or "pizza bianca" (white pizza without tomato sauce). Types of sweet foods eaten during merenda are "gelato" (a lower-fat type of ice cream), any kind of cake, or biscotti dipped in warm milk.
That's Berry Funny
What kind of vegetable likes to look at animals?
A zoo-chini!
Lettuce Joke Around
What does a vegetable wear to the beach?
A zoo-kini!
The Yolk's On You
What do vegetables wish for, more than anything else in the whole world?
World Peas.
