By Cathy Spaulding
Devan McCoy said he already knew a little bit about cooking when he took a class Thursday morning at Arrowhead Mall.
“I know how to cook eggs and stuff, but now I’m learning how to make pizza,” the Sadler Arts Academy sixth-grader said as he shaped mini pizza crusts out of canned biscuits.
Devan and 20 other youngsters learned to make nutritious snacks at the Kids Cook Too class, sponsored by the Oklahoma State University Extension and the Oklahoma Home and Community Education program.
The class was designed to show kids healthy alternatives to their regular snacks, said Virginia Stanley, Muskogee County extension educator for family and consumer sciences. Muskogee County Health Department educator Martha Alford, members of area Home Extension Clubs and other volunteers taught about five kids each.
Kids learned to make smoothies with bananas and strawberries, ham and cheese roll-ups, chocolate banana pops and mini pizzas. The kids wore plastic aprons and gloves.
“I hope they come out good,” Devan, 12, said as the instructors put his creations in a toaster oven. “It’s not what I thought they would be when I first came here. I thought they would be bigger. But they’re still looking good.”
Cousins Kaysea Sellers, 9, and Kelsea Wiedel, 10, eagerly awaited their pizza creations. Both girls attend Creek Elementary.
“It’s fun, you actually get to do it and you learn how to do it,” Kaysea said.
Kelsea said she and her cousin were going out with their grandma after the class and might have more pizza.
“Maybe we can show them how to make pizzas,” Kaysea said.
“I can’t wait for the cookbook so we can go home and make stuff,” Kelsea said. “I like these aprons. I want to take mine home so I can color it.”
While taking a bite of a finished mini pizza, she smiled and held her thumb up.
The mini pizzas took a little longer than the other snacks, which did not require cooking.
However, the other treats had their own challenges. Kids smashed and rolled bread under wax paper to make the ham and cheese roll-ups.
Emilee Marsh, 10, helped her 4-year-old sister Bailee stick toothpicks into her creation. Slicing the roll-up was yet another matter. The Marsh sisters were visiting from Lebanon, Mo.
