Global Chefs Visit India

Henna designs painted with Indian spices

Our Global Chefs summer campers had a very spicy day today in India!  We made three Indian dishes and a beverage for snack time and incorporated Indian spices into a craft.  While making our craft and cooking today, we listed to traditional Indian music on Pandora.  We also did a tiny bit of yoga - I taught the campers savasana, or corpse pose, after being outside in the heat for a while.  It helped cool them off and gave them a moment to relax and really enjoy the air conditioning in the building!

As always, we began our lesson on India by finding the country on our world map and coloring in the flag.  While Nicole stamped the campers passports, they colored a picture of a banyan tree, the national tree of India, and a peacock, which is native to India.

For our morning snack we made Crunchy Roasted Chickpeas with Indian Spices from A Spicy Perspective.  These spicy chickpeas were so tasty they were gone before I thought to take a picture of them!  Eleven campers gave them a 'thumbs up' and only three gave them a 'thumbs down.'  We also made a delicious Mango Lassi from Creative Family Fun, which is basically a mango smoothie with milk and yogurt.  I say delicious, but the campers were less impressed. They thought the lassi needed more mango and less dairy.  We used plain yogurt so they were probably missing the sweetness they are used to in 'go-gurt!'  Six campers gave this recipe a 'thumbs up,' eight gave it a 'thumbs down.'

While the chickpeas were roasting in the oven, the campers traced their hands onto watercolor paper and drew henna designs on their handprints.  I was inspired by the activity, "Henna Hands: A Simple Craft"  from Kids World Citizen and the many "Around the World in 12 Dishes" projects that included painting with Indian spices so we combined the two crafts.  I mixed a little water with each of the following spices for the campers to paint with: cardamom, cloves, coriander, cumin, garam masala, ginger, hot madras curry powder and turmeric.  Our classroom smelled wonderful and the paintings were very pretty (and fragrant, even after they dried)!

For our afternoon snack we made Pav-Bhaji (Vegetarian Indian Sloppy Joes) from Integrative Wellness Centers and Doodh Peda (Indian sweets) from Kids World Citizen.  The vegetarian sloppy joes had a lot of ingredients but were pretty easy to make.  I thought it was delicious, but I don't know where the connection to sloppy joes comes from.  To be fair, I am out of gluten-free buns so I didn't eat the dish as a sandwich, maybe the name comes from how messy the sandwiches are?  I think this dish would be delicious over cooked basmati rice!  The campers, however, did not like this dish, only two gave the recipe a 'thumbs up,' nine gave it a 'thumbs down.'  The Indian sweets, which to me tasted like cake frosting, were more popular with the campers.  Seven gave them a 'thumbs up' and six gave them a 'thumbs down.'


Tomorrow is our last day of camp and we will be learning about Germany! 

I am linking this post about our adventure learning about India with the Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop #6!



For more international craft and recipes ideas, check out my Pinterest board Global Chefs + Crafts!