By: Pamela Stern
As most of you know by now, Starrett Judo’s Coach Legros has been holding Cooking/Nutrition lessons on zoom every Tuesday. Coach Legros started this during the pandemic as a means to help youngsters learn about nutrition and also to help them learn how to make simple meals. These lessons are educational and also fun to participate in because Coach Legros makes them fun with his sense of humor.
Each week Legros emails out a list of ingredients that will be necessary for the week’s lesson so that parents can incorporate these items into their shopping lists when they are going food shopping. As a staple in almost all of Legros’ lessons are what he affectionately calls Legorspices, which consist of Celtic Salt, Turmeric, Black Pepper, Garlic Powder, Cayenne Pepper, and Cumin. Along with the ingredients, Legros asks the participants to prepare some of the items in advance, which makes the lessons go smoother. Some of the advance preparations consist of cutting the items up so that everyone is at the same starting point together. Everyone who tunes into the lessons really enjoy this time that they spend bonding with their parents and also with Legros on zoom.
This lesson was the last in this series of nutrition for now. Legros showed everyone how to prepare a nutritious Butternut Squash Soup.
The ingredients for the Butternut Squash Soup are:
- Whole butternut squash
- Coconut milk
- Broccolini
- Sweet potato
- Thyme
- Cloves
- Rigatoni noodle
- Legrospices
- Parsley
- Vegan meatballs
Participants were asked to prep the following items:
Carrots – cut
Celery – cut
Turnip – peel & cut
Cabbage – cut
Garlic – chop them
Leeks – wash them well and cut them
Onion – dice them
Sweet potato – peel and cut them
Broccolini – wash and cut them
Crimini mushrooms or white mushrooms – wash and cut them
Legros explains to the attendees that parsley removes the metals out of your body. When starting to make the Butternut Squash Soup, participants need to put water in a pot to boil and then they can add the carrots, mushrooms, turnips, leeks, celery, and broccolini into the pot and cover it. Next you need to sauté the onions and garlic in water NOT in oil. Coach Legros does not use oil. Put a little water into the pot, next peel the skin off of the sweet potatoes. After the sweet potatoes skin is off then shut the heat off on the stove, put more water into the sauté pan. Now you need to wash the sweet potatoes and place the sweet potatoes into the blender, take the vegetable water and put it into the blender and put some cold water into the blender. Take the blended items and place them into the pot with the vegetables and stir it. Put the stove on medium heat, and place the chickpea noodles into the pot, as soon as it boils put it into the pot with the vegan meatballs (four meatballs), reduce the heat and take a handful of the chickpea noodles and put them into the pot and stir it. Next add the Legrospices and put the heat on low and stir in black pepper, mustard drops, cumin, cloves (three cloves) and stir it, taste it, thyme, broccolini and stir and cover it with low heat. Now you need to cut the parsley and put it into the sauté pot with the garlic and onion into the pot and stir it and put lettuce into the pot.
Screenshots by: Pamela Stern and photos by Jetaun Washington
