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Food Education Center

  • Tips to Buying Healthy Groceries on a Budget

    Tips to Buying Healthy Groceries on a Budget

    Buying good, healthy food can get expensive quickly. But eating better while saving cash is still achievable — all it takes is a bit of planning and a culinary curiosity. Here are our top tips to help you shop smart.

    1. Plan your meals: Creating a meal plan can be simple and fun. You can break down your week’s groceries by day. It will make sure you use everything you buy, which helps you live more sustainably while saving money.
    2. Write a grocery list and stick to it: Grocery stores can be distracting places: colors, lights, and smells fill the store as you try to steer around carts. Writing a list can help prevent you from buying food you don’t need, like junk food, and from spending more money. Parents, planning meals and writing grocery lists can also be a great way to involve your child. Try asking your child what vegetables, fruits, or lean protein he or she would like to eat this week. Is there anything new he or she would like to try? Or is there anything you’d like to challenge your child to eat?
    3. Buy whole foods, not processed food: You can buy whole foods, which are not only cheaper but also healthier for you. They are foods that are unprocessed and unrefined, or processed and refined as little as possible. This could include anything from a bottle of olive oil, cans of tuna,  bags of rice, or even heads of lettuce. Whole foods will often line the perimeter of grocery stores. Just think ingredients.
    4. Diversify your protein: While proteins are a staple of any healthy diet, mixing it up with fish or eggs instead of beef can help keep your body healthy. Try to cooking with beans or lentils, which can be prepared in bulk and used over a longer period of time.
    5. Cook large portions: Planning your meals and buying ingredients instead of processed foods is a large part of the battle. All that is left is cooking. When you cook, you can prepare large portions so that you can save food for later in the week or pack it as lunch for tomorrow.

    With some planning and strategizing, eating healthy can be affordable and fun!

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  • Picking Out Produce: Join Us at Green City Market

    Picking Out Produce: Join Us at Green City Market

    After plenty of April showers, many farmers markets are kicking off the season in May. But with a new season comes with a different rotation of fresh produce. Here’s a short guide that will help you know what fresh fruits and veggies should look, smell, or feel like.

    • Asparagus: Look for firm stalks and compact tips.
    • Beets: Look for fresh stems and slender taproots. Large, hairy beets may be older.
    • Carrots: Look for firm and smooth carrots.
    • Cherries: Look for plump and firm dark purple cherries.
    • Leafy Greens: Look for firm greens that do not hold an odor. Choose the greens with the crispest leaves and avoid any that are wilted.
    • Onions: Look for firm onions that feel heavy for their size. Watch out for bruising and soft spots.
    • Rhubarb: Look for firm pink or red stalks.
    • Strawberries: Look for bright red strawberries — and they should smell as good as they taste!

    Part of the fun will be holding and studying your produce. Trust your senses! Generally, the surface of a good vegetable should be consistent and your fruit should be soft but not mushy. And the great thing about farmers markets is that you can ask questions to your local vendors.

    Kids can be involved in identifying ripeness by handling the produce. They could ask vendors about where their farm is located, when they picked out the produce, and about the care required to grow our food. They could also ask about what fruits and vegetables will be available once summer hits.

    If you’re itching to grab fresh produce soon, come say hello when we table at the Green City Market on May 11 and May 14! We’ll be there as part of their first-week kickoff to the start of this year’s outdoor season.

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  • Teaching Healthy Lessons That Lead to Life Lessons

    Teaching Healthy Lessons That Lead to Life Lessons

    When Pilot Light partners chefs with teachers to teach through food, we transform the learning environment of the classroom into one that promotes healthy lifelong decision-making for students. In this video, our Executive Director Alexandra DeSorbo-Quinn, Chef and Co-Founder Paul Kahan (The Publican, Blackbird, Avec, Big Star, PQM), and 3rd Grade Disney II Magnet teacher Andy Kramer discuss the power of bringing together the minds of chefs and teachers to embed food education into the classroom. As Kahan describes it, this approach “opens up a child’s mind to the possibilities that food has to offer.”

    You can learn more through this video by Video by Whimsy City Productions and Spring Creative.

    And if you’re looking to join in on this innovative approach to food education, Pilot Light is seeking more partner schools and teachers for the 2016-2017 school year. Click here to learn more.

     

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  • Round Trip: A Recap on Passport to Pilot Light

    We can’t believe it’s already been a few days since Passport to Pilot Light. At our first neighborhood crawl, we were excited about a lively turnout and to see people enjoyed themselves when trying some of our favorite locales in Logan Square.

    The sunny weather helped tie together a successful day — we even ran out of passports by the evening! Many attendees collected more than 5 stamps on their passports by visiting the selected restaurants. Some even made it to all 10 and were still standing by the time they got to Yusho.

    With such a successful and memorable day, we would like to thank everyone who participated, all of the restaurants and chefs who made our pub crawl possible, and our Young Professionals Board who dedicated the time to organize the event and volunteered in the hot sun.

    And for those who missed it, and for those itching to make it to our next fun food event, we’ll keep you posted on our big Feed Your Mind Gala Benefit. We’ll be posting news and ticket information soon.

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  • Pick Up Your Passport to Pilot Light!

    It’s not every weekend when you can connect crafty cocktails to charitable causes.

    But after ten bars and restaurants have partnered with us to create the Passport to Pilot Light neighborhood crawl, you can order sparkling wine or pork belly steamed buns while supporting our cause.

    100% of the proceeds from the featured Passport to Pilot Light menu items will go toward our effort to feed young minds by building food and nutrition education into Chicago classrooms.

    Grab your passport to the best Logan Square locales at noon at Lula Cafe. As you make your way across the neighborhood, remember to get your passport stamped. You can redeem your stamps by the end of the night at either Billy Sunday or Yusho. Billy Sunday will open at 3:00 p.m. and Yusho opens at 5:00 p.m.

    5 stamps will get you a Pilot Light koozie and 10 stamps will get you 50% off of your Feed Your Mind Gala Benefit ticket on October 7th.

    As you snap photos of the scrumptious dishes or fancy drinks, track your flight using our hashtag #PASSPORTTOPL to spread our cause.

    Participating restaurants include Billy Sunday, Crown Liquors, Fat Rice, Lula Cafe, Parson’s Chicken & Fish, Reno, Scofflaw, Sink/Swim, Webster’s Wine Bar, and Yusho.

    You can RSVP here.

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  • Kefir Panna Cotta

    Kefir Panna Cotta

    Recipe by Floriole’s Sandra Holl and Her Daughter Stella

    Try this easy-to-make treat this weekend! We included a fun video by Whimsy City Productions to show how cooking can also be a fun, interactive activity.

    Yield = 8-10 servings

    INGREDIENTS:

    2 envelopes of Powdered Gelatin

    1/2 cup cold Water

    2 cups half and half

    3/4 cup sugar

    4 cups unsweetened plain kefir (1 quart)

    2 teaspoons vanilla extract

    PREPARATION:

    1. Pour 1/2 cup of cold water in a bowl and sprinkle the gelatin into it slowly. While waiting 10-15 minutes for the gelatin to harden, place 3/4 cup of sugar and 2 cups of half and half into a saucepan. After whisking it briefly, place it on the stove.

    2. Remove the saucepan from the stove once it melts the sugar. Scoop the hardened gelatin into the saucepan, add two teaspoons of vanilla extract, and pour the quart of kefir into the saucepan, and mix it together.

    3. Set 8 small jars or bowls on a baking sheet. Carefully fill them with the panna cotta mixture and refrigerate them for 2 hours.

    Optional: Add your favorite jam as a topping, just like Sandra and Stella!

     

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  • Samples: A Recap of the Good Food Festival

    At last week’s Good Food Festival, our chefs Paul Kahan, Josh Kulp and Christine Cikowski demoed their family-friendly recipes. We’ll be sharing these with you soon.

    The seats filled as did our stomachs throughout the afternoon. A few highlights included an apple hazelnut honey fettuna by Kahan and a blueberry dump cake by Cikowski and Kulp.

    This year Kahan received FamilyFarmed’s “Good Food Chef of the Year Award,” presented to him by the organization’s President Jim Slama. 12 years ago, he gave a keynote speech at the first Good Food trade show 12 years ago. This brings Kahan’s dedication to local and sustainable food in Chicago full-circle.

    The Good Food Festival helps shed light on a changing nationwide food culture, as the Chicago Tribune wrote about it this past weekend. “That such a day even exists is a sign of how times have changed. Increasingly, consumers want food they consider to be healthy and socially responsible while also affordable and delicious.”

    With our chefs’ support and vision, Pilot Light is proud to bring food education to children throughout Chicago so that they can make healthier, better informed food choices.

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  • Make It Better Includes Pilot Light in List of 10 Food-Centric Philanthropies

    Make It Better Includes Pilot Light in List of 10 Food-Centric Philanthropies

    The Chicago magazine and community resource Make It Better included Pilot Light in their list of philanthropies and nonprofits that help communities through food.

    Learn More

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  • The Good Food Festival Brings, Well, Good Food to Chicago

    The Good Food Festival Brings, Well, Good Food to Chicago

    The nonprofit FamilyFarmed launched the first sustainable local food trade show, The Good Food Festival, in the country 12 years ago. And they’ve since kept up the record of running the longest show of its kind.

    Pilot Light is excited to participate in the festival for its second year.  The Festival will be hosted at the UIC Forum this Saturday, March 26 from 10 A.M. to 5 P.M. Among a variety of DIY workshops and activities, the family-friendly event will feature cooking demonstrations by a few of Pilot Light’s chefs. Paul Kahan, Josh Kulp, and Christine Cikowski will whip up recipes that parents can easily prepare with their kids after school and talk about their work with Pilot Light from 10:30 A.M to 1 P.M. Kahan will be awarded the FamilyFarmed Good Chef of the Year award.

    You also can check out the Transforming School Food Panel at 10:30 A.M. to see Pilot Light’s Executive Director, Alexandra DeSorbo-Quinn, discuss with fellow Chicago-based school food nonprofits about the future of school food for Chicago and beyond.

    The Saturday event will cap off three days jam-packed with not only tasty bread or kombucha but also food for thought. A conference on financing and innovation and a showcase on the industry will run through March 24 and March 25. This cornucopia of sustainable local food advocates will bring key stakeholders together.

    Based on previous attendances, FamilyFarmed anticipates nearly 5,000 people. This includes anyone from the local farmer to the urban policy maker or the restaurateurs to the families who dine there. We hope to see many of our friends and supporters there!

    Tickets for Saturday will cost $15 at the door or $10 in advance and three-day passes cost $150. All of which are available here.

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  • FamilyFarmed’s Blog Post on Chef Paul Kahan and Pilot Light

    The Chicago nonprofit FamilyFarmed wrote about Paul Kahan’s accomplishments in anticipation of the nonprofit’s Good Food Festival. FamilyFarmed is honoring Kahan by giving him the “FamilyFarmed’s Good Food Chef of the Year” award.

     

    Learn more here!

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