National Mentoring Month

January is National Mentoring Month, and we teamed up with Mobius, the mentoring organization, to offer a cooking class for mentor pairs throughout Chittenden County.

Sharing stories over brunch with mentor pairs at City Market.

We settled on a “brunch” theme and made a big fruit salad, blueberry muffins, scrambled eggs, grilled cheese sandwiches, and maple sunflower granola. Only 2 of the youth, ages 10-19, had had experiences cooking before, so it was great to share some simple foods they could make themselves. I was amazed to hear that many of the pairs had been together for 4, 5, or 6 years.

This is the kind of workshop that often happens “behind the scenes” at City Market, amid the generally high level of day-to-day activity we sustain keeping our grocery shelves chock-full, organizing demos, giving tours, preparing for special events, teaching community classes, and more. Perhaps a clip of the class will appear later on WPTZ - News Channel 5 (aired on Sunday night).

Blueberry Muffins
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1 Tbs. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
1 egg
¼ cup oil or melted butter
1 cup milk
1/3 cup brown sugar, maple syrup, or honey

1 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen

Preheat oven to 425.
In a medium mixing bowl, mix together dry ingredients (all-purpose flour, whole wheat pastry flour, baking powder and salt).
If using frozen blueberries, take out about 2 Tbs. of flour mixture and set aside in a small bowl. Add frozen blueberries and stir to coat blueberries with flour (this keeps the blueberry juices from running into the batter and staining it blue).  
In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together egg, oil, milk, and brown sugar. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and gently stir. Add blueberries and any extra flour from the bowl and gently stir again.
Spoon into a 12-cup muffin pan (greased or lined with muffin liners) and bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden on top. Serve warm. Makes 12 muffins.