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Cream of the West Products Featured at the 2009 MSU School Food Service Cooking Institute
by: Katie Bark, RD Montana Team Nutrition Program Specialist
Email Katie or (406) 994-5641
Each year, the Montana Team Nutrition Program hosts a "Let's Get Cooking" three day cooking institute for K-12 school food service program staff to train them on healthy cooking techniques and encourage them to plan their menus with whole grain products, a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, legumes and low fat protein and dairy foods. Tips on better utilization of the USDA Commodity foods are also shared at this workshop This year's institute (the 11th year offering) was held at MSU-Bozeman from August 3-5 and had a full capacity of 21 participants from school districts in Montana and Wyoming. With support from Cream of the West, Wheat Montana Bakery, and and BG Life Barley, we were able to feature recipes made with Montana products. We dedicate one entire day to baking with whole grains so these products allowed us to make Cream of the West's oatmeal bars, a yogurt parfait with Montana Crunch, along with a Barley Blueberry Muffin as well as whole wheat bread, buns and cinnamon rolls. The workshop has been a popular one with food service staff since they get to actually make and taste new recipes and also get a lot of opportunities to network with their peers from around the state. Katie Bark, Montana Team Nutrition Specialist, states, "I feels it's one of our best training opportunities for a new school food service employee to get on the right track of preparing healthy and tasty meals." She is most appreciative of the support of food products from local and national companies as well as from the Montana Association of School Superintendents for their support through their generous offering of scholarships for the several years. For more information contact her at kbark@mt.gov.
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