Cooking Activities..???

[Guest Guest_Sonya]

:hammer: Hey! My name is sonya, I work in an Alzheimer's specialty facility and although cooking can be a real challange, I have found way's and have what I hope is an ideal you can use. If your management want's your res. to actually cook, get any kind of fresh apples and an apple correr, let res. core and cut apples, put in a crockpot with some applesauce, cinnamon, brown sugar (all to taste) and let simmer all day. They have participated and the crockpot is safer than most other methods. They get to smell the apples cook, taste the apples after they are cooked, and they have done the work.

 

Also, you can have a chili cook off. Have two or three group's of Res., have them tell you what they used to put in the chili, get supplies from the store and again, use the crockpot and let them do the work. Then let the staff judge the contest. Give ribbon's and call the newspaper to have them come to the judging.

 

I really hope this help's you, I know how hard it can be sometimes to find way's, so I have formed a local Activity director's coalition in my town and we all throw idea's around. You may concider doing that in your area. Invite them to your facility or meet in a resteraunt and just get to know one another so you have someone to bounce idea's off.

[Guest Tinki]

Wow great ideas!

 

Karen

[Med268 0]

I still feel I am new to this area, only having 4 1/2 years experience. However, if you have any ideas on cooking or Fall Festivals, please contact me. I am so eager to hear from you all.

 

Sincerely,

Mary Ellen

[Guest Shelia]

do you do cooking activities.....??? in the past i have doen them mainly as a demonstration..with aromatic type ingrediants they can smell etc..etc....

 

now i am feeling the pressure by management for the residents to be doing the cooking....??? i have talked about infection control issues etc...but they aren't interested in that..they want the residents to do some cooking...sooo now i am looking at doing cup cakes.....pre made..that each resident who wants to can ice and decorate.......

 

how do you facilitate your program around the infection control issues..???

 

 

thanks in advance.. Hi we do cooking in our facility also. I had a yard sale and we purchased a convection oven with the money that was raisied. We have made apple pies, brownies and chcolate chip cookies all from scracth. We put on our plastic gloves and aprons over our clothes, everyone takes turn adding the ingredents. Than while the goodies are cooking we all help in the cleaning up. Then in th afternoon we have a coffee bread and eat our goodies. The plastic goves seeem to help with infection issues. Shelia

Would like to answer a question that was on the board.

[Capemom8741 0]

As for the sanitation issue, my rule is that the resident must wash their hands and wear food prep gloves. If they won't comply to the rule, they cannot cook.

 

I typically find my recipes on the Internet. I print out the recipe and enlarge it on our copier so my residents can follow the recipe with ease. I also keep small pencils on the table and encourage them to cross off the item when adding an ingredient. This way there is less room for error and less frustration for them.

 

When planning my cooking activity calendar it helps me to use themes taken from Crazy Dates found at http://www.brownielocks.com I coordinate the cooking project around a holiday theme or national whatever day. This way I can incorporate trivia or facts about the holiday or national day to make the cooking project multi-dimensional and interesting. Also, I use the time together for reminiscing....."Do you remember your mother baking pies? Did she let you help her? What was your favorite pie? " etc....

 

I purchased my own cooking supplies at the $ Store. The expense comes out of the activity budget. Since I share the kitchen with dietary, I store the items in a plastic container in my activity closet. This way the supplies are all in one location and saves me time of having to sort through the kitchen for items.

 

As for the budget, I often try to pass the expens through the dietary budget since the finished cooking product is used for a mealtime/dessert.