4-H Food & Fun was a free at-home cooking program that united families in the kitchen and at the dinner table. The goal of the program was to get young people in the kitchen and preparing home-cooked meals, trying new foods, encouraging family time, developing communications skills, and having fun!

The 4-H families who participated received a kitchen utensil kit related to each month's recipes, along with other informational materials. Youth prepared the recipes in the packet as they followed along an agent demonstration via zoom then completed a post-lesson report. The youth submitted photos of their dishes which qualified them to receive the next month's kit. 4-H Food & Fun met virtually via zoom March to August in the evenings so families had dinner cooked at the end of each session. The zooms were recorded for youth who missed the live demonstration.  Allen County had 8 youth participate. Between Allen, Simpson, and Warren Counties 38 youth participated.

4-H, Food, & Fun youth learned about local commodities, gained a better understanding of nutritional information, developed cooking skills, looked at the cost of food ingredients, and helped youth make healthier food choices. Several youth tried new foods they had never eaten before.

Monthly assignments collected comments from our Allen County participants like:

• “I learned how to dice up fruits and vegetables and how to broil things.”
• “I learned that following a recipe is very important. Without the recipe the food may not taste correct.”
• “These recipes were fun to make together.  My 4-H’er did most of the measuring herself which has brought her a long ways thanks to these classes!”

Youth participants also indicated they learned:

• New Kitchen Skills: importance of hello bites to try new foods, cutting skills, how to grate ginger, how to zest a lemon, how to broil, how to make biscuits from scratch, how to prepare country ham, how to batter chicken.   
• New Kitchen Tools: lemon zester, serrated knife, colander, grater, pastry blender.  

In Allen County, the 4-H Food and Fun was made possible with the support of Allen County 4-H Council, Allen County Homemaker Council and the KY 4-H Foundation Mini Grant.