In cooking class, students get to make and eat all kinds of new and different foods.

But sometimes people just want something familiar and delicious.

And that’s just what Bayard Taylor’s chefs got in Week 7 of the spring class. The main meal was healthy Roasted Chicken Thighs and Vegetables, and the class also got to make its first dessert — Jelly Donut Muffins.

In every semester, chicken is featured in at least one meal, because chicken is a great source of protein, easy to prepare and fairly inexpensive. It also provides a great opportunity to make a healthier version of a meal that is popular in fast-food restaurants.

The chicken in Week 7 was roasted instead of deep-fried like restaurant food, and as a result it had less unhealthy oil, fat and salt. It also replaced the high calorie coating of fried chicken with a healthier mix of flavorful herbs and spices like paprika, vinegar and fresh chopped garlic.

The Jelly Donut Muffins also were a healthier version than food from a restaurant, because the muffins were not deep fried as donuts are. They still tasted sweet and delicious, however, with strawberry jam, butter and a topping of sugar and cinnamon.

With the skills they have learned in the first six weeks, our chefs were eager to get going in their next-to-last class. Yeremy Munoz quickly volunteered to “conquer another onion,” while Nathan Sanchez and Liam Ortiz Espiritu grabbed carrots to peal and chop.

They were actually a little too eager, because they first were supposed to make a marinade to flavor the chicken to give it time to soak.

Yeremy reluctantly paused his attack on the onion to measure the ingredients for the liquid marinade mixture. First he carefully measured two tablespoons of olive oil, then one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, then one tablespoon of the bright red spice paprika. Once he had them all together, he added a little more oil for moisture and joined with Liam to “dredge” the chicken in the mixture so that the pieces were completely covered.

It was messy, colorful fun, and Liam and Yeremy turned it into a contest to see who could do the most pieces. At times they were moving so fast they got tangled up like a game of Twister.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the kitchen, Glorielys Gonzalez and Yohana Almonte were making history with our first class dessert.

As they learned in Week 6 when making cornbread, they knew that baking requires exact measuring to make things work. So they approached the job like scientists doing an experiment, carefully measuring each ingredient and assembling them in “dry” and “wet” bowls.

In the dry bowl went 2 cups of flour, 1 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of the spice cinnamon and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

In the wet bowl, they combined 1 egg, 3/4 cup of sugar, 1/4 cup of canola oil and 3/4 cup of milk.

When the wet and dry ingredients were each fully mixed, they combined the two and spooned the batter into the cups of a muffin tin.

To create the “jelly donut” effect, they first put 2 tablespoons of batter in the bottom, then 1 tablespoon of strawberry jam, then 2 more tablespoons of batter on top.

When the muffins went into the oven, everyone teamed up to “nestle” the chicken and vegetables together on a sheet pan for roasting.

Everyone agreed the meal smelled — and looked — terrific, and they couldn’t wait to see how it would turn out. (Yeremy was so eager he wanted to check the chicken and veggies every 10 minutes “to see if they were done.”)

The excitement built minute by minute until Liam finally hoisted the sheet pan out of the oven and onto a counter, Glorielys arranged the chicken and vegetables on a platter, and Yeremy paraded it to the table.

“This smells so good!” more than one chef exclaimed as the class sat down at the table.

“The potatoes are amazing!” Liam declared after his first bite.

“Oh my God, this is so good,” Glorielys said, as she dug into the chicken. “I didn’t try the vegetables because they were a tiny bit burnt and I was scared to try them. But the chicken was super good.”

Everyone agreed, and wanted extra pieces.

That involved some negotiating, since there were six students and only four pieces. But as a team, the class worked it out by cutting the remaining pieces in half so that everyone could have some.

Liam said that teamwork made the meal seem special.

“It’s like we’re having a family dinner,” he declared.

And everyone agreed.