Our first cooking week for 2014

 

 

At last the program has started again!

We made:

Mini Frittatas
Honeyed Carrots
Pizza of the Imagination
Pasta with a Herb and Tomato Sauce
Potato Salad

Lots of old favourites and all allowing us to use plenty of the fabulous produce that is currently available in our garden.

The students were able to access our lovely garden classroom at last – it is complete except for the deck which will be added shortly.

We had lots of students participate in the program for the first time this week - sadly I cannot publish the wonderful photos that we got of many of them as I do not yet have publicity permission information. Hopefully this will be received by next week.

 

 

 

Josie had us all laughing when she made very imaginative uses of the tomatoes that she harvested!!

 

 

 
 

 

 

Litiani and Matt ate more than they harvested!

 

Tom did a great job harvesting parsley.

And Thomaz harvested tomatoes, enormous beetroots and then found time to do some raking!!

Darcy re-discovered his love of wheelbarrows!

 

Everyone quickly got back into the swing of things in the kitchen and produced excellent dishes.

Very safe work putting the mini frittatas into the oven

Aidan checked out the harvest table

Enjoying lunch

Jayden chopped the potatoes for the salad

 

Litiani made pizza

Frank grated the cheese and the pizza toppings using a wireless switch to operate the blender

Julie and Colleen had a great time!!

This could be the photo of the year - Jacob made all of this pasta!!

Bella did a great job making pizza

And she thoroughly enjoyed eating everything that was cooked

mini frittatas



pizza of the imagination - the fresh beetroot was my favourite

Darcy showed that he was great at rolling out the pizza independently

Thomaz set the table

We continued to encourage our students to serve the food that they prepared

 

I was delighted to have some volunteers this week - Jayden’s mum, Lisa helped on Wednesday and Ellen’s mum, Jacqui and her friend, helped on Tuesday. Having enough adults present to set up and also to assist with food preparation and eating is essential for the success of the program. Now that I do not have a teacher assistant working with me I really cannot operate without some volunteers. Thanks so much Jacqui and friend (sorry I didn’t note her name) and Lisa. And many thanks also to our anonymous donor of a wonderful food dehydrator - our students will be able to use it to preserve all the surplus produce that we are now harvesting. 

If you would like to assist with the program I would love to hear from you – email me – pauline.snell@education.tas.gov.au or telephone the school. Setting up workstations with food and ingredients takes about 2 hours and needs to be complete by 10.30; assisting with food preparation and eating is between about 11.00 and 12.30; and finally washing up takes about 2 hours after 12.30. Assistance with any or all of these sessions would be much appreciated, especially on Thursday and Friday when we have no-one yet.

Finally, well done Tracey Bailey who has just completed her first day running the program. Tracey is running the program on Fridays with Orange and Green Classes. I have just heard from her that the day went really well – I am looking forward to seeing the photos and will publish them as soon as I can.

 

Can you help?

I am posting this request for assitance in the hope that it will get to a wider audience than just recipients of our school newsletter.

At last we are ready to start kitchen and garden classes! For the next two weeks our menu will be:

 

Pizza of the Imagination

Pasta with a Herb and Tomato Sauce

Potato Salad

Honeyed Carrots

Mini Frittatas

 

Reasons for selecting these items:

·         Seasonality and availability in our garden

·         Popularity

·         Recipes that allow for lots of student participation

This year we will be operating slightly differently as we no longer have Michael Cook to assist us in the garden and I will not have a teacher assistant in the kitchen.  I am therefore looking for lots of assistance!!  If you, your family or friends can help in any of the following ways I will be very grateful:

·         General garden work  - single days/hours or a regular visit

·         Assistance in the kitchen -  any time between 9.00 and 2.00 to assist with preparation prior to the class, participation in the class, eating with the staff and students, washing up

·         Assistance in the garden class – working with the students between 9.30 and 10.30 in the garden

·         Donation of seedlings – any vegetable seedlings please, we need lots to plant right now

·         Donation of hay – I need about 4 bales of hay per term for the chickens and mulch

·         Donation of a dehydrator

If you can assist with any of these things please send me a message through school or email me at pauline.snell@education.tas.gov.au .

 

 

Stephanie Alexander visits Southern Support School

Last Wednesday we were delighted to welcome VIPs from the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation for a tour of our kitchen and garden facilities. Our guests were none other than Stephanie herself plus her Chief Executive Officer and her Projects Manager.

Stephanie was on a short visit to Tasmania for a number of meetings but was keen to fit in a visit to a school – I am told by Foundation staff that we were her first choice!  Stephanie has recently been awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in this year’s Australia Day Honours. The award citation commended Stephanie for her ‘distinguished service to education through the design and establishment of schools-based learning programs promoting improved food and eating choices for children, and as an author’. She has also been chosen for a 2014 Australia Post Legends Award and her portrait can be seen on current 60 cent stamps.

Sherry and I spent a very enjoyable hour with Stephanie and her staff. We started with a cup of tea and biscuits in our SAKGP dining area. I decided to make some biscuits using a recipe from the ‘Stephanie Alexander Cook’s App’ that I had recently purchased for my I Pad and was quite thrilled when she ate one and then asked for another!!

 

While we sat and talked about how we run the program Stephanie and her colleagues took countless photos and Stephanie even made notes as we talked. They were certainly impressed with our work!

 

 

 

We then moved on to the garden and once again our guests were very impressed with all that we are doing. The garden is looking wonderful at the moment, full of fruit and vegetables and now has lots of decoration. An artist in Franklin, Jill Bruce, recently painted a sign for our garden and staff member Shaani and her husband have made lovely red watering can plant bed labels and also donated delightful wind catchers.

 

 

 

Stephanie and her staff continued to be impressed when our tour moved into the Garden Classroom. We demonstrated the Interactive Whiteboard Activity that students participate in prior to their kitchen and garden classes and gave them the opportunity to inspect our wall displays and learning resources. Once again many photos were taken and no doubt will be seen shortly on the SAKGP web-site.

 

It was certainly an honour and a great pleasure to have Stephanie visit our school.