“The World is hugged by the faithful arms of volunteers”

This week is National Volunteer Week and to say that volunteers are an essential part of the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program almost seems like an understatement.

We really could not run our Program at Southern Support School without our wonderful volunteers:

• Laurie, Shaani and Mel who do a fantastic job looking after our chooks at weekends and in the holidays
• Jacqui, Linda, Brooke, Lisa, Mel, Sophie and Marilyn who do such a wonderful job in the kitchen

The value of our volunteers was really emphasised last week when only one of my seven volunteers was able to attend – thank goodness everyone returned this week!

This blog post covers this week and last – there just wasn’t time to write an entry last week!

For the first two weeks of this term our menu has been:

Thai Carrot Salad
Cheesy Vegetables
Curried Carrot and Apple Soup
Wholegrain Mustard and Herb Rolls
Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli with a Tomato Sauce

Gold Class has continued where it left off last term, displaying great skills, participation and humour!

Well done to Dominic who participated in every stage of making  ‘Cheesy Vegetables’ last week, assisted with ravioli making this week (as well as his own job with the ‘Cheesy Vegetables’) and did a wonderful job cleaning up too. Stephen B. continues to impress us with the artistic creations he makes with pumpkins and his juggling attempts; and this week we were delighted to witness him eating so much! And Harvey is such a valued member too – wonderful participation and humour – although I am still struggling to forgive him for eating so many bread rolls – he delighted in telling me that he ate three and I had none!! And Christopher too – great participation with the salad.

And here are photos:

Thai Carrot Salad

Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli with a Tomato Sauce

Curried Carrot and Apple Soup

All of our students work so well in the Program, but one or two deserve a special mention:

Jayden– he really enjoyed smelling the mint that we harvested for our salad. And what a great job he did when washing up!

Aidan too was most impressive peeling carrots and apples.

Litiani’s job was to prepare ravioli, but she found time to assist other groups too, helping make salad and rolls.

And it was great to see Tomas sampling food from the harvest table.

In the garden lots of seedlings are being planted.

One of our scarecrows got a new outfit this week!

Lots of mulching was done.

And harvesting too of course.

Finally, the culmination of all of the work – eating!!

Week 10 Term 1 2014

Our last week of cooking for this term. We made:

Jewelled Couscous
Pumpkin and Spinach Salad
Pear and Parmesan Salad
Zucchini and Onion Pizza
Pasta with Caramelised Onions

Aimee did a fantastic job making jewelled couscous, she really enjoyed using the dicer! Jason, Harvey and Christopher also did excellent work to make this dish on their days.

Lots of great pizza making this week. Litiani impressed us all when she made the pizza dough almost completely independently. Tomas and Josie were impressive with their plating up and serving. And on Thursday Frank and Bella made a great team and were joined by Christopher too!

Brandon, Jack B, Thomas B and Stephen B worked really well making the pumpkin and spinach salad.

 

Our pear and parmesan salad was really good this week, well done especially to Ryan and Jamie for their contribution to this on Thursday.

Our pasta makers were excellent – well done Jed, Aidan and Vinnie! And what a great job Zach did with this dish too – it was lovely to have his mum and grandmother join us for our kitchen session. And thank you to Tom D who came and assisted with the pasta sauce after he had completed his work on couscous.

Jamie did a great job setting the table this week – well done!

Great work by Blue Class in the garden this week – Jacob and Aidan composting and planting.

 

I would like to finish with a quote from Stephanie Alexander’s autobiography “A Cook’s Life” when she talks about why she started the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program.

“I was certain that if you offer a child the widest possible range of food from the earliest possible age in a loving environment, if you eat together as often as possible, and demonstrate your own enjoyment of flavour and texture and conviviality, that child will eat well forever, and will enjoy being with others around a table for the rest of his or her life.”

How fortunate we are that Stephanie had this belief and put it into practice with her program.