Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program

This week we cooked:

Potato and Garlic Ravioli with Tomato Sauce

Grain Mustard and Herb Rolls

Pumpkin Soup

Roasted Winter Vegetables

Coleslaw

The popularity of soup increases every week, a really pleasing improvement on last year. There are two changes from last year – soup is served in mugs this year and the students are serving themselves. So far all of our soups have been smooth; when we repeat in Term 3 we will try some ‘chunky’ ones – maybe start with minestrone as the pasta in it will be an encouragement.

Ravioli has continued to be a popular inclusion in our menu, but it is very time consuming in preparation – something to make for perhaps just one or two five week blocks in a year.

It has been rewarding to see some excellent independent work this week from Rochelle, Jo and Regan. Rochelle did a good job grating vegetables in the food processor. Jo made pasta dough almost completely independently. And Regan operated the food processor, mixed dressing and set the table!

Mention must be made of Shannon this week. He came to me to ask for more olive oil as his bottle was empty. I swapped his with mine and shortly afterwards he returned with a funnel so that he could pour some of the oil I had given him into my empty bottle.

We have had lovely weather in the garden this week – students have been mulching the fruit trees, recording the weather, planting parsley, seed saving and composting.

If all goes to plan the chicks should hatch on Tuesday!

Next week is the last of our 5 week block – we are making:

Beef Ravioli with Tomato Sauce

Grain Mustard and Herb Rolls

Soup of the Imagination

Stir-fried Vegetables

Thai Carrot Salad

And finally some more photos

This week we made:

Pumpkin Ravioli with Herb Sauce

Grain Mustard and Herb Rolls

Cream of Vegetable Soup

Roasted Winter Vegetables

Waldorf salad

Our pasta machine has continued to cause us some problems so sadly we have had to send it back for repair or replacement this week. Our warranty is for 5 years so, unless the repairers think that we have damaged it rather than it being faulty, we should get a replacement. In the meantime Kasey’s mum Pauline has very kindly offered to loan us hers. But despite our machinery problems, we still managed to make ravioli that was delicious and that is what matters.

This week was one of our better menus I think (not that any are not good). The rolls are a really good recipe; the soup varied each day but was always really tasty; the roasted winter vegetables were so popular we will repeat them next week; and the Waldorf salad was really yummy too. Our students are beginning to really enjoy having a mug of soup – the mugs are so much better than having the soup in a bowl!

Great news this week when we ‘candled’ the eggs that we are incubating we found that of the 23 eggs we have about 15 that appear to be developing. So all looks set for hatching on the 4^th June!!

We had the official opening of our chicken house this week. Rotary of Bellerive have built us an absolute palace of a chicken house and yesterday we were given the opportunity to thank them. About 60 people attended the opening, students, sponsors and family members. As we do not have any chooks yet we ‘borrowed’ some from Craig. The students were absolutely thrilled to go into the chook house and mingle with the chooks – it was a truly special occasion to witness their delight. It is going to be great to have chooks of our own very soon. As I said at the opening, when we joined the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program we could easily have opted to run a ‘watered down’ version of the program, but we decided to go with the format suggested by the Foundation and it has been a great success. The light, airy and roomy design of the chicken house will enable us to continue with this ‘full on’ approach. It was quite clear yesterday that the chicken house is accessible to all of our students and that they were very comfortable moving around inside the chicken house and the exterior chicken run. The morning tea was organised by Pink Class and Purple Class who did a fantastic job.

While in Melbourne last week I re-visited Ascot Vale Special School, another very enthusiastic Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program school. I spent time with their SAKGP Coordinator and the Curriculum Officer for the Foundation, sharing what we are currently doing and making some plans for future collaborative work. I was also privileged to participate in their kitchen class and work with their students. A great learning experience for me.

Next week we are cooking:

Potato and Garlic Ravioli with Tomato Sauce

Grain Mustard and Herb Rolls

Pumpkin Soup

Roasted Winter Vegetables

Coleslaw

And finally a few more photos: