Week 8 Term 4 2013

The final menu for 2013!!

Curried Eggs
Pizza of the Imagination
Pasta with a Vegetable Sauce
Moroccan Chickpea and Quinoa Salad
Baked Potatoes Filled with Vegetables and Cheese

I seem to have created a pyramid!!

Everything was delicious of course! Curried Eggs are an all-time winner and the salad is wonderful! Baked potatoes were new for us and very good! Pizza and pasta continue to vary in taste each day, but not in quality.

I have just been listening to Stephanie talking on the radio about the kitchen garden program. She talked about the goal of the program being ‘Pleasurable Food Education’ and about students being involved in growing, harvesting, cooking and eating. In particular she spoke about the importance of mealtimes being happy occasions where students are given the opportunity to choose what they eat – no threats of ‘you’re not leaving the table until you eat’, etc.  But she also spoke about not giving them something else if they don’t want what is provided. She believes that families should sit together to eat and that the same food be served to all – she is definitely not a supporter of restaurants providing ‘children’s menus’! The menu format recommended by the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation (providing 5 ‘tastes’) certainly seems to work for us – many of our students eat all five items regularly and almost all eat at least one.

A short entry this week as I have only been at school for two days.

Thomas did a great job filling up the chicken’s food container. He also collected 6 eggs which were very useful as he was making Curried Eggs this week. It was good to see Thomas participate in the whole cooking process.

 

Another lovely example of participation was when Aaron very carefully added pasta to a saucepan of boiling water and then plated it up once it had cooked.

A few photos from last week that I have only just received.

First of all some great work from Josh who made Bashed Neeps and Carrots – very good chopping using our dicing machine and also slicing. Josh has invited his mum to join him for lunch today - I am looking forward to seeing the photos! I have been meaning to invite parents/carers along to lunch all year, but haven't quite managed it - a goal for next year I think. Ellen's grandma joined us for part of our meal on Thursday too, it really is something we must do more of.

And here is Cameron making and serving Sicilian Toast.

 

 

Our hens are continuing to provide us with eggs. Now that we have changed the layout of their nesting box and provided them with grit we are getting fewer broken eggs. Hopefully we have resolved the problem of the hens breaking their eggs.

When students come to garden class they bring a folder with them that has photos of their group and what they are going to cook, a symbols-based instruction card stating what their garden job for the day is and visuals of what they need to harvest. Here you can see Ellen studying her instructions.

 

And finally it was time to harvest the garlic! This year we harvested about 60 bulbs. Now they are hanging in the shed drying out. We will use most of them in cooking, but will save some for next year’s planting.

 

The warmer weather has resulted in us needing to start to water again – always a popular activity. William did a great job watering on Thursday.

 

 

Ryan was a star this week – harvesting lots of garlic and also working really well when making baked potatoes.

 

Rochelle worked well as usual. Here she can be seen chopping chives for the curried eggs. Our students usually chop herbs by putting the herbs into a plastic cup and then snipping them with scissors. Shannon, however, always chooses to chop herbs with a special chopping device (purchased from Ikea).

 

And finally a photo of our ‘Diner of the Week’ – Aidan. It was good to see him sit and eat the pizza that he made this week.