Week 8 Term 1 2014

The second week of our latest menu:

Moroccan Chickpea and Quinoa Salad
Salad of the Imagination
Pizza of the Imagination
Zucchini Fritters
Pasta with a Vegetable Sauce

Some excellent participation this week, in particular from Orange and Green Classes. I don’t work on Fridays so don’t get to work with these classes – I think I am going to have to visit!

Jack Green was especially impressive with his work making pasta. Well done Jack!

 

And everyone was delighted when Kayla ate some pasta!

Katelin and Brandon made a good team making Moroccan Chickpea and Quinoa Salad. Katelin did a great job frying the carrots for this dish.

 

Well done to Jessica who prepared Zucchini Fritters and also sat beautifully at the dining table.

 

 

Jason, Jed and Daniel were fascinated by the garden snails. Well done to TA Mel who developed this activity.

Jaydon continued to impress us all with his culinary skills; this week he was the only student in his ‘group’ but still managed to produce 25 delicious Zucchini Fritters.

 

Our Salad of the Imagination reached new heights on Thursday when Jacob and Matt (TA) decided to make a fruit salad – they even went off to the orchard to harvest some peaches! I loved they way they gave so much thought to the dressing – they added lemon juice and then had great debates about whether to add raspberry vinegar as well (deciding against in the end). Jacob chose some lovely edible flowers and mixed seeds for his garnish.

 

 

 

John too made a lovely salad, choosing to use the ‘pencil sharpener’ tool for the carrots. I was very grateful that John chose to assist with pasta making after he had completed his salad production.

Daniel used a remote switch really well to operate a blender.

 

Darcy worked really well this week – excellent harvesting of mint for the Moroccan Chickpea and Quinoa Salad.

 

Great watering by Thomaz – except when he decided to water all of us!! It was a good job it was a reasonably warm day!!

Pizzas have been delicious as usual this week. Matthew and Daniel made a delicious beetroot, pumpkin and cheese salad.

Ryan was also really impressive with his zucchini fritters this week. Great planting in the garden too!

Aimee participated really well this week – she made an excellent pizza.

 

 

 

Good work again by Zach with recording the weather.

And I have to admit to failure this week with my first attempt at making pizzas in our new wood fired pizza oven – despite burning a fire in it for 3 hours it was not hot enough. I will try again with a much bigger fire next week!!

 

A couple more photos:

 

 

 

Week 7 Term 1 2014

We started a new menu this week:

Moroccan Chickpea and Quinoa Salad
Salad of the Imagination
Pizza of the Imagination
Pasta with a Vegetable Sauce
Zucchini Fritters

Once again the menu was selected to include favorites, recipes that allow for maximum participation and seasonality of vegetables.

The Zucchini Fritters definitely won the ‘People Choice Award’ – to use a My Kitchen Rules term!! Students were asked to make 25 each day and we probably should have made 50.

 

The idea of Salad of the Imagination is for students to make lots of choices. I made them up a choice board in which they had to choose from a selection of vegetables, then from a selection of dressings and finally from a selection of garnishes.

The garnishes were mainly edible flowers and included nasturtiums, cornflowers, borage and marigolds.

We had some very varied and delicious salads!

 

In the garden we are continuing to harvest a wide variety of vegetables. I was very pleased when students chose to harvest a pumpkin for their salad.

Chickens of course are a great attraction.

 

 

 

Thanks so much to our volunteers Jacqui, Brooke, Lynda, Lisa and Sophie – we couldn’t have managed without you!

 

It was great to see our students serve their food – so much pride in presentation.

 

 

 

We are continuing to find our dicers really useful. Great work from Vinnie!

 

Jayden really impressed us with his switch use this week – he used it to operate the pasta machine.

 

A star so far this term has been Zach – excellent work in both the kitchen and the garden.

And today Ryan was really impressive with his pasta making, he made a delicious sauce, boiled the pasta that Jamie and William had made and served it out. I set him the task of dividing the pasta between two bowls – a great bit of maths involving division, sharing and fractions!

 

This week I received copies of the latest Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program curriculum books. These books are written by the Foundation and provide lots of examples of how the program can be extended into a wide variety of classroom activities, addressing many areas of the Australian Curriculum. Southern Support School is included in this latest book in a section about weather recording. There is a lovely photo of Ryan showing how he recorded the day's weather on our weather board.

 

 

This week we were mentioned in Stephanie Alexander’s personal newsletter (well worth subscribing to http://stephaniealexander.cmail1.com/t/ViewEmail/t/9E9BA5815C66568C/44181D964A67782B2540EF23F30FEDED )

This is what she said:

“It is inevitable that as the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden project grows and grows my role has changed. This month we will be celebrating as our 500th school joins the family. From just one school in 2001.

Here are a few observations I jotted down during my recent travels.

Tasmania

Southern Support School is for severely disabled students. The visit was an emotional experience. Kitchen a bright cheerful place with visual prompt cards to identify equipment. The staff are saints. The students’ achievements are measured in the tiniest steps. A child who eats nothing at all will sit at a table where there is food. Another non-eater observed to place a small piece of pizza near to his mouth.

Depending on physical ability these children cut kale leaves for their kale and onion pizza, their hands guided by a staff member, they carry food to a table with immense pride and they love to be in their garden. Learning to select 1 piece of asparagus and 2 pieces of carrot becomes a lesson in both literacy and numeracy.”

A photo of our garden and one of our recipe visuals was also included.

And I will finish with a photo of what this program is all about: