Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program

This week we cooked:

Wholemeal rolls

Carrot and Cumin Dip

Cheesy Mashed Potato Bake

Pasta with a Spring Vegetable Sauce

Silver beet and feta rolls

Salad of the Imagination

Cody added the sprouted quinoa and mixed the salad very gently with her hands.

Pasta with a spring vegetable sauce

Salad of the Imagination - garnished with sprouted quinoa

Carrot and cumin dip - the favorite this week!

Silver beet, feta and ricotta rolls

The carrot and cumin dip was definitely the winner this week – in fact we are going to repeat it next week; consisting of just carrots, garlic, olive oil and cumin it was easy and healthy. We have been experimenting with sprouting quinoa and have found that it makes a really tasty addition to our salads – the quinoa is simply kept moist in a glass jar for 2 or three days and rinsed twice daily.

As mentioned last week we are attracting quite a lot of publicity at the moment – an article about our program has been published on the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation web-site – take a look by going to http://www.kitchengardenfoundation.org.au/ and clicking on ‘Southern Support School’s Kitchen Garden Program Flourishes’. We are also now the featured school in their spring newsletter – you can access it from the following link:

http://www.responsetrack.net/viewemail/?192LK004AD3%2D6c95fd7347d9aab38664bf38e73df280

The people at the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation are delighted with what Southern Support School is doing – here is a quote from the author of their newsletter, commenting on the information given to here for inclusion in the article:

“It's wonderful to be able to include a snapshot of your Kitchen Garden Program and how it operates in a special school. Just great. I was so inspired by your email I printed it and read it to anyone I could capture!”

And then after it was published she has sent the following message:

“I've already received an email from a member of the public wanting to assist in the Kitchen Garden Program at a special school because of the feature story - just wonderful.”

Hopefully other special school will be inspired to join the program.

After selling out of recipe books yet again we have printed more and they are available at a cost $10 from the front office or by sending a note in to us.

Next week we are cooking:

Wholemeal rolls

Carrot and Cumin Dip

Mini Asparagus Quiches

Pasta with a Spinach Cream Sauce

Asian Carrot and Turnip

Minted Mixed Melon Salad

We have had a lovely week in the garden, mainly preparing our beds for planting next week. We have cut down and dug in our green manure crops, added lots of compost from our compost bins and will be planting some seedlings and seeds next week.

Ellen starts to dig in the green manure crop

It was quite hard to dig the green manure crop in!

Cody and Joseph shredded paper for the compost heap

We were given lots of grass cuttings for our compost heap

This bed is now ready for planting next week

Cameron harvested silver beet

It was so nice to be out in the warm sunshine

A busy morning

Michael helped clean up the garden beds

Litiani and Ryan worked hard digging in the green manure crop

Jayden really enjoyed a sensory experience on Monday. We were given lots of bags of grass cuttings for our compost bins and decided to see whether Jayden would enjoy a grass cutting foot massage!! He loved it – fantastic smell and feel – a great sensory experience.

And here are a few more photos:

Jack thinks that he might like to take a turn at what Rochelle is doing!

Welding the framework for the polytunnel

Jack had a go at making pasta

Liam did a good job peeling carrots

pasta making

Wow!

Jack did some cheese grating too

Cody enjoyed the salad that she had helped to prepare

Good work peeling the potatoes

Preparing the silver beet for the rolls

Spring vegetable sauce for the pasta

Cameron did a good job making the pasta

Carefully rolling the filo pastry for the silver beet, ricotta and feta rolls

Adding some seeds to the salad

It was great to come back to school and see how well our vegetables have been growing during the holidays – our broad beans have formed already, our kale and spring onions are growing well and we had cauliflowers, silverbeet and lots of snow peas to harvest.

Alexander harvests cauliflower

Patrick harvested silverbeet and also the tops of the broad beans

The poly tunnel

Our new garden is developing well too – our hot house, chicken house and poly tunnel are currently being erected and our fruit trees have lots of blossom.

Hot house

The Chook House and the Posts to Fence off The Chook Run

Poly Tunnel

Hot House

Fruit Trees

Chook House

In our existing garden we have been working on preparing our raised beds for planting. We have been growing 'green manure crops' (as explained in a previous post) to enrich the soil. The crops were ready to be cut down and dug back into the soil this week. Abbie and Riley did a great job with this.

Our delicious food this week consisted of:

Wholemeal rolls

Skordalia (Greek Potato and Garlic Dip)

Hummus

Cauliflower and Carrot Gratin

Pasta with a Spinach and Ricotta Sauce

Crudities (raw vegetables to have with the dip)

Salad of the Imagination

We are attracting quite a lot of publicity at the moment – an article about our program has been published on the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation web-site – take a look by going to http://www.kitchengardenfoundation.org.au/ and clicking on ‘Southern Support School’s Kitchen Garden Program Flourishes’ – there will also be a feature about us in their Spring Newsletter which is due out shortly. And yesterday a reporter from ‘Eat Well Tasmania’ spent the morning working with Blue and White Classes during their kitchen and garden sessions – they will be writing about us in their newsletter and also plan to include a report about us (including videos) on their web-site.

We sold out of recipe books again this week, but more will be available early next week – they cost $10 and can be obtained from the front office or by sending a note in to us.

Next week we are cooking:

Wholemeal rolls

Carrot and Cumin Dip

Cheesy Mashed Potato Bake

Pasta with a Spring Vegetable Sauce

Silver beet and feta rolls

Salad of the Imagination

Some more photos: