Back into the Swing of Things

After two weeks back at school it's as if we have never been away!
This week's menu was:

Thai Carrot Salad

Zucchini and Onion Pizza

Pasta with a Creamed Spinach Sauce

Mandarin and Almond Salad

Mini Frittatas

All was delicious as usual. The Thai Carrot Salad is becoming a very popular item, we have included it several times now. The Mandarin and Almond Salad was another that would be worth repeating should we be given more mandarins - the honey dressing added an interesting sweetness that was well balanced by the wine vinegar and the the range of textures and colours was good too. The Mini Frittatas were very popular and in the kitchen we were delighted with the silicon muffin 'tins' that we purchased and used for the first time with the frittatas - washing them up was incredibly easy! Pasta of course was enjoyed by all - it is great to see how everyone is becoming quite confident at using the pasta machine now and it seems to have survived being put under water (although it is a little squeeky!). The Zucchini and Onion Pizza was great generally, but definitely needed to have the zucchini sliced really thinly - the mandolin was excellent for this.

Brandon poured the frittata mix into our new muffin 'tins' - red ones of course!

Jo and Jordan worked with Diana to make the Thai Carrot Salad

Meg tore up the spinach for the pasta sauce

Thai Carrot Salad

It was good to have Ryan back this week - a great independent worker

Pasta machine experts!

We were delighted to witness several students join us to sit at the dining table for the first time this week, great progress so early in the year.

A highlight for me this week was the teamwork exhibited by Jacob, Josie and Bella in making the mandarin and almond salad. It was a geat cooking session - a fairly simple recipe so there was plenty of time to investigate the ingredients - including lots of tasting of course! I was beginning to wonder at one stage whether we would have any mandarins left for the salad after all the 'tastes' that we had of them!

After the long summer break we were a bit rusty last week with remembering how to set the dinner table and to to remember to have vases of  flowers there. This week we remembered!!

Jackson set the table beautifully

Jason arranged the flowers

Machines continue to fascinate everyone even if they are a little noisy!

We had two very welcome visitors this week - Doris, who started as a volunteer with us and Thomaz' sister. It made such a difference to have an extra person working with us - we are hopeful that Doris will continue to help us. And Thomaz loved having his sister come and see what he was doing.

And this week I got the perfect hygiene photo - thank you Jacob!!

And whilst on the subject of Jacob, how proud he looked to be asked to pour me a glass of water!

I need to include a photo from last week here - Josh impressed everyone last week when he sat down and peeled 24 hard boiled eggs independently AND without being asked to!

And well done to William for participating so well with food preparation - it is very exciting to see him sitting with us and investigating the food that we have prepared.

In the garden:

Last year I would have said that paper shredding was our most popular garden activity - this year it is definitely watering. Maybe that will change when the cooler weather arrives.

Our compost bins are looking rather sad at the moment - far too much shredded paper compared to green waste and manure. We will have to get them back into balance. Somehow our worm farm got waterlogged in the holidays too - we now have a very wet, slimy, smelly sludge! Something else to get balanced again - and of course new worms will be required.

Ryan helped move the compost

We planted kale, peas, mizuna, spring onions, basil and lettuce this week.

Litiani and Florence planted seedlings

And we harvested lots of zucchini, some peas, spring onions, silver beet, parsley, mint and basil.

Our giant pumkins continue to grow! We have lots of edible pumpkins growing too - this week we put cardboard mats underneath them to try to prevent them from rotting.

Our "Three Sisters" planting (squash, beans and corn) seems to be a success too!

Squash at the base providing mulch, corn growing tall to support the beans and beans providing nitrogen for the soil

Rotary (Bellerive) continued their fantastic work of building our chicken house this week - the roosting boxes were completed and look quite luxurious.

And so on to next week when we will be making:

Mini frittatas

Honey carrots

Potato salad

Pizza of the Imagination

Pasta with a Herb and Tomato Sauce

Our first week back at school

It was exciting to return to school and find out how our veggies had grown during the holidays. We found some huge zucchinis, our giant pumpkins and edible pumpkins are coming along nicely, we have lots of herbs growing well and we will soon have crops of tomatoes and corn to harvest.

Cameron harvested some herbs

Liam harvested some carrots

Ellen used scissors to harvest some chives for the curried eggs



Checking out the giant pumpkin



It was very warm this week so there was watering to be done - very popular on warm sunny days!

William watered the corn

Jacob watered the tomatoes

Jobe unravelled the hose

As well as harvesting each garden group completes a task such as watering, maintenance, composting, weather recording and inspecting our new garden. Josie did a good job completing the weather board on Thursday and Jacob was a great help measuring the soil temperature.

Each group gets a list of jobs to do and visuals showing what they need to harvest

Josie took charge of the weather board

Jacob measured the soil temperature

When it rains and we can't get out to the garden we complete various activities inside such as paper shredding, journal writing and working on a mosaic table. Whilst there was no rain about this week, Sam spent time inspecting the table - it will be good to get it completed this year!

Our new garden is progressing and students enjoyed exploring it this week. Our giant pumpkins are growing in the new garden. Fruit trees are doing well, with one or two fruits on some and we also have some zucchinis, tomatoes and potatoes growing.

The chicken house is nearly finished!

We are running the program five days a week this year and are including eleven classes. Some students started on our program on their first day at our school on Tuesday - what a lovely start to find yourself in a beautiful garden and then have the chance to do some cooking and to eat a delicious lunch!

Our menu this week was:

Pizza Margherita

Pasta with Zucchini and Garlic

Stir-fried greens with honey, soy and sesame seeds

Salad of the Imagination

Curried Eggs

The pizza was really delicious!

And the curried eggs continued to be a great favorite!

We purchased three mandolin slicers in the holidays. Last term we trialled two models, one that had a safety handle which had to be pulled back in order for the sharp slicing blade to be exposed and one that had a guard which held the food to be sliced on the slicing track. Both of these properties were considered to be of value for our students. A big search took place in the holidays to find a mandolin that had both properties. Eventually a model was found, but it was only available in the UK or USA!! After much internet searching the cheapest mandolin was found in a shop in Scotland!! We have trialled the mandolins this week and they appear to be providing us with a solution to the issue of finding safe ways for our students to chop and slice. We produced some matchstick thin carrot chips this week and sliced our tomatoes and onions incredibly thinly. The machines were great fun too!

Liam made zucchini chips for the stir fry

Same made carrot chips for the salad



The machine was very interesting!



We will be starting new menus each Tuesday.

Next weeks new menu is:

Zucchini and Caramelised Onion Pizza

Pasta with a Creamed Spinach Sauce

Thai Carrot Salad

Mandarin and Almond Salad

Mini Frittatas

How did we come up with this menu? Well, zucchinis are readily available at present as is spinach; we were given a lot of carrots and mandarins and we are including an egg dish each week in our first five week block.

There were lots of photos that I could not include in this blog this week as I am still waiting to check permission for publicity documents for many of our new students. Hopefully I will be able to publish more next week.

And here are a selection of photos taken in the kitchen:

Jacob dry roasted the sesame seeds that would be a garnish for the stir-fry



Patrick made pasta



Regan used the mandolin slicer to slice tomatoes for the pizza



Jack grated the zucchini (a very big one!) for the pasta sauce



Rochelle grated cheese for the pizza



And what a great final photo - a new student enjoying his first Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Program Meal!