Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden

SAKGP Garden and Kitchen Programme 

News - from Chris and Mel in the kitchen & garden

In the Kitchen with Chris 

The theme of our cooking this week was an Italian Feast. 4-6J worked really well together to make, Pumpkin Gnocchi, Italian Sugo to serve with the Gnocchi and 2 different Focaccias.

 The Italian Sugo group used lots of herbs from the garden, including oregano, spring onions, parsley, and dehydrated greek basil we preserved last term.  They cooked the sauce using the tomatoes and the tomato passata 46H cooked last week.  

The Pumpkin Gnocchi group modified the SAKG gnocchi recipe to use more of the pumpkins grown this summer and left out the potatoes. The dough was softer and needed a lighter touch to roll and cut the dough but they carefully rolled it and shaped each gnocchi. They learnt each step of the process including cooking the gnocchi carefully and showing other students how to make and roll out the gnocchi dough and make the gnocchi. It’s a great activity to do at home, if a little messy! 

The Focaccia group harvested lots of yellow cherry tomatoes and rosemary and made the dough for their Cherry Tomato and Rosemary Focaccias. They had fun making creative shapes and experimenting with different toppings. The focaccia dough recipe is great as we can prove it and cook it in our cooking time and it’s fluffy and delicious.  It’s a good recipe to try at home if you want to make your own bread but don’t have all day.  

Everyone enjoyed the Italian Feast, some students who don’t like pumpkin tried the gnocchi and loved it and we realised that using our own tomatoes made a sweet and delicious Sugo.  Sue (who’s Italian) tried the Pumpkin Gnocchi and Tomato Sugo and was very impressed by how delicious and well it was made it was - she normally doesn’t like gnocchi! 

And there was not one piece of Focaccia left - it was a great hit! Well done everyone, another great cooking session.  The recipes and photos are below (they can be enlarged).