Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden
SAKGP Garden and Kitchen Programme
News - from the kitchen & garden with Chris and Eve
Our cooking and gardening classes are each Tuesday
We would love to have more volunteers in both the garden and kitchen classes.
No garden or kitchen skills required, enthusiasm to support the students as they learn is all you need.
If you would like to know more, come into the office and see Chris (Principal)
Gardening with Eve
In gardening class this week the Prep/1 class went on an 'Edible Plant Safari'. We are currently in between winter crops, which have mostly been harvested, and our summer crops which are waiting to be planted after the last frosts, so we set ourselves a challenge to hunt down as many edible plants in the garden as possible. The class raced from one part of the garden to the next, constantly munching and exclaiming 'HERE!! HERE!!' while we collected our finds. We made our way back to the classroom and arranged all of our plant specimens with labels, with the children calling out the first letter of the name and others searching the labels on the table to find the right one (I had made up labels in advance after walking through the garden to see what we had). We then counted together and discovered that we had managed to find 26 different edible plant types in our garden! Wow!
The 5/6 class had many students away at camp but the remaining 6 or 7 helped to prepare our tomato seedlings for our tomato sale next week, labelling each pot with paint markers and checking our the different varieties that we've grown. Some of the 'Brad's atomic grape' seedlings got labelled Brad's atomic bomb somewhere along the line (haha!) so watch out for those if you are buying this particular variety!
The 2/3 class are working on building a bean hut to grow climbing beans over as a summer cubby. The students used willow and fruit tree prunings to weave together the structure to give it strength and plenty of support for our beans to cling to. Working in groups this class took turns weaving, weeding and preparing some pots for us to sow more cucurbits for our Farmers Market stall in November.
We have a Universtiy student, Cam, helping out with our classes for the next few weeks. He is completing some community hours as part of a course in biomed, and has offered to help out with breakfast club and garden classes at the school.
We were also joined for our Edible Plant Safari by Emily from Resource Smart Schools. Emily reached out after seeing some of our posts about the garden programme on Facebook and has offered to run some sustainability incursions for the school, including the River Detectives programme. Very exciting!
Cooking with Chris
This week in Cooking, Grade 4 and 5 created a Dumpling Feast. We cooked Pumpkin Wontons with Broth and Dipping Sauce and Vegetable Gyoza with Dipping Sauce and a delicious Asian Salad of the Imagination with Asian Dressing.
From the garden we used celery, spinach, silverbeet, parsley, spring onions, chives, garlic chives, purple broccoli. mizuna, a variety of different lettuce leaves, red mustard greens, and pumpkin (from the freezer). Chris also brought in a huge Long Island Cheese Pumpkin from his garden that we will use in cooking this term. Thanks Chris, it’s a beauty!
Before recess we worked in teams to make the dumpling dough, prepare the fillings for the gyoza and pumpkin dumplings, make the broth and mix the ingredients for the dipping sauces.
Clem, Frankie B, Lexi and Perla worked well together to make the filling for the Pumpkin Wontons. They mashed the pumpkin, chopped the silverbeet and spring onions finely, measured out and added the sauces and mixed everything together to make the pumpkin filling. Ulla and Romy carefully measured the sauces and vinegar and spices for Dipping Sauce for the Pumpkin Wontons.
Lily finished mixing the wonton dough ingredients and then patiently kneaded the dough until it was very smooth and soft. She then left it to rest until we were ready to roll it out and make the wonton wrappers after recess.
Merry, Harper Chloe and Thea did a great job finely chopping the onions, spring onions, cabbage, silverbeet, celery and herbs for the Gyoza filling. They then mashed the boiled potatoes and whizzed all the ingredients in the food processor to make sure the mixture was finely chopped. Merry carefully measured out the sauces and spices and mixed them into the Gyoza filling.
Grace and Frankie C carefully read the recipe and measured out the ingredients for the Gyoza dipping sauce and plated it up in the bowls to serve with the Vegetable Gyozas.
Henry and Alfie and Heidi used their creativity and knowledge of flavours to make a delicious broth without a recipe. They tasted the broth as they added the secret ingredients to make sure they created a delicious broth which was full of flavour.
After recess, we cut the Wonton dough into 64 even pieces that we rolled into small balls and flattened and rolled into thin round wonton wrappers (they had to be see through!). We then spooned the Pumpkin filling onto the wrapper and folded it carefully to make the Pumpkin Wontons. We used bought Gyoza Wrappers to make the Vegetable Gyoza. Everyone did a great job following the steps to carefully fill and fold the Gyoza into their distinctive shape.
Perla, Thea, Frankie B and Lexi washed and chopped the greens and herbs for their Asian Salad of the Imagination and then added herbs and used their secret ingredients to make the delicious dressing.
While Henry and Alfie were cooking the Pumpkin Wontons in the Broth , and Frankie C and the Gyoza team were frying and steaming the Gyoza, the rest of the 45s worked in teams to clean down the tables and benches and wash and dry the dishes and set the tables ready to share the delicious food we cooked. Harper and Perla and their team picked flowers for the table.
We plated up all the Gyoza and sauces and the Asian Salad and dished up the Pumpkin Dumplings with the Broth separately for everyone to try. We also invited Eve and David to share the feast. Everyone loved the Dumpling Feast they made and they ate every bit. There was some Gyoza filling left over that we’ll freeze for another cooking session.
Great cooking Grade 4 and 5, you worked well in your teams, read the recipes very carefully and supported each other to complete all the tasks for the dishes this week. You did an amazing job, the Dumpling Feast was delicious – very well done! Thanks Chris for your help.
Note from Chris B - it was ownderful to join the year 4/5 class for cooking this week. There enthusiasm and cooking skills were on display. From carefuly following the recipes, working together, tasting foods such as pumpkin that some said they didnt like, to eating together to cleaning up - well done to everyone including Chris C for the wodnerful cooking lession.
The recipes and photos are below
This is what Grade 4 and 5 said about their cooking this week.
I made the special dressing for the Asian Salad, I was happy with how it tasted. Perla
I don’t like pumpkin so I didn’t expect to like the Pumpkin Wontons but I really liked them. I think the wonton dough was rolled out really well. Lily
The broth I made with Henry and Alfie was really good. We should have doubled the recipe!. Heidi
We loved the Asian Salad of the Imagination we made. The Red Mustard leaves we used were a delicious addition. Frankie C, Perla and Thea
The air is filled with fresh, divine fragrance! Harper
I am obsessed with the broth I made with Alfie! The secret ingredient was the extra soy sauce we added to the water and stock powder. We also added salt, spring onions and chives. Henry
