SAKG NEWS
This week in the kitchen we have a lovely spread of warming Zucchini soup with Egyptian spices and coconut milk, roasted vegetable and crouton salad with maple dijon dressing, pumpkin and feta scrolls followed by lemon meringue cupcakes.
The kids have learnt about combining and grinding various spices to create an aromatic and flavoursome spice combo that not only gives the soup a flavour boost but makes it look special as well. Here is a link to the recipe
We have had some exciting purple carrots and lollypop swirl beetroots in our roast veggies, prompting some good discussion about the variety of vegetables that are not always available in supermarkets and why that might be. Interestingly, carrots were not always orange, were bred that colour especially to honour the House of Orange, the Dutch Royal Family in the 17th Century. Carrots can be grown in many colours, purple, yellow, red and even white.
The bread is a simple dough, like we have done before but shaped differently and it is lovely to see the delighted looks on faces when they see how fluffy and pretty their swirly rolls turn out. You can adjust this recipe to many different flavour combinations, including cheese and vegemite, ham and cheese, even sweet things like Biscoff and chocolate or cinnamon sugar and apple. Try your own at home and let me know what works!
Last but not least, our dessert teams have been hard at work making lemon meringue cupcakes. The process of creaming the butter and sugar to get them nice and fluffy and mixing the egg yolks and lemon over a double boiler to make curd, topped with magnificently mixed meringue (most kids are amazed at the change that takes place after a good 15 mins of mixing) is certainly a slog but well worth the effort. If you don't feel like making curd you can buy a nice one from Coles. Thank you to all the people who have contributed lemons, we appreciate it very, very much!!
Classes have come back to the garden, just as the weather starts to get a little bit better! Students are being reminded about the way that we all work in the garden. After this talk, kids break into 4 groups to complete tasks in the garden for most of the session. They stay with the same classmates in their group for the rest of the year. But each group rotates through different tasks so that students get to try everything in the garden over the year.
The group working with the animals independently work through a daily checklist of chores to look after guinea pigs and chooks. Of course, Jodie and other staff are there to support the students when they need help! The harvesting group is busy harvesting a lot of produce from the garden for cooking in the kitchen. Kids follow a harvest list to collect fennel, parsley, wild garlic leaves, rosemary, chilli, carrots, beetroots, kohl rabi, kale, chard & lemons. There are signs in the garden to help students identify vegetables, as well as explain and show how to harvest them. The growing group is weeding and mulching all the garden beds in the raised garden bed area named “Om Nom Nom”. The weeds are given to the chooks, to supplement their diet. There is a lot of work to be done to get ready for the next growing season when the weather warms up! Lastly the group that observes and creates are drawing, taking photos and designing posters. There were some amazing drawings made of a beetroot that was found in the garden. And some students are thinking about soil in an effort to enter the Soil Week competition again this year. Roving Reporters enthusiastically take photos of all the action in the garden.
In exciting animal news our new Guinea pig (boy) Caramel has become friends with Rupert (boy). This means that Rupert is no longer lonely in a large cage by himself! Students did well to facilitate meet and greet sessions between the two guinea pigs to help them bond.
Mrs O’Brien, Kate, Jodie & Lucinda