Kitchen Garden Up
The kitchen has been a hive of activity over the past four weeks as our Year 3 and 4 students tackled one of the biggest menus of the year! Working in five groups and supported by our wonderful parent and community volunteers, students prepared a feast of red lentil and pumpkin curry, bean, veggie thoran, dragon fruit raita, sweet potato flatbreads, mango lassi, yellow rice and crispy papadams.
The recipes can be found and downloaded below in case any families want to recreate the delicious dishes made at school;
As always, one of the best parts of Kitchen Garden is seeing students give new foods a go. Everyone was encouraged to try each dish. This menu included not one, but two dishes with chilli and other spices that we haven’t used much in our sessions so far. We were so impressed by how many students approached the challenge with curiosity and an open mind. For some students, it was their first time tasting some of these dishes and flavours and for others it was a good opportunity to share their knowledge and experiences.
Once the cooking was complete, we all sat down together to enjoy the meal. Students shared food around the table, practised their table manners, and enjoyed conversation with their classmates, volunteers, Neil and Jac. These shared meals are such an important part of the Kitchen Garden program and a wonderful opportunity for students to slow down and connect with each other over food they have prepared themselves.
The garden has been just as busy as the kitchen this term. Alongside our regular jobs of caring for the chickens, maintaining the compost systems, weeding garden beds and helping keep the school grounds tidy, students have been busy harvesting and preserving some of our seasonal produce.
We dug up a bumper crop of Jerusalem artichokes and picked the last of our tromboncinos for the season. Students also helped process some of our harvest by chopping, cooking and freezing leftover apples, as well as cleaning and roasting Jerusalem artichokes to be used in future Kitchen Garden recipes later in the year. Other highlights included making herbal tea bags using ingredients from the garden and baking delicious vegan muffins. It has been wonderful to see students developing practical gardening, cooking and sustainability skills while helping make the most of everything our garden has to offer.
A huge thank you to all of our volunteers. Over the past month we have been fortunate to welcome not only parents from our Year 3 and 4 classes, but also grandparents, other extended family members, and parents from other year levels across the school. It has been wonderful to see so many members of the SKiPPS community getting involved and sharing their time, skills, and encouragement with our students. The Kitchen Garden program simply could not run without your support.
After the public holiday, we have two more Mondays of Kitchen Garden lessons to go, with every class returning for another session in the kitchen. We are looking forward to finishing the term with more cooking, more fun and, of course, more delicious food!
Chantel Jose
Kitchen Garden Specialist