Chatham Primary School

Kitchen Garden

Kitchen Garden Update

 

Over the past two weeks the students in Year 3/4 have enthusiastically participated in our first cooking sessions for 2025.

 

Our hero vegetable this time was zucchini, and we made zucchini pizza stacks accompanied by a cherry tomato and basil salad. We also made zucchini chocolate muffins for dessert. All the flavours worked marvellously together and working in small groups, the students showed confidence in their skills and a real eagerness to begin preparing food for us all to enjoy. It was fantastic to see the students recalling and employing skills they had acquired during last year’s cooking sessions.  

 

As always, as part of these sessions we discussed seasonal fruits and vegetables, and where our food comes from. We also showcased some of the fruits, vegetables and herbs that we had gathered from our very own garden, along with the eggs we gathered from our very own chickens! The biggest highlight was cracking a double-sized egg from one of our chooks and wondering in anticipation if it would have a double yolk and… it did! This created so much excitement amongst students.

 

Thank you to our volunteer parents who came along and assisted with our sessions. The recipes we used are included in this newsletter and our next cooking sessions for Year 3/4 will be on the 18th and 25th of March. For these sessions, we will be making spanakopita and tzatziki dip with Voula, one of our wonderful Chatham grandparents. We will also be keeping our fingers and toes crossed that our rock melons will be ready to harvest and eat by then too, so that we can enjoy them for dessert! 

 

Thank you,

Ms Leda Semercioglu

Kitchen Garden Coordinator       

 

Cherry Tomato and Basil Leaf Salad

 

Ingredients

1 box of cherry tomatoes

1 handful of basil leaves

1 tablespoon of olive oil

1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar

The juice of 1/2 a lemon 

 

Method

  1. Collect basil leaves from the garden and then wash and rinse.
  2. Slice cherry tomatoes in halves.
  3. Add lemon juice, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and whisk together.
  4. In a salad bowl, toss the cherry tomatoes and basil leaves with the dressing. 

Zucchini and Chocolate Muffins

 

Ingredients

3 cups of self-raising flour

2 teaspoons of baking powder

1 cup of unsweetened cacao powder

1 ½ cups of coarsely grated zucchini

2 ripe mashed bananas

1 cup of milk

1 cup of honey

1 cup of olive oil

2 eggs

 

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees.
  2. In a bowl, mix together the flour, cacao powder and baking powder.
  3. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, milk, honey and olive oil together until they are well-combined.
  4. Stir in the grated zucchini and mashed banana and mix together.
  5. Add the dry ingredients to the zucchini and banana mixture, and stir to combine lightly, but do not over mix.
  6. Settle the paper cases in the muffin tray holes.
  7. Spoon mixture into each paper case, filling them to 2/3 full.
  8. Bake for approximately 20-25 minutes or until firm to touch.

Note: This recipe makes approximately 24 muffins.

Enjoy!

 

Zucchini Pizza Stacks

 

Ingredients

2-3 large zucchinis, sliced into thin rounds

(approximately 72 slices for two trays)

1 cup of passata sauce

1 cup of grated mozzarella cheese

1 tablespoon of dried oregano 

6 slices of bread, cut into 1/4 squares

 

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees.
  2. Spray muffin trays with olive oil.
  3. Flatten bread and cut into 1/4 squares, and place 1 square in each muffin hole.
  4. On top of each square of bread, first spread the passata sauce (1 teaspoon), then stack the zucchini, followed by more sauce (another teaspoon), then sprinkle the top with cheese.
  5. Make approximately 3 layers of zucchini, sauce and cheese, finishing with extra cheese on top.
  6. Sprinkle each stack with dried oregano.
  7. Do not worry if the stacks look too high, as they will shrink when cooking.
  8. Bake for 20-22 minutes, or until golden brown on top.

     Enjoy!