Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden 

Sonia Nista 

Kitchen Specialist

The students have all settled in nicely as we get back into preparing and sharing at The Patch Café. After our garden walks in the first few weeks of term, they now have a strong understanding of the summer season and the beautiful fruit and veggies they can expect to see in our term 1 menus.

Our year 3 students have now all completed their knife skills training. Each class spent a session focusing on safety in the kitchen and the key techniques they regularly use in kitchen class. A huge thank you to all the wonderful parent helpers who gave up their time to assist in these very important sessions. I felt a very strong sense of community amongst you all, the students and I are grateful for your support!

I know many of you have admired the bountiful beds of zucchini, squash and cucumbers we are growing, some may have even purchased them in our recent market stalls. The students (and staff) have also enjoyed these summer fruits kicking things off with a definite crowd pleaser - chocolate, zucchini muffins. With the addition of some dark chocolate chips, this delicious, but sneaky muffin was packed full of nutritious freshly grated zucchini. You wouldn’t have even known it was in there!

Over the past 2 weeks our students have enjoyed many more dishes including:

• Fruit salad cups
• Greek salad
• Zucchini, squash, and haloumi fritters
• Israeli salad
• Cucumber and mint raita

We are still in urgent need of volunteers to assist our students in the kitchen and garden, especially within our year 5 and 6 levels. Classes will NOT go ahead without the minimum of 2 volunteers in each session to help supervise around hot stoves and while using cook’s knives. You can contact me through Compass or speak to one of our friendly office staff for more information.

Please reach out if you think you can help our students to continue to Grow, Harvest, Prepare and Share.