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
This week the Prep/1 class had a very busy (!) garden class - first we sawed open one of our big gourds to harvest the seeds. We talked about how Gourds differ from their close relatives, Pumpkins, because they produce lignin - the same substance that trees produce to create wood. Lignin enables the gourds to grow a hard outer shell which is also waterproof, so gourds have historically been used for all sorts of things like water carrying, food and seed storage as well as musical instruments! I showed the kids some photos of gourds being used as an acoustic bowl for Mbiras (African Thumb Pianos) and we listened to a song that was played on an Mbira. My friend, Joseph, is going to use the gourd we cut open to make housing for his Mbira so I’m hoping that at some stage he might be able to come back and play it for us!
Next we headed out to the arches that we have put up in the garden to grow gourds over and the kids all planted a couple of seeds each. We planted waaaay too many to grow in that area so we will use this as a nursery bed and will take some of the seedlings to pot up so that families can have a go of planting them at home too. We’d like to have a competition actually, to see who can grow the biggest gourds!
We headed up to the kitchen garden via our carrot bed. The Prep/1s sowed seeds at the end of last term and we now have a patch of very happy carrot plants growing so everyone is looking forward to harvesting them once the get bigger.
In the kitchen garden some students planted out the potatoes that the 5/6 class ‘chitted’ last term while others weeded and munched on celery, lettuce and young broad beans. We pulled out a HUGE radish and checked out the prolific crop of snow peas we have growing in these beds. It was hilarious trying to get the kids to leave them in the garden - they need to save them for their cooking class next week! I had to resort to talk of magic forcefields…..so the kids instead took turns “just smelling them” or “looking reeeaaally closely” but we did manage to save them for next week somehow!
Mulch mountain was a huge hit as always, so we had a few breaks for mountain marching, and our mountaineers posed for a photo.
The 2/3s have been weeding and preparing their own garden, next to the four-square courts, where we have built a frame for a bean cubby. In class this week we started with the story of the three sisters: corn, beans and pumpkin (squash). The students lay down on the carpet and shut their eyes and I read them the myth of the three sisters. *I have a copy of this if anyone is interested, very happy to share.
First Nations people in North America and Canada have been growing these crops together for thousands of years and we talked about how stories are often used in oral traditions to pass down important information. Not only do these plants make perfect companions (which science backs up), they also store over winter when not much is growing and, when eaten together, provide complete nutrition to keep people healthy until the plants start to grow again in spring.
The class split into three groups and took turns planting corn, planting scarlet runner beans to grow over our cubby frame, and finishing off our everlasting daisy plantings from last week with help from Cam (doing placement with us this term). At the end of the class everyone was given a berlotti bean seed to plant at the base of a corn seedling and three students planted a pumpkin each. So now we wait for our garden to take shape!
cooking with Chris
This week in Cooking, Grade 4 were on their own to create their Pasta Feast (Grade 5 students were on camp). We made a Fettucine pasta, Leek Carbonara sauce, Vegetable Bolognese and Salad of the Imagination.
From the garden we used leeks, celery, spinach, silverbeet, parsley, bay leaves, dried oregano, spring onions and chives. mizuna, a variety of different lettuce leaves, red mustard greens, and pumpkin (from the freezer).
Before recess we worked in teams to make the pasta dough and cook the pasta sauces.
Dana and her group measured out the pasta dough ingredients and then patiently kneaded the dough until it was very smooth and soft, then let it rest.
Frankie B, Heidi and Clem worked well together to finely chop the onions, garlic and celery and grate the carrots and clean and slice the mushrooms for the Vegetable Bolognese. They then carefully followed the recipe to add the lentils, pumpkin, tomato passata and herbs and spices and cook the sauce. They tasted it as it cooked to make sure it was delicious and well-seasoned.
Henry, Harper and Alfie worked well together to cook the Leek Carbonara, Alfie has made it before with his Dad and he knew it would be a good dish for our Pasta Feast! They washed and chopped the leeks and garlic finely and sweated them down slowly, then measured out the parmesan and whisked the eggs for the sauce. They chopped and added the thyme and the seasonings. We all agreed this is a quick and easy pasta sauce for week night dinners.
After each team completed their tasks for the sauces and the pasta dough, they cleaned down the tables and benches and washed and dried the dishes. This made the clean-up at the end of the session much easier and we were ready to make the Fettucine after recess.
After recess, we worked in 3 groups to roll out the pasta dough and put it through the pasta machine until it was translucent. Everyone worked methodically to make the pasta dough as thin as possible. They then added the pasta cutter attachment and put the pasta strips through the cutting roller to make the fettucine. We made sure that we laid the pasta carefully on the floured table in one layer so the fettucine did not stick together.
While the Dana and her teams were cooking the pasta, and Alfie was finishing the Leek Carbonara, Thea, Perla, Clem and Frankie went into the garden and greenhouse to harvest the ingredients for the Salad of the Imagination. Harper, Henry, Heidi and their team set the tables and then Harper collected flowers for the table.
Alfie added 2 portions of fettucine to the Leek sauce as per the recipe and we plated up the Vegetable Bolognese and 2 serves of Fettucine separately. We also invited Eve and David to share the feast. Everyone loved the Pasta Feast they made and what they didn’t eat, some students took home to share with their families.
Great cooking Grade 4 , you worked well in your small teams and supported each other to make all the dishes for the delicious pasta feast. Thanks Dana, glad you enjoyed your first cooking session with your class this term. Thanks Cam for helping to setup the tables before class and harvesting the leeks and greens for our cooking.
This is what Grade 4 said about their cooking this week.
The only trouble with the Leek Carbonara is that it fills you up so quickly that you can’t eat enough! Alfie
The Vegetable Bolognese has a nice flavour. Even if I wasn’t a vegetarian, I would like it! Thea
I agree with Thea, the Vegetable Bolognese has a nice flavour. Frankie
I loved everything! Perla
I definitely prefer our noodles to poodles! Harper
The Leek Carbonara is amazing. Henry
Scrumptious! I ate everything! Eve
recipes and photos below:
