Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden
Sonia Nista
Kitchen Specialist
News from The Patch, and The Patch café
Over the past couple of weeks, we have been harvesting our Broad beans. During these Kitchen/Garden sessions we learnt about some of the many health benefits from eating this not so common legume. Broad beans or Fava beans are green legumes that come in pods. They have a slightly sweet, earthy flavour and are eaten by people all over the world. Fava beans are loaded with vitamins, minerals, fibre and protein. They’re thought to offer impressive health effects, such as improved motor function and immunity.
Regular consumption of Broad beans may help increase blood iron levels and improve symptoms of anaemia that results from inadequate iron intake. Fava beans are loaded with magnesium and potassium that may help relax blood vessels and decrease high blood pressure.
Our recent menus have included:
- Broad bean, garlic and herb bruschetta
- Orange, rocket and fennel salad
- Cauliflower and quinoa salad
- Spring broad bean salad
- Pressed flower and herb shortbread cookies
Garden reflection by 5S
Our job was to work in the garden. There were a lot of eggs and the chickens were happy to see us. The eggs were still warm and fresh. Our parent helper changed all the water in the chicken coop. Dev and Ashton planted both sunflower and bean seeds. For some reason the sun flower seeds were blue which is kind of unusual. Lily watered all the plants in the green house. We returned to the shed and weighed the 20 eggs that were collected. They weighed between 59g-79g. We returned to the kitchen where all the students had finished their cooking. Most of the students liked the Bruschetta because the bread was very crunchy and the garlic made it very flavoursome. The salads were enjoyed because they both had very distinct and unique flavours. The rocket salad had extremely sweet oranges. The quinoa salad had tomatoes and capsicum which also gave it a sweet flavour.
