Week 7 & 8

This week in the kitchen 
We made corn bread, black bean salsa and guacamole. Our sweet treat was macadamia nut chocolate.

We were given some reed avocados so we used them for the mousse and the salsa.  We also put pineapple in our salsa.  

We also got given some macadamias so we roasted them and used them to make the crushed nut chocolate.  Yummy!

Yummy Macadamia Chocolate

Pedram loved the corn bread!

Sharing a meal together

Standout children were:

Cooper for making salad and loving eating the lemons!
Daniel for stirring the chocolate.
Oliver Reeve for being a beetroot grating machine and for trying beetroot even though he didn't really like it.

Extras
Room 13 helped out with hangi preparations - we made salads to accompany the hangi.  Coleslaw and grated beetroot and carrot.


Room 14 made a lovely roast vegetable salad for teachers with some of the left over hangi vegetables.  The teachers loved it.

Cooper and Jashan making dressing for the teachers salad

Oliver grating beetroot - what a champ!

Laila and Amelia about to go and deliver the salad to the staffroom

Look at all those hangi prep peelings in the compost!

Busy work

Weeks 5 & 6

Curry Week!

This week in the kitchen we made a pumpkin, cauliflower and chickpea curry.  We also made a rice pilaf.  One group had to grind the spices, garlic and ginger with a mortar and pestle.  Our sweet was a buttermilk pancake with rhubarb and orange compote.

Yum! we all loved it.

Clearing the tables after we have eaten

Meanwhile in the garden
The seeds and seedlings are growing, and we are weeding and collecting materials for our compost.

Hector and the skink

Our seed raising trays

Standout children this week were:
Luke, Sabine, Jordan and Sebastian for their excellent cutting skills
Laila and Shelby for eating up a storm.

Week 3 & 4

Session 2 - Weeks 3 & 4
We are getting into the swing of things now and our second sessions at garden to table were great.

In the garden
In the garden we have been busy planting seeds and we planted some brassica seedlings in our garden. We are also getting our compost and worm farms in good working order.

In the kitchen
This week we made silverbeet muffins with onion jam and herb butter.
We also made honeycakes for our sweet treat.

Evie baking muffins

Shaking cream to make butter

Daniel the onion stirrer

Oliver's herb chopping skills

Stand out children this week were:

Daniel for being a champion onion jam chef

Enere for loving the onion jam and herb butter

Laila for being great at dishes

Amelia C for always looking for more work to do in the kitchen.

Knife Skills at Garden to table

Knife Skills

Written By Hannah Denton - our kitchen expert at garden to table

How to properly handle and use a knife is an important - and challenging - skill for kids to learn. As we progress with Garden to Table as part of our curriculum the kids skills will increase. This also means we can achieve more in each kitchen session.

To help your kids develop these skills - and to get them whipping up food in your own kitchen - here are some simple tips for fostering knife skills at home. These are tips recommended by Garden to Table ambassador Al Brown and skills we’ve begun fostering in the kitchen. We encourage you to experiment with your kiddos and see what works best for them!

Firstly, several key rules in the garden to table kitchen should also apply at home. We never let the kids use knives without adult permission and supervision. Because we have amazing help from volunteer parents, our kids work in groups of 3 or 4 kids per adult.

Stand at the right height

Kitchen counters are built so they are just the right height for most people. You want your kids to stand on a stool or chair that puts the counter at about waist height. They should be able to clearly see what they are cutting. At school we use trestle tables and benches in the technology room that are lower than normal kitchen counters.

Holding the knife

We’ve seen in the kitchen there is no one way the kids hold the knife. Some of this is due to the strength they have in their wrists. However, there are few general rules to adhere to. You want the kids holding the knife in their dominant hand with the bulk of their fingers wrapped around the handle. The kids will usually rest a thumb or thumb and pointer finger on the top of the handle and blade.

It is important to ensure the fingers wrapped around the handle do not come forward to the blade.

Holding the produce

We have taught the kids two types of grip to hold their produce. The “claw grip” and the “bridge grip.”

Claw Grip

Bridge Grip

See if they can demonstrate these to you at home. We also explain to place the flat part of the produce on their chopping board to prevent the item rocking away. We’ve found this instruction needs constant reiterating as they forget to turn the produce over when they are excited.

For the claw grip, hold vegetables with the tips of your fingers resting on top of the vegetable and your thumb tucked behind the rest of your fingers. This is called a claw grip as your hand looks like a bear claw with the fingers tucked in so your knuckles are closest to the knife. This grip can be used with most types of produce.

For the bridge grip, you make a bridge with your thumb and fingers firmly pushing down on the produce. The knife then goes underneath your “bridge” so your hand is completely safe and cannot be cut. This grip may be difficult for younger children due to the size of their hands compared the knife, but is a good one to demonstrate and use for children with bigger hands.

Other considerations.

The kids are working towards their knife license. As well as showing proficiency with knife skills, they also need to demonstrate knife safety.

Part of using a knife safely is knowing how to walk around the kitchen and pass the knife. First, encourage your kids to always keep their hand on the handle and make sure the knife is never pointed at anybody – including themselves! When walking around the kitchen carry the knife down by your side with the point facing down to the floor. When passing a knife, makes sure the other person can grab the handle and does not need to touch the blade. It may be safer to put the knife down on the bench and let someone else pick it up.

To wash the knife we have explained to the kids to only put a knife into a sink of soapy water when they are able to wash it up immediately themselves. If they can’t do that straight away, leave the knife on the bench next to the sink in clear sight. A knife can be easily hidden in a sink of soapy water and someone could cut their hand on it if they don’t know it is there. When drying the knife, keep one hand on the handle, and wipe the blade with a tea towel, running your hand along the blunt side of the blade.

We hope these tips help you with the kids in the kitchen. We’re blown away with how their skills are progressing and their interest in cooking food. Be sure to check in to the Garden to Table blog as we will post photos and recipes of the kids growing, cooking and enjoying their kai.

We have started!

At our first session of garden to table we made four things.   Hannah has begun teaching the kitchen groups specific knife skills.   We used the bridge grip and the claw grip.  See our next post on how you can practice this at home.


Here is what we made...
If you click on the links that should take to you to the recipes we used.

Bread: Herbed Flat bread

Beetroot Yoghurt Dip

Veggie Crudites/Dippers - Carrot, Capsicum Cucumber

Feijoa and Apple Crumble

Note: We didn't use any cacao nibs and we used brown sugar instead of coconut sugar.

Children that have stood out to our parent helpers and staff this week are:

Lucas Whitehouse - for trying beetroot for the first time.

Hector Stretton - for his great cutting skills.

Keira Barnard - for trying out all the colours of capsicum.
Farah S and Amelia C - for being super at dishes.