Welcome 2017!

We are well into Term 1 and it has been a hive of activity at Garden To Table. Our focus has been on garden and kitchen routines, working together as a team following the school motto - being courteous, courageous and constant in what we do, learning new skills and being safe in the garden and kitchen at all times.
This term the whole school is studying the concept of Whanaungatanga (connections) and at Garden To Table we have been developing the understanding that everything is connected. What we do in the garden impacts on what we can harvest and use in the kitchen. Vegetable and fruit scraps are put back into the compost and worm bins and this then helps to feed our soil. Some children in the garden have been "chickens" - turning and lifting the soil! We encourage our family members to help out and we have also had helpers from the school and local community volunteer because they love to. Great connections and lots of fantastic relationships being built and developed.
We are continuing our wonderful partnership with Al Brown and his staff at Depot and Federal Street Deli and there are lots of exciting plans ahead!

Year 4 have been learning how to hold and use a knife correctly and safely.
We have made a broadbean dip and crostini, whitebean dip with crudites, and our banana and honey icecream was made with bananas from our school tree and served with fresh passionfruit from our vine. Rhubarb was harvested and roasted with orange and served with a ginger cream.

 Year 5 have made corn tortillas with baked broadbean falafel, salad greens and a yoghurt dipping sauce. Fresh nectarines from our school tree were used to make nectarine and fresh ginger muffins and added to a fruit salad with harvested passionfruit, bananas and mint.

 An important part of the Garden To Table experience is the sharing of food. A time to taste what has been made in the kitchen and to hear what the gardeners have been doing. It has been fantastic to see all the children being courageous and trying the food. Lots of empty plates, happy faces and wonderful comments about what they had tasted.

The entrance to the pool gardens is being upgraded. Before photos here and after photos in the next blog....

Different cuisines, chefs from Depot and the school gala

We have been trying recipes from Vietnam, China and Italy
Year 4 children tried dishes from Vietnam. They made fresh rice paper spring rolls, nuoc cham - a fish dipping sauce and banana fritters. Carrots, radishes, lettuce, edible flowers, coriander and mint were harvested and knife skills were put to the test as carrots and radishes were julienned for the rice paper rolls. Bananas from our school tree were used to make deep fried banana fritters by some classes.

Year 5 made pot sticker dumplings with cabbage and wood ear fungi harvested from the garden. They were delicious! A range of vegetables were harvested to make a vegetable stirfry with a Chinese sesame sauce. Bok choy, silverbeet, carrots, kale, cabbage, and choko.

Our pasta machines were put to the test and Year 5 have been making fresh pasta. So much fun! With the pasta sheets we made a spring vegetable lasagna using freshly harvested asparagus, broad beans, peas and carrots and a roasted pumpkin rotolo. All recipes can be found in the Year 5 recipe link on the home page.

We were very lucky to have chefs from Depot volunteer last week. The rhubarb was tended to and is growing well. In the kitchen the children made tagliatelle and ravioli with help from Nikki, Al and Chris. It was so much fun and the pasta was delicious! We served the tagliatelle with herbed polpette and a tomato sauce. The ravioli were filled with a carrot puree (with carrots harvested from our garden) and served with a thyme brown butter sauce. A very yummy no bake citrus slice finished the menu.

Our school gala was a success and we sold all our marmalade and tamarillo chutney. The herb salts were a hit and our sorrel, yacon and jerusalem artichoke plants were popular. The citrus slice and brownie were delicious and there were a few faces that came back for seconds. It turned out to be a fantastic day weather wise too and the iced tea went down a treat. Well done Meadowbank school!

Tamarillos

Last term we ordered lots of tamarillos from tastytamarillos . Lots of children hadn't tasted these unusual fruit and were keen to try. We used them to make a delicious tamarillo and date cake, we grilled them in the pizza oven and made loads of tamarillo chutney. The smells wafting from the kitchen were amazing. We tried the chutney with garlic and herb pizza bread and it is so good we are going to sell the chutney at the Meadowbank School Gala on the 13th November. Make sure you come and buy a jar!

With help from our volunteers, we cleared the gully of branches and twigs and got them ready for the pizza oven.

Al Brown visits Meadowbank School

A huge excitement has been Al Brown and his teams visit to begin a new Garden to Table project aimed at partnering restaurants with Garden to Table schools. More than 30 rhubarb plants were planted and when they are ready to harvest, they will design a dessert to go on the menu at Depot with all proceeds going to Garden to Table.
It was such an exciting and invigorating community involved day where everyone was working towards a common purpose and realised the value in what was being done. Well done team!

Spring

We are finishing winter harvesting and getting our garden ready for spring and summer planting. A lot of tidying and clearing of garden beds and surrounds has been done. Our boundary picket fence has been finished and other constructions to support peas and protect plants have been made.

Feeding the soil has been a priority using sheep manure, leaf mold, compost and worm castings, topped off with pea straw mulch to keep things warm and moist. For families starting gardens at the moment we recommend the podgardening website which has lots of seasonal tips and month by month recommendations for planting and harvesting.

Thanks to Gill and Kevin Adshead at Mataia who supplied the sheep manure from their farm!

In the kitchen we have had a wonderful amount of citrus fruit donated, to add to the lemons and mandarins from our own school trees. We have been very busy making marmalade to sell at the school gala. Our knife skills have been put to the test!

Over the past month we have had lots of superb volunteers, a huge thankyou to those parents and grandparents who come every session and to those who have taken time off to make it along. We love having you.

August

Yummy Maharajas spicy filo parcels. The recipe is on the Year 5 recipe page.



We have had so much fun making authentic corn tortillas using the tortilla press. The dough is so lovely and soft and for those who are gluten free it is great because the corn masa flour has no gluten. We purchased our flour and the presses from Tio Pablo who were very helpful.

We made refried beans, a lime and chili mayonnaise and a fabulous salad with lettuce, parsley, mint, edible flowers and yacon dressed with lime and lemon juice. So fresh and so good!

July

Winter is here and we have battled with some cold and wet weather in the garden. The children have been harvesting in some not so pleasant conditions but always with enthusiasm and big smiles on their faces when they bring the produce in to the kitchen. Some handiwork using drills and saws have made old unused bbq stands excellent for using to pot containers of sorrel we are going to sell at the school gala.

The children had fun foraging for wood ear funghi and harvesting jerusalem artichokes.

In the kitchen Year 4 children have made a Vegetable biriyani, pakoras and a mint raita as part of our Indian inspired menu. Year 5 made a wonderful Mandarin and poppyseed cake with mandarins from our tree, a fried rice with wood ear funghi and mung bean sprouts and braised vegetables served in lettuce cups with loads of wonderfully fresh vegetables from the garden - bok choy, choko, rainbow beet, cabbage, silverbeet, jerusalem artichokes and kale.