Spring vegetables, a great dip and lovely weather for gardening

This week we cooked:

Wholemeal rolls

Carrot and Cumin Dip

Cheesy Mashed Potato Bake

Pasta with a Spring Vegetable Sauce

Silver beet and feta rolls

Salad of the Imagination

Cody added the sprouted quinoa and mixed the salad very gently with her hands.

Pasta with a spring vegetable sauce

Salad of the Imagination - garnished with sprouted quinoa

Carrot and cumin dip - the favorite this week!

Silver beet, feta and ricotta rolls

The carrot and cumin dip was definitely the winner this week – in fact we are going to repeat it next week; consisting of just carrots, garlic, olive oil and cumin it was easy and healthy. We have been experimenting with sprouting quinoa and have found that it makes a really tasty addition to our salads – the quinoa is simply kept moist in a glass jar for 2 or three days and rinsed twice daily.

As mentioned last week we are attracting quite a lot of publicity at the moment – an article about our program has been published on the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation web-site – take a look by going to http://www.kitchengardenfoundation.org.au/ and clicking on ‘Southern Support School’s Kitchen Garden Program Flourishes’. We are also now the featured school in their spring newsletter – you can access it from the following link:

http://www.responsetrack.net/viewemail/?192LK004AD3%2D6c95fd7347d9aab38664bf38e73df280

The people at the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation are delighted with what Southern Support School is doing – here is a quote from the author of their newsletter, commenting on the information given to here for inclusion in the article:

“It's wonderful to be able to include a snapshot of your Kitchen Garden Program and how it operates in a special school. Just great. I was so inspired by your email I printed it and read it to anyone I could capture!”

And then after it was published she has sent the following message:

“I've already received an email from a member of the public wanting to assist in the Kitchen Garden Program at a special school because of the feature story - just wonderful.”

Hopefully other special school will be inspired to join the program.

After selling out of recipe books yet again we have printed more and they are available at a cost $10 from the front office or by sending a note in to us.

Next week we are cooking:

Wholemeal rolls

Carrot and Cumin Dip

Mini Asparagus Quiches

Pasta with a Spinach Cream Sauce

Asian Carrot and Turnip

Minted Mixed Melon Salad

We have had a lovely week in the garden, mainly preparing our beds for planting next week. We have cut down and dug in our green manure crops, added lots of compost from our compost bins and will be planting some seedlings and seeds next week.

Ellen starts to dig in the green manure crop

It was quite hard to dig the green manure crop in!

Cody and Joseph shredded paper for the compost heap

We were given lots of grass cuttings for our compost heap

This bed is now ready for planting next week

Cameron harvested silver beet

It was so nice to be out in the warm sunshine

A busy morning

Michael helped clean up the garden beds

Litiani and Ryan worked hard digging in the green manure crop

Jayden really enjoyed a sensory experience on Monday. We were given lots of bags of grass cuttings for our compost bins and decided to see whether Jayden would enjoy a grass cutting foot massage!! He loved it – fantastic smell and feel – a great sensory experience.