Rickson Ridge Grade 2 Classroom Visit

On January 20^th Garden2Table did the first outreach program in the community this year.  The team spent the morning with 21 grade 2 students at Rickson Ridge Public School.  The class was fortunate and had visited the garden in the fall semester. We started by having the class break into smaller groups and visually depict what they remembered from the garden.  The students drew a vegetable and were asked to draw what the vegetable needs to grow.  Carrots were definitely the most popular vegetable amongst the class!  The students did an excellent job and drew sun, rain, soil and some garden critters like worms and bees.

After chatting about plants and what they need to grow we moved onto the next activity: planting!  The kids were each given a plastic cup labeled with their name.  We went around and filled the cups with soil and gave the kids green bean seeds.  The students pushed the seeds into the soil against the plastic so they could observe the seed sprout and grow.  We discussed taking care of the plant and what to expect, roots, a stem and hopefully some green beans over the next few weeks.

For our last activity we made a salad dressing together and the students made their own salad with many different vegetables.  A highlight of making the salad dressing was shaking up the dressing to emulsify it (check out video below). This was a lot of fun and the kids were able to try some vegetables that they had never seen before! Some highlights were radishes and avocados.

Here's the salad dressing recipe we used:

-       ¼ cup red wine vinegar

-       ¾ cup olive oil

-       1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

-       Pinch of sugar

-       Pinch of salt

-       Pinch of pepper 

We hope we can bring some more programming to other classrooms over the next semester!

New Year's Resolution: Getting Kids into the Kitchen

Happy New Year from the Garden2Table team!

We hope that this year will bring lots of sunshine and great harvests in the gardens. We hope that the new year will also bring more opportunity for us to involve more children in our program and for them to bring home what they have learned and share it with their families.

It's never to early to get children involved in the kitchen and here are a few tested recipes that we have used that are easy, fun and delicious (as rated by the kids)!

Yummy Kale Salad (from Chef Jennifer)
1. Wash kale and pat completely dry with paper towel.
2. Remove kale leaves from stems; tear into large bite-sized pieces.
3. In a bowl, drizzle with olive oil and a dash of salt then mix well.
4. Refrigerate the kale over night. This will remove some of the bitterness.
5. Add your favourite toppings such as; raisins, dried cranberries, sunflower seeds, blueberries, strawberries, oranges, quinoa or couscous... whatever you fancy!
6. Add any dressing, mix well and enjoy!

Tip for any homemade salad dressing- Remember the rule! 3 parts oil: 1 part vinegar

Banana Cereal Pops (great for snacks!)

All you need is:
- 2 bananas
- 1/4 cup of honey
- 1/2 cup of cereals
- 4 popsicle sticks

Peel the bananas and cut them in half. Insert the popsicle sticks in the bananas and dip the bananas in honey. Roll the bananas on your kid’s favourite cereal until they are fully coated (if the cereal is in big piece then we suggest crushing it up a little to help it stick better!).

Hopefully 2014 will be a year full of fond memories in the kitchen and the gardens!