Harvest Day

At the schools that Slow Food Noosa sponsor, the members of Slow Food will come along and prepare meals with the students.

First thing in the morning the students harvest the produce from the garden and wash the produce.  

In 2007 the chefs that came to our school were Matt Golinski and Katrina Ryan, below is the menu that they prepared with the students.  

While many of the students were learning from famous chefs how to use sharp knifes and cook food, other students were preparing the tables decorating with plants and flowers, and collect arrowroot leaves to be used as plates to be eaten off this way we had no disposables involved and the plates/leaves could be composed afterwards.

The students thoroughly enjoyed the fruits of their labours...

Photo above: Matt Golinski chef from Rolling Dolmado and TV celebrity chef arrives with tools in hand. Groups of students rotate in half hour shifts cooking with Matt.

Meanwhile we are busy in the garden picking arrowroot leaves for plates and decorating tables with large leaves (paw paw, banana) and flowers.


Our Lady of The Rosary Harvest Day


The highlight of the year is our Harvest Festival, this is the 2nd time we have had the festival and all classes wanted to be involved this year that posed a new challenge for me, an event so large approx feeding 400 students, teachers and some parents and families, but I do like a challenge and Our Lady Of The Rosary has an enormously supportive teacher/parent team so I was confident that we could do it successfully.  Harvest Day is one of the most important days of the program because it to showcase to everyone that children will eat fresh food if they have grown it, that we don"t need disposables (we grow arrowroot leaves for plates and buy "real" knifes, forks and some (real) plastic plates and cups etc from Op Shops), we share and we work as a community.  It is also a time to be grateful for the organic food we have grown and cooked and how lucky we are to be in Australia.  There are so many unspoken lessons in that one Harvest day.   After harvest day we discussed how much it would have cost if we brought disposable plates, cups, forks, spoons etc and I was shocked at just how expensive disposables  are,  not to mention the environmental impact they have for many years, but with the way we did it buying real (second hand) cups, forks etc, not only was our money going back into the community to support those that needed assistance but we now have Harvest Box Supplies for all the other times we have festivities.  Many lessons.

Leading up to harvest day, the students put signs up around the garden asking people to not eat any food from it as we needed it for our harvest day.  Classes started making recycled decorations,  creating dances and songs. We had a team of Mums that took control of the menu for the day we had no kitchen facilities due to new building work, so we had to organise 12 workstations around the school with approx 120 students preparing food for the whole school and community of around 400.  Good planning equals success and that it was.   The teachers and students also decided they wanted to dress up for the day, so we ran a competition for the best "Little Leonie" and the best "Costa".   The day was a buzz from the second the students arrived all getting into the spirit of the day.    I think that day was the only day it hadn"t rained that week, a good sign.  Teachers had already placed all the tents up around the oval before school started and Mums were busy in the staff room sorting out recipe ingredients,  I was in the garden with students and parents harvesting all the food for our feast  - such a hive of activity and all before 9am.  All the food from the garden had to be washed and then distributed to relevant recipes.  Students were allotted their workstation and parents assisted students with creating the recipes, it seemed to take no time at all and all cooking was completed.  Then it was celebration time songs, dancing and judging of the "Little Leonie and Costa" look-alikes, there were so many good copies.    The food was distributed evenly between the 8 tables on the oval and with all the food (all vegetarian) set out it looked  like a rainbow the colours were so enticing.  I was very proud of the students as they tried and ate so much of the food which they had either been involved with growing, or had experienced the progress of the garden - there was real pride and ownership and of course - I was the proudest person there.  I am extremely grateful to the Qld Gambling Community Benefit Fund for sponsoring this program and making a difference to so many students eating habits and turning a bare dirt patch into a productive organic garden for students to eat from.  There is so little funding out there to support these programs of independent School Garden Programs/workers, and Qld Gambling Community Benefit Fund  took that risk to fund us and we are pleased to say, it has been incredibly  successful.

 

Slow food cooking with kids  2007   MENU


Matt Golinski Guest Chef Day

Silverbeet leaves stuffed with Saffron Rice, Pinenuts and Herbs
Pickled Turnips
Mixed Salad Greens
and also some falafels were brought along for students to taste

Chef
Matt Golinski   The Rolling Dolmade Products, and TV chef Ready Steady Cook programme



Katrina Ryan Guest Chef Day                      

Suffed zucchini, stuffing used silverbeet, thyme, fetta, pinenuts and raisings
Asian stir fry :  chicken, cabbage, spring onions, green beans, khol rabi, celery and sesame seeds.
Nasturium Salad :  fennel, lettuce, rocket, nasturtium and parmesan cheese with lemon & olive oil

Chef
Katrina Ryan :  Spirit House Restaurant


We have the pleasure of having Slow Food Noosa as a sponsor and partner.    Slow Food Noosa has world renowned chefs who are passionate about teaching kids about fresh food and cooking.

When we have a Harvest Day we pick the salads, herbs and vegies first thing in the morning so that they are at their freshest.  We have basket loads of fresh crispy produce which we take inside to wash.  Of course there are no chemicals on our food as its organic but maybe there are some bug droppings to clean off.


Our Lady Of The Rosary MENU (August 2010)


Taboulleh and Madagascar patties in pita breads

Fried Rice

Minestrone Soup

Rice paper rolls

Salad wraps

Toasted Turkish bread sandwiches
BBQ/Roasted veges
Pesto, tomato and  basil, hommus

Mini Pizzas
Pesto, rocket, tomato and cheese
Potato and rosemary

Pesto and pasta

Dips and veges and corn chips
Beetroot
Eggplant
Hummus

Pasta sauce etc (by Dominique Rizzo)

Banana mini muffins
Yacon mini muffins

Herb Potions (herb cordial)