Springtime Farm Delivery

We have finally started ordering our local farm produce from the Sustainable Food Center again!

Over the winter, the farms that the Sustainable Food Center works with had a hard time producing food. But they're back! Last week we received beautiful carrots and salad greens from Animal Farm:

We were able to afford these delicious vegetables with the funds from the Farm to Child Care grant I mentioned in my last post.

And part of this awesome grant allows us to give cooking lessons!

Here's Zayden, a student in the Grasshopper (2 y/o) room enjoying his fresh farm greens sample from the 

"Learn to Build a Salad" lesson.

See? Kids DO eat green things and vegetables :)

Buon appetito, amici!

Ms. Rachel

Farm to Childcare Grant Adventures!

Ms. Rachel, you may have noticed, has been fairly absent from the blogosphere lately.

But I'm back! And newly certified as a yoga instructor. I look forward to teaching yoga to the kiddos and staff sometime soon, but in the meantime I am incorporating yoga ethics and mindfulness with the mini-lessons I'm giving the kids in their classrooms each month.

These mini-lessons are graciously funded for us by the US Department of Agriculture through the Farm to Childcare grant.

Our most recent lesson was a food tasting of three different types of melons- Yum!

Each class learned:

• The parts of the melon: flesh, rind, and seeds
• The names of these melons: cantaloupe, watermelon, honeydew
• The colors of each melon
• How to describe the taste and texture of each melon
• Which melon was their favorite that day

Check out these beauties:

This is Michael, a one year-old Dew Drop, making his next move at the tasting table:


And here's a clip of the action from the Shining Star room (4-5 y/o). Listen closely for Larkin, off camera, asking if the honeydew melon has honey in it :)

Perhaps next time you're at the grocery store, you can toss a melon into your basket. Sliced fresh melon is great with chili powder and salt, cured meats like prosciutto, or chopped up by themselves or on top of granola and yogurt. Enlist your kiddos to come up with serving ideas- they're endlessly creative about these sorts of things.

'Til next time!
Ms. Rachel

Weekly Menus

Greetings!

I would like to share with everyone the weekly menus I have planned for the school ever since I started making them in a weekly format as opposed to monthly.

Hopefully you all can find some ideas in here about what to cook for your own family or school.

And if you're a Mainspring parent, now you have a reference of the meals so you can discuss with your kids what they think about what they're eating at school!

The menus are listed by the Monday of that week. 

Simply click on the date to see the document! 

(Please excuse some formatting shifts due to the conversion to Google docs)

2013:
1/07
1/14

2012:
12/31
12/24
12/17
12/10
12/03
11/26
11/19
11/12
11/05
10/29
10/22
10/15
10/08
10/01
9/24
9/17
9/10
9/03
8/27
8/20
8/13
8/06
7/30
7/23
7/16
7/09
7/02
6/25
6/18
6/11

Sweet Sweet Potato Fries

Dear Eaters,
         
This morning, as I was chop-chop-chopping away at 10 lbs. of sweet potatoes for today's lunch,  Mark, father of students Larkin and Layne Long, peeked into the kitchen and asked exactly how I was planning on making my sweet potato fries. Apparently, he had attempted this dish before with sub-par results.

So here, dear readers, is an explicit version of my response:

1. Chop off the ends and peel your sweet potatoes. Like so...

2. Steady your sweet potato on the biggest flat surface you have just created on the vegetable and slice it into sheets like so... keeping in mind the thickness you desire your fries to be.

3. Proceed to cut the sheets in the opposite direction, creating your "fries" shape.

4. Place all your cut sweet potato in a large mixing bowl and toss with olive oil and spices.You will need about 1/4 cup of oil for every 3 lbs. of sweet potatoes.

Sweet Potato Spice Suggestions: cinnamon, brown sugar, salt, black pepper, cayenne, or garam masala in any combination you please. Today, I just used salt and pepper.

5. Lay your sliced sweet potatoes on a SINGLE layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. This is KEY. If you pile up your fries in multiple layers, they will not end up as crispy.

6. Bake the fries in the oven at 450 degrees F (500 F if you want super crispy fries) for about 45 minutes, or until they begin to brown on the edges. You may also want to give the whole batch some flips with a spatula about half way through to brown multiple sides of the individual fries.

Ta-Da!

This is a great alternative to french fries. You can involve your kids in the cooking process AND your house will smell great as you bake the fries!

Buon Appetito!
Ms. Rachel

PS!
Eat Drink Local is going on this week. I know it's short warning, but there are free events for the whole family tomorrow (12/01/12) at the downtown SFC farmer's market.

Spaghetti Squash and Meatballs!

 Ever seen these in the grocery store?

No, they are not melons. 

These are spaghetti squash! One of the most exciting vegetables on the market. 

Oh who am I kidding- ALL vegetables are exciting! (Says the geeky kitchen manager. Everyday.)

Why are they called spaghetti squash??? Well look what they do when you roast them in the oven!

(Cut length wise, cut surface flat on the parchment paper you placed on the cookie sheet, placed in the 400 F oven for about 40 minutes or until they become soft)

When you scrape out the insides, they separate into noodles! 

Here are a couple of snap shots of the 'noodles' I scraped out of the roasted squash, topped with some marinara sauce to give the illusion of pasta for lunch at Mainspring:

When you make this at home, know that if you are too rushed to make the marinara pasta sauce, there are plenty of healthy canned and jarred sauces available at your grocery store.

Since I work with such a great quantity of food at once, I always make my meatballs according to the recipe and then lay them out on parchment paper and bake them in the oven instead of heating them in a skillet. See how pretty?...

 This dish of Spaghetti Squash and Meatballs was super easy to make. 

And all the kiddos LOVED it.

The students were so convinced the squash was pasta, they wouldn't believe their teachers when the explanation was given. So I went out and showed them a section of roasted squash with some of the 'noodles' still hanging off.

And who doesn't love working more vegetables into every meal? It's always an honorable goal.

Faithfully Nutritious,

Ms. Rachel

Recipe: Mex-Italia Cuisine Mash-Up

Hello Readers!

I want to make a quick post to share with you one of the more successful meals I've served for lunch lately at Mainspring: Mexican Pizza with Cucumber Tomato Salad.

Here's a picture of Sarai from the Dew Drop room digging in to her share:

Although Mexican Pizza may sound odd at first, this recipe is a hit with the kids. And most of them ate their cucumber tomato salad as well!

Ingredients Needed:

• Pita Bread (whole wheat is preferred, and you can substitute tortillas here but they'll be floppier under   the weight of the toppings)
• Pinto Beans or Vegetarian Refried Beans, canned or cooked from dry (I prefer pinto beans soaked overnight and cooked until softened for the added fiber, vitamins, minerals and decreased sodium and fat compared to canned Refried Beans)
• Cumin
• Chili Powder
• Vegetable Oil
• Water
• Salsa, homemade or store bought
• Shredded Cheese (I used Monterrey Jack)

Step 1

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees F

Step 2

Either place the refried beans in a bowl OR...

Puree the pinto beans (in a blender, food processor, or with an immersion blender) with the cumin, chili powder, water, and vegetable oil in this ratio:

2 cups Pinto Beans

1/3 cup Water

2 Tablespoons (Tbs) vegetable oil

2 teaspoons (tsp) chili powder

2 teaspoons cumin

Then place the pureed beans into a bowl.

Step 3

Arrange the assembly line!

Pour your salsa in to a bowl and put it next to the bowl of beans and the open bag of cheese on your counter top.

Lay out the pita breads on top of parchment paper on cookie sheets (parchment paper makes the clean-up waaaay easier). Place the pita bread cookie sheets next to your other ingredients, either on the counter or on the stove top if you have limited counter space (like me!).

Step 4

Spread each pita bread with about 1/2 cup of beans. This must be done first because it is very frustrating to try to spread beans on top of salsa.

Step 5
Spread roughly 1/3 cup of salsa on top of the beans which you have spread on to the pitas.

Step 6
Sprinkle about 1/3 cup of cheese on top of the salsa of each pita pizza.

Step 7
Place the cookie sheet of pizzas in the oven for 10-15 minutes or until the cheese is completely melted.

Step 8
Take the pizzas out of the oven and allow to cool slightly before slicing them into 6 or 4 slices each. You will make more slices per pita pizza for younger kids (smaller slices) and less slices per pita for older (bigger slices).

Step 9
Enjoy for lunch or dinner alongside your favorite salad!

Here is Joshua from the Dew Drop class enjoying his slice:

Below is Chloe's plate. She's in the Songbird (3 y/o) classroom. 

All of the Songbirds have recently made painted and laminated place mats for lunch. 

They're beautiful AND serve educational purposes!

With the aid of the place mats, the Songbird teachers have a tangible signal to transition the kids into a calm lunchtime. Also, the children can better learn how to set a table by learning where on the place mat to set their cup, flatware, and napkin.

'Til Next Time,

Ms. Rachel

"Many drops fill the cup"

One of the efforts that I, and the staff at Mainspring, are always working towards is the environmental sustainability of our school.

If any of you have heard the song "3rd Eye Vision" by Mishka, you may recognize the title of this post as one of the lyrics.

For the other 99.9% of you (no offense to Mishka- it's a competitive industry, love) the idea of the song is to motivate us all to take the baby steps in our lives that, when added together, make our home-planet a happier, healthier place.

There is no social movement that happens overnight. The day Martin Luther King Jr. realized there was racial injustice in America was not the same day the Civil Rights Act of '64 was enacted. There are crucial, tiny steps that happen from the moment a problem is noticed to the moment a problem is solved. These tiny steps are the "many drops that fill the cup."

One of the types of "drops" that can fill the "cup" of an environmentally friendly culture is to teach our children environmentally responsible lessons. We do that here at Mainspring by both by making their surroundings environmentally conscious and by involving them actively along the way.

In the kitchen, here are some of the recent little steps we've taken:

Reusable bowls and spoons at every breakfast 

Reusable dishes and flatware at lunches whenever possible

(This is a work in progress since right now it costs our school to pay Ms. Rachel overtime to stay and wash dishes on the days we don't have a kitchen helper. We usually opt for disposable lunch dishes on those days.)

A bussing station we set up at pre-schooler height 

so the kids can participate in caring for the dishes we wash and re-use.

Active student participation in all aspects of tending the school garden.

This is Mariposa, from the Shining Star classroom. 

Here, she is delivering beautiful okra from the school garden to my kitchen door 

And look! I used that okra the same day in the lentil soup at lunch:

Yum!

I encourage all of you to make more environmentally-friendly decisions.

Kids love helping! 

They thrive when they are doing something they feel is productive. 

Involve them in the extra effort.

And don't forget- if you are a parent or guardian, you are your child's #1 role-model. 

Teaching by making yourself an example of an environmentally responsible person is very powerful.

Have more Earth-friendly ideas for our kitchen? Leave a comment!

Thanks for tuning in,

Ms. Rachel