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

Updates from the Mainspring Garden

One of the exciting things about the Mainspring School food system is our precious little vegetable and herb garden.

Mr. Brendan, Lead Teacher in the Songbird (3 y/o) classroom, is the one who heads up the operation and it is located on the older kids' playground (on the East side of the school). Currently, the garden is pretty small. It really just serves as a teaching point, making significant contributions to the school lunches just two or three times per month.

Teaching gardens like these are rising in popularity around the nation. And for good reason! You should see how attentive the kids are when there is a living plant in front of them that they can use to better understand the infinite complexity of nature. And they are all absolutely giddy when they interrupt their recess time to make a delivery of a tiny harvest to my kitchen door. If you are interested in the school garden movement (and who's not?!), do check out Alice Waters's Edible Schoolyard project:

Even Michelle Obama, founder of the Let's Move initiative to raise healthier Americans, is getting her hands dirty in the new vegetable garden at the White House!

Without further ado, here are some hi-lites from Mainspring's own school garden in the past month:

Larkin and Nicola help pick rosemary for that day's spinach lasagna!

Okra from the garden put to good use in black bean vegetarian chili...



And of course Austen's acorns. They are not necessarily from the garden, but he does definitely collect them on a daily basis from the playground and presents at least one to me at lunch time. On this particular day, I found this gift ontop of my bussing shelves after lunch:

That, I think, will suffice for today's post. More to come very soon!

-Ms. Rachel-



Pilot Light

Where to start?!

There have been many exciting things happening in my cozy kitchen at Mainspring School since I took the position of Kitchen Manager about 6 months ago. And now I can share them with you!

Mainspring Schools is a beautiful organizaiton that offers an exceptional education to children ages 6 weeks to pre-kindergarten. As a former full-time babysitter, I can personally attest to the high quality experience every child is provided at Mainspring. Not that they need my stamp of approval; they are a NAEYC accredited preschool! This is the highest standard to which an early childhood care center/school can be held in the US.

I am so grateful to my employers at Mainspring for allowing me the freedom to act on my personal values while working as Kitchen Manager. These values have thus transformed into goals that I have for the foodservice system at the school. Everyday I work towards these goals as much as the limited budget of our small non-profit can allow.

My goals are to:

1. Serve our students nutritionally optimal food
2. Challenge our students by introducing them to food they may not encounter regularly
3. Create as little trash as possible
4. Waste as little food, water, and energy as possible
5. Enrich our students' food culture by reaching out to and educating the parents about sustainable and healthy food practices
6. Interact with our students often, educating them about the source or their food, its preparation, and the appeal of being involved in both the vegetable garden and the kitchen
7. Accomplish all of these goals while finding the most budget-friendly methods and opening up the program to involvement and donations from the Austin community and general public.

You will find subsequent posts dedicated individually to the progress of each of these goals. You will also find posts about Austin food and sustainability events as well as updates on all the fun things I get to do and make at my job! Recipes will be abundant (culminating in a future cook book for pre-schoolers to be ready for fundraising sales... that's right!). And there will be no lack of direct quotes from all the precious students I get to feed!

****

For example: Butternut Applesauce! And a note from Averi...

Upon receiving my (huge) delivery of butternut squash from local Gundermann Acres, I had to figure out how to incorporate it into my menu before it had a chance to go bad.

By the way, I order all of my produce through the Sustainable Food Center, thanks to our Farm to Child Care grant. Both topics I'll address in future posts.

One snack idea I came up with: roasting butternut squash and combining it with the always popular applesauce. The ratio of squash to applesauce you might make at home is completely up to you. So the general procedure (with photos from my process in the Mainspring kitchen) is:

1. Collect your ingredients: raw butternut squash, canned/bottled applesauce (props to whoever makes their own applesauce instead of buying it prepared), and cinnamon

2. Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees F, and cut each squash length-wise.

3. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper and lay each squash, cut side down, on the cookie sheet.

4. Bake in the oven until soft to the touch/develop blisters on outer skin

5. Remove the squash from the oven and allow to cool (helps to turn them cut side up for cooling)

6. Place canned/prepared apple sauce in a mixing bowl. Once the squash have cooled, use your fingers to separate the orange flesh from the peel and place the flesh in the bowl with the applesauce. Another option is to just tear the squash, with the flesh, into chunks and place that in the bowl. After roasting, the flesh is soft enough to eat. (Extra fiber! Good for digestion!)

7. Add cinnamon (amount is to your preference, but 1 teaspoon (tsp) per 4 cups ought to cover it).

7. Blend all ingredients until smooth! You may use a blender or food processor, pouring the mixture into the device in batches that the device can handle. Or, use an immersion blender (a $30 tool I use OFTEN at work, pictured below).

This snack can be served immediately, but may be preferred either warmed (so comforting in cold weather) or chilled (ideal for the other 11 months here in Austin...).

Butternut Squash Applesauce is just one way all of you can incorporate more vegetables into your diet at home- whether you have children or not! Applesauce is perfectly acceptable adult food. Even more acceptable than most of the things you can get from a drive-thru...

****

I am really loving this job, especially because I get to interact with such sweet, bright kids every day. Check out this letter I received one morning from the Shining Star room (4 & 5 year-olds). It is PROUDLY displayed on my kitchen wall.

Averi dictated the note to her teacher, Ms. Marisa (a very gifted educator), then signed and illustrated it herself. And I think that is a portrait of me.


I am thrilled to embark on the journey that is the "glass walls" of blogging.

Here's to all the light you'll shine through these walls simply by joining me as a caring reader.

Hazzah!,
Ms. Rachel