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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!

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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...

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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