Our second KinderCooks project involved preparing a batch of fresh salsa and warm, honey-sweetened mint tea to take to the Harvest Meal. This was the first event in FSH's history in which students prepared tapas (appetizers) with produce grown/raised here at school. Our salsa (and chips!) and mint tea were an excellent compliment to the roasted kale, pickles, jelly, pumpkin bread, and hardboiled eggs provided by the upper grades. We gathered in the community room and enjoyed tapas together as a large group.
The very first Salsa Garden was planted by the current 3rd grade class that now has the responsibility of tending to the chickens, collecting the eggs, and running the egg cooperative. Each subsequent year the Salsa Garden, harvested in the fall, was replanted in the spring for the rising kindergarten class. Our second grade plants and shares the harvest from their Square Foot Garden and participates in FSH composting efforts. Our first graders have a vibrant strawberry garden in the spring and most recently were inspired by the charge of preparing the roasted kale for the Harvest Meal and rescuing several caterpillars that they found happily eating their way through the leaves!
This week kindergarten will be making pizza sauce with the remaining tomatoes and peppers and freezing it to use later this winter. We can imagine how fun it will be to make a pizza in on a snowy day and remember our fall harvest with our homemade pizza sauce!
Check back for more photos in the 2011-2012 KinderCooks slideshow!
