Last week!

Yesturday, the students went to a farm and we picked peaches. The peaches were fresh and sweet. Today we made chicken stock, did green beans, and we made salsa. Tomorrow the group is going to the pool and have a pinic for lunch. Just having a fun tomorrow. This week been good esperince working at SLU.

Pasta Day

Today was a huge learning experience for everyone today. Chef Steve taught us all how to make pasta from scratch and also how to make ravioli's and tortellini's starting off with flattened dough making rectangles , stuffing the dough and folding one half over to close into a ravioli or tortellini. We also made sauces marinara sauce, a carbonara sauce that has bacon in it and a basil sauce to put over the pasta. Today was a good day the food we made was excellent.
 

Im Beet

Monday what more can I say. Today we were broken up into two groups. One group helped make icing and a garlic spread for a trans-fat study, and the other group processed beets. The beet group had to peel, roast, and slice beets so that they could be packaged and frozen. The icing group had to make a vanilla icing and a garlic spread and put them in individual cups for the trans-fat study. Today was pretty straight forward until it came to the cleaning up part. I didn't know how hard it was to clean up beet juice and sticky icing but I sure did find out. My hands are still sticky as I write this post.

"Culinary Day"

Today was culinary day. We learned how to poach eggs. Steve showed us how to scramble eggs, make an omelet, and sunny side up eggs. Everyone got into groups of two and made lunch. One group made buttermilk biscuits, another made white gravy and thee other group  made potatoes. Over all it was a good day, playing with eggs.

"TestDay"

Today we tested the scones for our entrepreneur project . We did chocolate chip scones, blueberry scones, and herb cheese scones. After making some adjustments we baked off some more.  We also made signs for when we sell them tomorrow. Which will be at SLU's garden off Compton  and we also will be selling  herb tea. We will be there from 11:00am to 1:00pm.. Money collected well go to SLU's scholarships. PLEASE VISIT :-)

Hot and Corny!!!

Today we visited the fresh gatherings garden. It was very hot outside so the walk seemed longer than it really was. When we got there we were introduced to a women named Marilyin who gave us a tour of the garden. We got to see all  the different types of herbs, fruits, and veggies that were grown in the garden. We got to try some of the things in the garden like, fresh mint, citrus, and my favorite tomatoes. After the tour was over we went over to the fresh gatherings building and took a brief tour. The food was great there and it really did taste fresh. We came back to peel and process lots and lots of corn.

Your Baking Me Crazy!!

Today we did a lot of baking. Vanilla, and cinnamon muffins to be exact, we helped Kim bake off muffins for a trans fat study. Although it took awhile and a few tweaks we finally had a good muffin mix. I had the pleasure of cleaning and organizing the walk-in refrigerator. It was a very cold job but, luckily it wasn't that much to be done. We also made some chicken stock for the stew we will be making for our lunch tomorrow. As usual we cleaned up the kitchen and called it a day.

Baking and Making Salsa

Today we helped Kim make over 400 muffins for her SLU study. We used a lot of eggs, milk, and flour. We also learned that you never want to over knead your dough because the muffins will end up being too tough to eat! Chef Steve taught us about different types of flour and the different uses each one has according to its gluten content(higher for breads and lower for muffins). Thanks Chef Steve!  We also made salsa from tomatos, cilantro, onions, spices, and jalapenos. Then we packaged it all up for Fresh Gatherings.

6-27-11 Salsa

Today, in the kitchen we had to built shelves for the freezer to make room for storage. Then later today we  made a tomato salsa. Everyone helped to cut the tomatoes, onions, and the hot jalapanoes. When we cut the onions today, a few of us started to cry from them. We tried wearing sunglasses to protect my eyes, but it really didn't help. Making salsa is a lot of work, especially coring tomatoes. That took forever!We chopped 200 pounds of tomatoes and 20 pounds of onions. Still it was fun cutting veggies and we had a productive day.

Today was a easy but nice working day. We talked about what we were going to sell at the farmer market,what was in season for taste testing and we also did pickling today which went extremely better then yesterdays pickling. When we were talking about the farmers market we have great things in mind.Besides the pickling and brainstorming for the day we also worked on entrepreneurship and demand. When we were talking about demand we learned many different meanings to the word and how the increase in price the more product you can get and the decrease in the income means less product. So today was a pretty nice and simple day.

Freezer and Pickle Day

Today was a very cold day. We cleaned the freezer and had to re orgznize it by taking out food and making sure the same items were in the same place together. We ended up having more inventory then we thought and after awhile it began to get confusing .This afternoon we made pickles out of pickeling cucumbers .We cut them into spears, chopped fresh garlic and gathered together pickle spice,dill and salt seasonings and also water and vinegar so that the pickles can soak and become Dill pickles. The last and final thing that we had to do was clean and sanitize the kitchen.

Chickens, Entrepreneurship,& Processing Oh My!

Today we broke down chickens again, it was a lot easier than yesterday because they weren't frozen. We also talked about Entrepreneurship and different ideas and innovations. We were separated into groups of two and we had to brainstorm about new ideas and opportunities such as, a training camp to help prevent obesity for kids around the world. YMCA's could have free summer camps that could get kids involved in sports and eating healthy foods. There was a question that asked us what could be some good uses for an empty plastic detergent bottle. We came up with; a piggy bank, a water cooler, weights, and a gas container. We went back to the kitchen to strain our chicken broth that has been  simmering for two days. This will be used for a pan sauce for the chicken which we will saute on Thursday. Another thing we did was blanch and shock zucchini and squash after we chopped them up. We completed the process by packaging, labeling, and freezing them for later use.

Chicken Breakdown/Berry Picking

Yesterday we broke down chickens,for some of us it was the first time. We made chicken stock and learned about mire-poix. We also learned how to saute chicken. We practiced knife cuts on potatoes and then mashed them.





Today we visited Kurt Jane at their farm Braeutigam's Orchard. We learned about growing blue berries and got the chance to pick a pint of blue berries. They also let us feed their goats and cows.

Recipes From Home Contest!

It is the time of year where we ask your to submit your Recipes from Home! This is a contest where your child can submit their favorite family recipe using at least 1 fruit or 1 vegetable that is grown locally (apples, asparagus, beans, carrots, greens (collards), green beans, peaches, peas, potatoes, spinach, squash, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and tofu). These recipes will be used in the development of new recipes for the MRH school menu. The winning recipe will be prepared by your child with te assistance of the chefs from Les Dames dEscoffier. All of the studends from MRH schools will get to try the winning recipes in their lunches and vote on their favorites in order to determine a grand prize winner. Use the form below and submit your child's favorite Recipe from Home! Applications are due April 15!




Last Year's Winners:

 

 Recipes from Home Contest

Official Entry Form – attach to recipe

Healthy Eating with Local Produce (HELP)

_______________________________________
Name


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Grade                        Home Room Teacher


____________________________________________________
Email Address


___________________________
Home Phone Number


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Name of Recipe Recipe Category             (Salad, Soup, Main Dish, Side Dish)

Rules of Entry:
1. All recipes must include at least 1 fruit or vegetable that is local. (Apples, asparagus, beans, carrots,   greens (collards), green beans, peaches, snap peas, potatoes, spinach, squash, sweet potatoes, tomatoes and tofu).
2. Preparation instructions are clear, numbered, and in a logical order.
3. All ingredients are listed with common household measure (not metric).
4. Recipe is easy to prepare at home and kid-friendly.
5. Recipe must fit into one of the four main categories: Salad, Soup, Main Dish or Side Dish
6. Points will be awarded for creativity.
7. Students may enter up to 3 different recipes.
8. Recipes must contain no more than 8 ingredients.


________________________________ ___________________
Signature                                                    Date

Farm to School Workshop

 Saint Louis University hosted the University of Missouri Extension's Farm to School Workshop on Wednesday, February 16. It was a great gathering of farmers, school nutrition professionals, and food activists! We had a full house of over 150 people. Healthy Eating with Local Produce was prominently featured in many of the panels, and we were able to pass on many of our best practices.

Farmers Dave Thies and Steve Hamra spoke about their experiences selling to schools.

Dr. Millie Mattfeldt-Beman gave an overview of the HELP grant and was joined by two students from Maplewood Richmond Heights school district, Relissa and Dynique, for a panel discussion about the student's experience with Farm to School. Relissa and Dynique were hired on to work for the grant under the high school entrepreneurship program and were trained in sustainable food systems and food processing.

Chef Robert Rusan, Foodservice Director Carol Kon, distributor Randy Woods, and farmer Adrienne Hunter gathered for the third panel to discuss the logistics of food aggregation and distribution.

A delicious lunch was catered by Fresh Gatherings cafe featuring diary, eggs, meat and vegetables

from local farmers! Eric Hahn from Locavore Foods out of Detroit was the keynote speaker. He delivered an inspiring story with examples of how Farm to School can logistically work.

After lunch, breakout sessions were provided for the farmers and the school nutrition folk. Information specific panels were provided for each. The farmer side focused on food packing, grading, handling, safety, distribution and insurance. School food service focused on bidding, procurement, strategies, handling, processing and training.

Networking abounded, with old friends reuniting and new relationships being built. Everybody here at HELP hopes that attendees walked away with enough tools to start taking small steps towards putting local agriculture in our cafeterias. Many thanks to Bill McKelvey for producing a great event! If there are any questions that we can answer about the HELP grant, please contact the Department of Nutrition & Dietetics at (314) 977-8523 or visit our web page at http://helpgrant.weebly.com/.