Below  is the recipe for kale chips:

Kale Chips Recipe (click here)

We were given a great donation of cloth to make a tent for visitors to the garden who might want to get out of the sun. Thanks to the Sherrods, and Mark Steinhardt for their support of our school garden. Here are Saige and Hunter Sherrod  in the garden today.

twin garden alums, Saige and Hunter Sherrod

Today we said “Good-Bye” to the Youth Services Crew. We cleared a spot for fall seedlings and the crew left us with a practically weed-free garden as well as some great words of advice:  Many vegetable generate ethylene gas as they ripen. If you put unripe tomatoes near riper ones, the gases given off by the tomatoes will help ripen your unripe ones! Here are some (but not all) of the veggies that generate ethylene gas: Apples, avocados, bananas, blue berries, citrus, cranberries, grapes, green onions, melons,mushrooms, peaches, pears, peppers, plums and …….tomatoes. Thanks again, Youth Services!

replanting lettuce, and cole crops for the fall

fare well to the Youth services Crew

Our Westminster kitchen chef, Kim Kinney, works hard through the summer to provide several local organizations with appealing breakfasts and lunches. She has been very welcoming of our forays into new recipes to add to her repertoire. She has found gloves just the right size for children’s hands and has graciously allowed us to use the kitchen utensils and ingredients. I caught her on a trip back from a garden harvest the other morning. Kim has observed the eating habits of the students for years now and she has a lot to offer about how important the appeal of visual presentation can be to kids who are first time samplers.

Our terrific chef, Kim Kinney

KALE CHIPS

Summer campers ran out to the garden to harvest kale for our preparation of kale chips. They LOVE to harvest! After washing the kale, we learned from a seasoned Kale chip loving camper that you can just tear the kale leaves from the tough stem. You don’t have to use a knife to cut it out. I left the choice to the kids. Some just love to have the status of being able to use a knife when prepping. We preheated the oven and got to work, cutting and mixing our ingredients. Kale takes no time to become crisp. If you aren’t careful, it can easily burn……just 10 minutes and no more! Needless to say, the chips were a big hit on the playground at recess. Even a few young  bikers in the school parking lot tried a chip or two.

Veggie nay sayer likes kale!

harvesting kale

Can I try this raw?

no need for a knife

mix in the salt and olive oil

try some kale chips

weed harvest

As you can see the extreme heat we’ve been experiencing in Vermont has brought on the weeds. Our terrific Youth Services crew was here to help tackle them on Thursday morning. Their last day is this Wednesday. What will we do without their help? They’ve worked hard at keeping everything weeded when they’re here, one morning a week for  six weeks. While working they’ve shared their hopes and dreams as they look ahead to post high school years. I’m glad they’re still young enough to love running through the sprinkler to cool off!

Westminster summer campers will also be leaving soon. They were out all afternoon helping to harvest, weed and mulch the new beans. Jay found a beautiful spider on the raspberries. We’ll have to identify it. Do you have any ideas?
We got our row of September beans mulched with newspaper and hay before the thunderstorms moved in. Whew!

That shy kitty from last week, came back to visit with his family. Below are Jean and her children, Jedda and Christopher with Baby Duke.

Mareena and Dominic cool off in the sprinkler

a peek at the first beans

mulch straw on new beans

mulching before the rain

Jay’s spider

garden neighbors and friends

harvesting kale

weighing kale

washing

de-ribbing

stamp sized pieces

measuring

eating kale salad

yummy kale

Westminster School summer campers were given the full experience of making massaged kale salad (see recipe, previous post). We had a harvest crew out in the garden early enough to beat the blistering heat. They knew that we were making four times the recipe so they needed 4 pounds of kale. I chose the smooth rather than the curly leaf kale. Children had to figure out how to subtract the weight of the basket from the weight of the scale as they piled on their leaves. Afterward, we brought the kale inside, where it was washed and de-ribbed before being cut into postage stamp pieces. (We donated the tough ribs to Snorty, our principal’s pig.) By the way, with correct instruction and supervision, children are easily able to use knives for this project.
The next fun part was reading the rest of the recipe. One of our campers multiplied fractions like 1/3, by 4 and then the measurers were off, adding olive oil, lemon juice and soy sauce to the bowl of chopped kale. I roasted the seeds at home to save time. We took our kale salad outside for the massaging, and we timed campers as they worked their gloved hands through it, breaking down the kale fibers. 10 minutes and we were done~~although there were plenty of campers who could have kept going. The final touch was the addition of three peeled, sectioned and chunked oranges. The sweet orangey flavor provides just the right contrast to the salty, sesame sourness of the rest of the ingredients. Campers lined up to taste their creation. When introducing new foods there can’t be anything more important than direct participation in their assemblage. Participation = appreciation. There is one more helpful addition to new food introduction: a willing adult or child skilled in drama to make a huge big deal of how goood that first bite was. Some children asked for 5th helpings! I consider this first foray into kale eating a great success. Next on the menu: kale chips!