May 6, 2025
Today we made some delicious healthy food using fresh ingredients from our garden. It was wonderful to see all the children enthusiastically involved and many enjoyed trying something new!
Today we made some delicious healthy food using fresh ingredients from the garden. The basil and salad that we planted in collaboration with Vicki and the Kookaburra class, have grown lush and healthy so we combined those ingredients to make a healthy and tasty snack.
Ingredients for Pesto – fresh basil from the garden – olive oil – Parmesan cheese flakes – garlic – salt (ground by children using a tiny mortar and pestle) – pumpkin seeds (instead of pine nuts).
We combined all these together in a small jug and Vicki started to blend them using the stick blender. It spluttered a little and the children said they could smell petrol. Hmm…unfortunately what the children smelt was smoke coming out of the stick blender as it burnt and it stopped working. Oh dear! We transferred the half blended mixture into a bigger mortar and pestle and crushed the mixture into a paste. It was crunchier than a usual smooth pesto but everyone seemed to like this texture!
This was a great lesson for children to learn how to adjust to the situation when things don’t go to plan, by thinking of another plan without losing heart. Just like it says in the song Rip up the Recipe from the movie Lyle Lyle Crocodile 😊 We discussed these topics while making the pesto. Additionally, it was a great sensory experience for children as they could smell the lovely aromas of the fresh basil, the garlic, the olive oil and the cheese. Yum!
The next step was to make the salad. Children helped Vicky to pick a combination of salad leaves and they washed them nice and clean. As the dressing we used: olive oil, a dash of vinegar, salt and honey.
The coloured spiral pasta looked so pretty in orange, white and green. We mixed the pesto and had the salad served with it as well. We enjoyed this beautiful meal together sitting outside in this gorgeous weather. Even the children who were a little cautious about tasting it ended up loving it! Some even had three or four servings!
Some children took a few bits of pasta home to share with their families. Let’s take a moment to be grateful for the outdoor space, the rich soil and the beautiful weather we have so that planting and harvesting is a possibility for us at Montessori. Proud of the children for trying new flavours today.
