Harvest, cook and eat with Robert Shaw Primary School

Over the last 2 Thursdays, we've been delighted to help pupils from Year 5 at Robert Shaw Primary School to get involved in our Harvest, Cook and Eat programme. Everyone at Windmill enjoys these sessions, not least because we all get to enjoy the finished dish!

Being full class groups, we had to divide pupils into 3 groups for organisation, but everyone got to harvest crops, and the two groups not cooking got involved in weeding and in planting activities, so all were busy right up until the mass food tasting at the end.

Volunteer Jade helps the group giving our paths a
much-needed tidy up

Some more of our wonderful weeders

Groups harvested a range of crops, including
some they hadn't seen before.

Blackberries were very popular

So popular that there were none to take home!

This time of year is great for helping pupils to learn knife skills because there are lovely ripe tomatoes to be processed - and they are easy to cut for beginners. Those who seem confident with knives get whisked off to collect onions and are shown recommended techniques for cutting these safely. After that, there is a lesson in how to chop garlic and herbs finely by rocking the knife.

New volunteer Sibel helps the group through the recipe

Adding the finely chopped garlic

Cooking the tomatoes
- it's important to stir it carefully so they don't stick

Adding freshly chopped herbs

It's interesting to watch how quickly children master the new ways of holding their knives and using them in a safe way. It's also great to help them to gather the herbs they need, straight from the garden, and to see and hear how excited they are to be able to turn something that is growing into a dish half an hour later.

Queuing for a taste

Both Thursdays ended in delicious pasta with freshly-made tomato sauce that almost everyone tried and   enjoyed. Seconds (and thirds) were asked for by quite a few, and the volunteers also gave the food their seal of approval.

Well worth the effort.

Please Miss, can we have some more?

Volunteer Chris taste-tests the result

We hope to host the classes for sessions during the rest of the school year, so all of them will have a chance to try lots of different activities. With any luck we'll be able to use the clay oven with them at some point too. We'd also like to thank the pupils for their enthusiasm - we really enjoyed having you!