Creative Christmas Cooking with Ali

Last week we had a tasty couple of hours at Charleston Community Complex learning some really simple but sparkling recipes from Ali Mitchell, thanks to the R U Up 4 It? food waste project. A quick chat with those that came along came up with lots of new suggestions on how to deal with some foods folk regularly find themselves throwing away. Onions can be kept for a long time (weeks, even months) if kept cool and are in good condition. Old bits of bread can be made into breadcrumbs and then added to sausage meat to fill it out, top off a tartlet and of course go towards bread sauce. It will keep in a bag in a cool place or freezer for quite a while. For more tips have a look athttp://scotland.lovefoodhatewaste.com/

Ali will be sharing his top tips and recipes for money- and waste-saving cooking on the Charleston Academy Community Complex Facebook pages. Why not do the same?

Dishes we made in only 1.5 hours included

• cranberry sauce with orange
• Brussels sprouts and bacon bits with butter and honey
• Brussels outer leaves (not to be wasted) drizzled with lemon, butter and sugar
• Sausage meat "roll" with cranberries, sage, thyme and oregano, breadcrumbs and honey
• Goat's cheese, Stilton, herb and cranberry sauce tartlet
• Carrots and parsnips tossed in turmeric, cumin, fenugreek, honey and lemon

Bill - carefully considering the Brussels spouts leaves drizzled with lemon, honey and butter

Charlene adding a delicate touch of honey to the sausage meat.

Just cranberries, orange and a wee bit of sugar. Not too sweet as this is to accompany meat.

The evening's favourite - remainder goat's cheese and Stilton and tonight's cranberry sauce on a thin base of ready-made puff pastry. What could be easier?

Top tip - put the shiny side of the foil against the sausage meat. Not on the outside.

Nissil adding home-grown rosemary to the tartlet.

The busiest member of our cooking group was Lucy, a pupil at Muirtown Primary School. Delicately slicing a juicy orange for the home-made cranberry sauce.

Ali showing us the finer points of using knives.

Sausage meat mixed with breadcrumbs from left-over bread, herbs and an egg. wrapped foil and baked in oven for a sausage snack later.

Getting ready to grow ... Muir of Ord Gardeners visit Tarradale's Tunnel

Roy and Eleanor of Muir of Ord Gardening Club checking out the potential of the Tarradale Tunnel.

The polytunnels RoWAN have provided to Tarradale and Muirtown Primary Schools are not just for pupils and staff to enjoy - but members of their communities too. Hopefully with a bigger pool of interested growers the limitations of the school timetable and holidays won't stop some fantastic projects taking place. The next few months provide valuable time to plan prepare and plot for the edible treats ahead.

Let us (toni.clark(at)rowan.org.uk) know what you do over the winter to keep your polytunnel in good shape

Cooking to save money (and waste) and Charleston Community Complex

Getting to grips with filo pastry for samosas

Here's a similar recipe to the one Ali made up on the night
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/potatoandpeasamosas_86618

Home-grown tomatoes are often freely available from neighbours and friends

Fresh herbs add flavour to your dishes and colour and scent to your garden. Chepaer than buying dried ones.

During only 2 hours we made rissoles, pasta, ravioli, pasties, gnocchi,

 soup and tomato sauce.

We are hoping to run more sessions very soon, if you are interested in coming along - please get in touch. Email toni.clark(at)rowan.org.uk

Next round of food waste audits coming up

Just a reminder that Norman and Toni will be visiting you soon to carry out another survey of waste produced at school lunchtimes. We are Dingwall Primary this week and Dingwall Academy next, and hopefully all other schools before the end of the year.
These audits are important as they are the last ones of the three-year R U Up 4 It? project and it's vital we have record of how well everyone has done at reducing the amount of food and packaging that gets thrown away at lunchtimes. It'll help plan what happens next.

Inverness schools now have their food waste collected so let's see if that makes a difference to how much of their school lunches pupils throw away.

Please get in touch if you've got dates you'd like us to come in for. The only space needed is enough for four boxes and room for pupils to get access to put their waste in the right one.

Boxes for sorting cooked food, uncooked food, packaging and drinks containers

Weighing the waste at the end is always popular and gives everyone an idea of how they might do better next time.

Kinmylies Eco Group members make their very own yummy pear smoothies.

Pick a few pears from the school garden

Cut the pears into quarters

Peel carefully

Put the pears with a chopped banana in the pan

  Some of the Eco Group tasting their own Pear Smoothie.

Karen the school's cook loves working with the pupils

 

 

and absolutely no waste - except the pear peel and banana skin which went on the compost heap ...

Welcome back everyone - R U Up 4 It once again?

Don't know about you but the highlight of our summer has been the fantastic growing conditions - how did you manage to keep your school garden growing?

Flowers and vegetables have enjoyed our wet warm summer

Flowers look after themselves and the peas and courgettes have done really well outside too as it's been relatively warm. It's worth taking a risk sometimes. We'd be interested to hear how you kept your garden going over the holidays.

Another highlight as always was THE BLACK ISLE SHOW. RoWAN shared a marquee with the Highland Countryside Initiative (or Royal Highland Education Trust) and provided an opportunity for visitors to try their hand at the giant compost jigsaw which is always popular. We also had a few examples of seasonal veg to test people's thoughts on how far the produce had travelled to the Show.

I like the peas best ...

It turned out ALL the veg had only come one mile - but the banana and lemon had travelled 1000s of miles between them. So yes, you can grow a wide range of tasty vegetables here. 

We also took the chance to promote the FREE workshops we are are putting on over the next few months - cooking to save money, creating a kitchen garden and composting for beginners. Keep an eye on local publicity for dates and venues.

Muirtown and Tarradale Primary Schools will be sharing with us their plans for their polytunnels - maybe it'll inspire others to look at growing under cover. Get in touch if you'd like to know more.

Garden Party at Dingwall Academy - Tuesday 24th June - join us if you can!

Come and discover what the Dingwall Academy DiGGers do in their shed - if you dare!

Dingwall Academy, RoWAN (Ross-shire Waste Action Network) and RHET (Royal Highland Education Trust) are pleased to announce the date for our Summer Garden Party.  On Tuesday 24^th June we plan to host primary school pupils from 9.30 to 2.30pm at Dingwall Academy.  There will be a selection of garden activities and horticultural skills practice for those wishing to progress with their “Growing Hub Award”.  Schools are invited to bring produce from their own school gardens to contribute to the lunch table; soup and pupil baking will also be provided.  Representatives from Dingwall Academy DiGGers, Forest School participants and S2 garden classes will be helping out and teaching skills ranging from knots and wigwam building to planting, potting on, watering and composting.  We look forward to the event and hope that the sun shines!

Mulbuie PS Garden - some cool pics

Sun and shade on the honeysuckle (fantastic for insects and birds). Photo taken by Maddie P1/2/3 Mulbuie PS

 

Many hands make light work of fine weeding in the vegetable plot - carrots, beetroot, cabbage, onions - to look forward to after the summer break. Photo taken by Maddie P1/2/3 Mulbuie PS

Mulbuie's compost bins have had a make-over thanks to their janitor.   The compost will go on the empty beds over the winter.

Isn't sage colourful? Photo taken by Maddie P1/2/3 Mulbuie PS

Thanks to Maddie for some really lovely, thoughtful, photographs - inspiration for a possible "R U Up 4 It?" photo competition later in the year.

So lots to look forward to this autumn and winter, which will help pupils at Mulbuie towards the Growing Hub Award. If your school would like to try this easy-to-do Award over a growing year, please ask RoWAN for more details.

What to do with those left-overs - thanks to Conon Brownies

ever wondered what to do with left-over pizza?

Don't waste bread

make more of meat

101 things to do with a banana!

Muirtown and Tarradale now have their very own polytunnels!

 Tarradale Primary School's tunnel

Muirtown Primary School - before 

During

 After

Thanks to Highland Polytunnels and the guys that did a fantastic job putting the tunnels up - both were out up in one day! Staff and pupils at Tarradale and Muirtown are very excited about the opportunities these covered spaces will provide. There will be a lot going on next term. Watch this space ... 

Another tunnel is going to St Clements School in Dingwall in the new term.

Crumble, compost and cornflowers - a busy afternoon at Tarradale Primary

The pictures say it all - in just over an hour this afternoon the P6 class cooked a rhubarb crumble using rhubarb from their garden, installed a new Ridan food composter and sowed 5 trays of assorted wild flowers. Amazing what they can achieve on a wet Friday. We'll keep you posted on how the Ridan and cornflowers do.

Young people's views on climate change - take a look

Hi there
There are lots of young people - in and out of school - doing great things to learn more about and tackle climate change. Have a look at this video from Young Scot - and add your thoughts to the debate, either here or with Young Scot. RoWAN is looking at being able to award YOUNG SCOT REWARDS for actions that reduce your carbon footprint through your involvement in "R U Up 4 It?". Look forward to hearing your ideas for activities we can help you with.

Tarradale Pupils find their polytunnel in the OLD school!

Tarradale Primary School pupils find where their new polytunnel has been hiding! But not for much longer - they hope to get it put up and ready for action by the end of April. If you can help in anyway to make the most of this fabulous new growing space please get in touch with RoWAN or Tarradale Primary School. RoWAN is providing polytunnels to Muirtown and Dochgarroch Primary Schools as well and we hope that lots of members of their local communities will benefit from them. If you have a polytunnel at your school we'd love to hear what has worked well for you - as well as the things to avoid!

Launch of the "Growing Hub Growing Award"

These colourful Swiss Chard seedlings were spotted today on the windowsill of Tomnacross Nursery - just one of the varieties of seeds they received as part of the RoWAN FREE SEED offer.

RoWAN, Dingwall Academy and RHET (Royal Highland Education Trust) are pleased at announce the launch of the "Growing Hub - Growing Award" which aims to:

• Provide an informal, progressive approach for pupils to gain skills and knowledge through growing fruit, vegetables and flowers
• Assist school staff to gain confidence in supporting pupils to grow more
• Recognise pupils' horticultural achievements with an Award that is both easy to deliver and assess

Sowing and caring for seeds are examples of tasks that can count towards the newly launched "Growing Award".

If you would like more information on this Award, which is being piloted over the next 12 months please contact RoWAN at any time. We are more than happy to visit you and your pupils to help get you growing! We'd love to hear from you if you intend to do the "Growing Award" so we can provide you with support via email.  

Feel free to send us photos of your growing projects and tops tips for how to grow over the school holidays!

Ferintosh and Mulbuie both up for the Climate Week Challenge

Last week was Climate Week and both Mulbuie and Ferintosh Primaries agreed to take on the 1 hour challenge set by the Climate Week team - which was to come up with a great idea to help people use less energy to heat buildings and water. The teams of about 4-6 children each decided on the buildings their idea was to benefit. These varied from an airport to a kitchen to a football pitch to the Empire State Building (no less) - so ambitious from the start.

After 40 minutes of preparation each team had up to 5 minutes to present their idea to the other groups who then voted for the best combination of idea and presentation!

             The winners at Mulbuie were ... "The Supersavers"!!!

At Ferintosh we watched a football match where the lights went off (sound familiar?), heard how The Empire State Building might use the power of a lightening strike and how water power might replace coal power in the kitchen and the winning team were "The Bumbly Bears" with their Empire State Building idea. 

Thanks for taking part in Climate Week.

Sharing event at Dingwall Academy - well done everyone!

Just a quick thank you to everyone that came along on Wednesday 12th Feb - and a special thanks to all the pupils who took part in the fantastic presentations on what you are doing to reduce food waste. We didn't realise SO MUCH was happening. There were some really great sharing ideas - we'll put more up on the Blog very soon. And more photos to follow.  And a video too!

                                                      Muirtown Pupils at Dingwall Academy

The Schools that were more than "Up 4 It!" were:
Ben Wyvis Primary
Dingwall Primary
The Diggers - Dingwall Academy
Muirtown Primary
Newmore Primary
St Clements
Tarradale Primary

Some classroom activities - science and global citizenship

Dingwall PS science class making their compost timelines (or Rot Pots) re-using and recycling as they go. A fantastic chance to concoct compost cocktails! This activity is available on WRAP website 

A fine set of Rot Pots - the pupils will watch the contents decompose over the next few weeks and months. Dingwall PS staff have amongst the BEST compost we've seen!

Does our food really come from so far away? Tarradale PS pupils match our everyday fruit and veg from the local shop to the map of the World. They discovered that some of it could have come from much closer to home. RoWAN can do this activity with your class, or lend you the map. Just ask.

Events coming up

12th February @ Dingwall Academy "Sharing Event" a great chance for pupils and staff to show everyone what has worked for your school when it comes to trying to reduce the amount of food and packaging that we waste. Please get in touch to let us know you are coming.

21st February @ Dingwall Academy
Free CPD workshop "R U Up 4 Growing food?"
Contact Toni for more details or look on the Highland Council CPD website.

3-9th March Climate Challenge Week - Ferintosh Primary are already signed up. Why don't you too? We can help - if it helps!

                                              Time to get your seeds and planting planned!