Harvest Time

Elina's First Grade Class has their own garden in their backyard.  I'm in charge of weeding it, so I have seen it grow from seed to full-on veggies and herbs.

Last week, the class harvested zucchini, tons of herbs, chard, and green tomatoes.  (For some reason they couldn't get red tomatoes.)  The teachers recommended ME to take home the harvested items and to make something out of it all.  They figured it would be really neat for the kids to eat what they planted and picked.  I agreed, so I decided to do it...even though I was up to my ears in things to do already.  Oh well.  

The first day I decided to take on the green tomatoes.  I searched allrecipes.com and found a recipe for green tomato cake.  (Wha-??)  I didn't even know that existed!  Well, the reviews were great, so I figured I'd give it a try.  It actually turned out really yummy...akin to zucchini bread.  You can't even really taste the tomatoes.  It looks weird with chunks of green tomatoes in it, but it tastes great!  The entire class agreed and they gobbled everything up!  They are still talking about how tomato cake is their favorite thing to eat in the "whole entire world."  Every day they beg me to make more green tomato cake.  Ha!

The next day I made a savory chard dish (also from allrecipes.com).  I just stir-fried it with lemon, bacon, and butter...honestly, how can you go wrong with bacon??  Most of the kids loved it!  They just couldn't believe that all the leafy chard they picked turned into 1/2 a bowl of wilted leaves.  

Then yesterday I brought in zucchini bread using their zucchinis. The kids gobbled that up as well.  

It's been lots of fun searching for recipes with specific produce in mind.  And it's been even more fun watching the kids eat the food.  It's a great first grade class and I'm just so thankful that I can be this involved!

I didn't use up all the veggies and herbs that were given to me...so the kids are using them in their play kitchen as I write this.  Elina even took some leftover green tomatoes, put them into a pot and said, "See, Mommy!  I made green tomato cake!"  Who would've ever thought that would be on the menu??