Celebrating Vegetables at CK
Vegetable Month
We at CK are BIG FANS of vegetables! In fact, we love vegetables so much that we dedicated an entire month to them. March at CK was officially Vegetable Month. We immersed ourselves deep into the vegetable world, investigating vegetables through a number of topics including biology, ecology and of course, the culinary!
For the first week of Vegetable Month, we asked the question “What is a vegetable?”. Each day, we looked at a different part of the plant that vegetables come from. We examined spinach, a LEAF vegetable and ate some yummy Spanakopita, a Greek spinach pie. We then turned our focus to vegetables that were actually FRUITS and looked at tomatoes, which included eating a homemade creamy tomato soup for lunch. The FLOWER vegetable, cauliflower, was next investigated. To the children’s amazement, the sauce for the Mac and Cheese in that day’s lunch was made entirely of cauliflower. Corn and beans were the two SEED vegetables that were next looked at and were the key ingredients in the burritos made for lunch. We rounded off the week with ROOT vegetables and directed our attention to potatoes which were roasted into crispy nuggets.
Week 1
By this point, CK had a strong grasp of the leaves, fruits, flowers, seeds and roots that vegetables come from. Next to be investigated was the vast array of colours they come in. CK ate the rainbow for Week 2 of Vegetable Month as our afternoon tea mezze platter transformed into a uni-colour affair. Each day, they only featured vegetables of one colour. We saw vegetables that were RED, YELLOW, ORANGE GREEN – even PURPLE vegetables!
Week 2
Vegetable Month was well underway at this point, with many families participating by bringing vegetables from home into CK. While investigating the plants and colours of vegetables is all very well, a proper vegetable investigation is not complete until the vegetable has been cooked and eaten! The menu of the third week of vegetable month incorporated the vegetables the children brought in as they were cooked into the CK meals. We saw a diversity of vegetables, some well-known and some unfamiliar, and discovered some new dishes along the way. The seaweed brought in was made into an assortment of Onigiri (Japanese rice balls). One child’s zucchini was the start ingredient in the zucchini slice. We saw the carrots and onion brought in turn into a roasted carrot soup which was accompanied with garlic bread, featuring another child’s garlic. Corn, tomatoes and chilli were transformed into corn fritters with a tomato chilli chutney and the black fungus, carrots and celery were cooked into dumplings. The children ate their meals with great pride knowing that everyone at CK was eating THEIR vegetables.
Week 3
After a thorough examination of the vegetables we had at home, the final week of Vegetable Month took to the culinary skies to see how other cultures enjoy the vegetables we’re so familiar with, and possibly find some new ones! This time, our afternoon tea mezze platters were all inspired by the food of different countries and cuisines. Starting off with our ‘CK classic’ assortment of vegetables, we travelled to Italy for a taste of some antipasto. Keeping to the Mediterranean, we indulged in a true Mezze platter from countries of that region. CK then found themselves in Asia and ate an assortment of vegetables commonly seen in a Japanese bento box. On the last day of Vegetable Month, we saw vegetables from all over the globe. The once odd and unfamiliar vegetables were now viewed as if it was a cucumber. How the veggie tables have turned!
Week 4
And that concludes Vegetable Month for 2022. However, that doesn’t mean that the vegetable investigation at CK is over. If anything, it has only solidified how much CK love their vegetables!
Vegetable Month
