Monthly Archives: August 2016

Our food technology extension class made and enjoyed almond milk with toasted muesli – after agreeing upon the best recipe of our almond milk from the previous week. The rest of the class split into 3 groups, and with some help from Mr Google investigated into how our homemade almond milk compares with shop-bought almond milk. We compared the nutrients (fats, carbs, proteins, vitamins and minerals), the ingredients (and what all the e-numbers stand for) and the cost. Then we compared the taste!

Conclusions: our homemade almond milk has 5 times the amount of almonds in it, 5 times the protein, and is much creamier and yummier than the shop-bought almond milk, which was declared quite watery and tasteless. Our research revealed that our homemade almond milk has good levels of calcium and magnesium in it. To make 1 litre uses 1 cup of almonds – which are quite expensive, but we all decided the end result was worth it. And the left-over almond pulp is yummy in cookies, muffins, pancakes or waffles. In comparison we saw that shop-bought almond milk is quite pricey considering how much water is in it! Next week we will try our hand at making oat milk.

We headed off to the Feilding Farmers’ Market with our anti-cranky spread and our two trial flavours of protein bar – vanilla and orange. The students quickly prepared tasters of the spread on stone oven seed bread to offer prospective customers – which were enjoyed by customers and students alike! They also carefully cut some protein bars into tasters and offered them enthusiastically to market-goers. The students got pretty good at reciting the healthy ingredient list, remembering to mention the nut content. They memorised the composition of each bar – 9g protein, only 5g natural sugars (from dates) and no refined sugars. Many bars were bought for lunch-box fillers.

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What a great challenge the MANUKURA juniors had today – making vegan cheesecakes using almonds, dates, coconut, lemon rind, vanilla and coconut oil for the base and cashew nuts, lemon juice, coconut cream, cocoa butter and frozen strawberries and raspberries for a delicious and creamy filling.
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It was a very creative afternoon for the Hands-On Food team at Youth Space today. The task was to come up with toppings for toast that taste and look great. Wholegrain sourdough spelt bread from Wholegrain Organics topped with some unique options including sprouted onion seeds, and tempeh, gave the guys plenty of scope to be artistic, while thinking about which combinations would be best.

We prepared all the toppings together, such as the coriander dressing made with honey and Braggs (a healthy soy sauce), roasted capsicum BBQ sauce, a savoury spread, and many sliced or grated veges. Continue reading →

Our extension class on Friday morning began investigating MYLK – that’s milk with a difference. The students were amazed to discover we could come up with 24 different types of milk – whereas in their grandparents’ day there was only one type, pasteurised unhomogenised dairy milk, which the milkman delivered in glass bottles with cardboard tops. Then we looked at WHY we have so many different types of milk today. The reasons are many – from lactose intolerance to increased understanding and knowledge about the best sources of calcium for our bones. We saw how milk is produced by many animals for their young, and how cows’ milk is perfectly designed for baby calves (who double their weight in 47 days), rats’ milk for baby rats (who double their weight in 4 days), and human milk for human babies (who double their weight in 180 days). An interesting fact is that humans are the only species to drink milk past the baby years, and to drink another species’ milk.

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Today the year 9 MANUKURA students took up the food technology challenge to make Protein Bullets from almonds, pumpkin seeds, coconut, dates, carob powder, coconut oil, peanut butter and plant pea protein powder.

Very good after a workout – or for an afternoon snack with a piece of fruit. We discovered that using nuts, seeds and dates, we can make a healthy snack that contains 9g protein, 6g sugars, 17g fat and 12g carbs per bullet.  Great opportunity to learn how to make healthy and yummy choices using simple ingredients.
Ka pai to everyone for their enthusiasm and helpful hands.

Nutritionally packed food gets smiles all around. We had a lot of fun forming chickpea patties using brown rice, chickpeas, carrot which we flavoured with cumin, dill, lemon and Braggs – a non-fermented soy sauce.

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The Friday (5 August) group of students at Feilding Intermediate were so enthusiastic and capable that we attempted—and mastered—three separate recipes. First we followed the recipe for coconut muesli, watching each step closely because another school is using the muesli we made. The tricky part was keeping an eye on the baking times and turning it about every 10 minutes to avoid burning. Most of the students managed to get it golden brown. Continue reading →