INGREDIENTS (for each ramekin)
Butter (for greasing of ramekins)
1 1/2 Tablespoons Quinoa
2 Eggs
1/4 cup Milk
1/2 teaspoon Garlic
Pinch each of Thyme, Salt and Pepper
3/4 cup fresh spinach roughly chopped
1/4 cup Parmesan Cheese

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Generously grease 10oz souffle ramekin with butter.

In a bowl whisk together quinoa, eggs, milk, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper.  Stir in spinach and majority of cheese reserving some for on top.  Pour mixture into prepared ramekin(s).

Using whisk jiggle ingredients to help the quinoa settle to the bottom prior to baking.  Then cover with foil and jiggle (like you are trying ot release air bubbles in a cake batter).  Place on a cookie sheet (to catch overflow) and place in the oven.

Bake until the egg is just set about 30 minutes.  Remove foil and sprinkle remaining cheese on top and cook for another 5 – 10 minutes until the eggs are nice and puffy and the cheese is melted and just starting to turn brown.

Let cool for 1 minute, and serve in the ramekin or run a knife around the edge, turn out onto a wide flat spatula and then onto a plate.
 

This recipe is great for breakfast, I served with a side of sausages, but also made a nice dinner with a side salad.  It is also gluten free and vegetarian!

Ingredients
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/3 cup milk
1/3 lb ground chicken
1/3 lb ground veal (or the leanest ground beef you can find, or buffalo would probably work too)
1/3 lb ground pork (or 1/4lb ground pork and a few good quality pork sausages removed from their casings)
1/2 small onion chopped
Shredded Carrot
Salt & Pepper to taste
worcestershire Sauce
1 egg, plus 1 egg slightly beaten
2 sheets frozen puff pastry, just thawed

Directions:
Combine breadcrumbs and milk in a bowl and set aside until milk is absorbed.  Place ground meat, bread crumbs, onion, and egg, carrot and seasonings in a food processor.  Process until well blended. Cover and refrigerate for 30 minutes to chill.

Place sheet of pastry on a lightly floured surface and cut horizontally into two.  Spoon a quarter of the mixture along the center of the pastry.  Fold over the long edges of pastry, slightly overlapping in the center, and making a long sausage shape.  Repeat with the remaining pastry and filling to make 4 long rolls.

Place rolls, seam side down, on a baking tray lined with parchment paper.  Cover and refrigerate for 3 minutes or until firm.

Preheat oven to 375.  Cut each long roll into two to make 8 standard size rolls or into 7 sections for "party" sized rolls.  Brush the top of each roll with beaten egg.

Bake for 30 – 40 minutes or until golden brown and puffed.  Serve warm with tomato sauce (ketchup).
 

Notes:
One of the original recipes I found was an Australian recipe and it said to just use a decent sausage and remove it from its casings, but sausages in Australia are much more lean and less fatty than sausages here, and I was worried the excess fat would keep the pastry from getting flaky.

Another recipe said to use the beaten egg to close the seam on the roll, which I did on my first batch but the bottoms of the rolls didn't get flaky.  They were cooked but a bit soggy.  The second batch was much better when i just pinched the seam closed.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup White Sugar
1/2 lb (2 sticks) Unsalted Butter
1 pint good quality Vanilla ice-cream

Instructions:
Blend all ingredients in a food processor and store in the fridge or freezer.  To make a drink, add a shot of good dark rum with 2 tablespoons batter to a mug of hot water.

Message received.  Really they are beyond saving for much, but they are a nice mushy texture, perfect for this recipe!  This is the banana cake recipe that Nathan's Beach Nan used to make (unless it was one of those times she was secretly making it from a mix) and is nice and moist.  We don't frost it, but I suppose you could, perhaps a caramel frosting of some sort?

Ingredients
2/3 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup buttermilk
3 very ripe bananas, mashed

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease bundt pan.  Beat together first four ingredients until light and fluffy.  Sift together dry ingredients and add to egg mixture a little at a time while alternating with the buttermilk and bananas until just mixed.
Pour and spread in the prepared bundt pan and bake for 35 – 40 minutes or until center is set and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.  Cool in pan for 5 minutes, run knife around the edges and invert.

Ingredients
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
1 pound tilapia fillets
1/4 cup chopped pecans

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350.  In a small bowl combine mayonnaise and mustard.  Using paper towels pat fish lightly to dry.  Arrange fish in a large, shallow baking pan.  I use a silicone one.  If you are worried about sticking lightly grease the pan with some olive or grapeseed oil.  Divide the mayonnaise mixture equally between the number of fillet and spread mixture on the top of each.  Sprinkle with chopped pecans and press down gently.

Bake in preheated over for 12 – 15 minutes, until fish flakes easily with a fork.  Serves 4 – 6 depending on the size of the individual fillets.

Ingredients
3 – 4 pounds of apples (about 10), cored and quartered
3/4 cup fresh lemon juice
3/4 cup water

In a large heavy saucepan, combine the apples, water, and lemon juice.  Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer.  Stir occasionally breaking up the apples for about 20 minutes.  If it is the consistency (chunk wise) you are looking for, increase heat and boil for 4 – 8 minutes (watch for spatter) to thicken.  If you are looking for a less chunky consistency you can use a potato masher to make the chunks smaller or a immersion blender to make it more smooth.

I serve this warm to my guests topped with a brown sugar, cinnamon, caraway and walnut mixture.  Also makes a nice topping for oatmeal.

Notes:
I have used Golden Delicious apples, as well as apples from our own tree (the type of apples is really unknown), McIntosh and a mixture and all variations taste slightly different but still tasty.  I will leave it up to you if you want to peel the apples or not.  When I used the apples from our own tree I only peeled half of them, and the peels gave the sauce a great pink tint.  I peeled all the apples when I used Golden Delicious.  I do not add sugar to the applesauce while cooking, and the lemon juice gives it a slight tang but it is still plenty sweet.  If you are looking for a traditional smooth sauce, after cooking run the sauce through a food mill, it will remove any peel that is still left and give you that fine texture.

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups corn meal (white, yellow, or blue, be adventurous)
1 1/4 cups oat flour 
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cup rice milk
3 Tablespoons oil (I use olive or grapeseed)
1 Tablespoons cider vinegar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put liners in a muffin pan.  Mix all of the dry ingredients.  Add rice milk, oil, and vinegar and mix well.  Fill each muffin cup 2/3 full.  Bake for 20 minutes.  Makes 10 – 12 muffins.

Notes:
For a spicy version as a side with chili add chopped jalapenos.
Add chopped fruit for more of a dessert muffin and serve warm with "ice cream"
My favorite version is using brown sugar instead of white, adding 2 Tablespoons maple syrup and then the last 5 minutes of baking topping the muffins with a brown sugar, cinnamon topping with another drizzle of maple syrup.
For those without dairy allergies I have used 1 1/4 cups regular milk with no issues.

Ingredients:
2 large sweet potatoes
2 tablespoons butter (or grapeseed oil)
1 small onion diced (1/4")
1/2 lb chanterelle mushrooms, cleaned and roughly chopped
1 quart chicken or vegetable stock
1 chicken breast cut into thin strips along the bias
1 1/2 cups whole kernel corn (2 to 3 ears fresh)
1 or 2 jalapenos, minced
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon Sea Salt

In a heavy bottomed pot, saute onion and mushrooms until softened.  Peel and cube sweet potato and add to pot.  Add enough chicken stock to just cover potatoes.  Boil until fork tender, about 10 minutes.  Use a potato masher mash the potatoes without draining liquid.  You will end up with a thicker stock but still have some chunks of potato.

Add the remaining broth, chicken, corn, and jalapenos.  Bring back to boil and then reduce to a simmer for an additional 10 minutes or until chicken and corn has cooked.  Add the cream and salt to taste.

Notes:
I used 3 jalapenos and seasoned with pepper and garlic at the end of cooking.  It had a good amount of heat but wasn't too spicy.  The next day the heat had increased and it was a bit spicier but still not overly so.  It has great flavors and other ingredients could be added to it to suit your tastes.  When I made it, it gave us 6 good sized bowls of chowder.  For a dairy free option, leave out the cream, 1/2 a cup in that much soup isn't that much to begin with so many people would probably never know it was missing.  You could puree the sweet potato, making it a bit smoother, but then I would suggest cooking the mushrooms and onion in a separate pan so you don't puree the beautiful mushrooms!

2 eggs
1/3 cup Cheddar Cheese
Butter
Milk
Seasonings
10oz Souffle Ramekin

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Butter the bottom of the ramekin.  Put shredded cheese into a glass measuring cup.  Add enough milk to 1/4 cup.  Add eggs and seasonings and mix well.  Pour into ramekin and place in the oven.  Bake for 20 – 30 minutes or until it has risen and is set.

The trick is they have to be served hot from the oven to whomever is eating them quickly.  Gordon Ramsay says 90 seconds.  I concur.  They start to deflate if you take your time.  I set one on the cold countertop and I heard it pop and start to hiss as it deflated.  They are easy to make, but they are also easy to fall.  The one up side, they still taste yummy, just a bit more flat.

I add salt, pepper, garlic, and cayenne pepper as my seasonings.  I have also made it with different cheeses, Havarti and Parmesan had a nice texture.  Goat cheese turned a bit grainy.  I have added sliced tomatoes to the top halfway through baking (they didn't rise as much).  I also did one with cheddar and Canadian which was really yummy.  My next attempt is going to be cheddar, ham, granny smith apples and caraway.  I really like those flavors together.  I'll report how it turns out.

This garden has already been a fantastic learning experience for the students, and they have already reaped the rewards in the form of salad and ownership.  Most of the students can tell you which plant they grew from a seed and then planted in the garden, what it is, and they are excited about it!  And it just isn't gardening they are learning, there have been reading lessons, math lessons, social studies (complete with a borscht and salsa garden) and it is all growing right outside the windows to the school from the tiny seed of an idea.

When we walk by the school during recess it is great to see that some of the kids actually spend their free time in the garden, walking the paths, checking for weeds, enjoying the space.  Community members and neighbors use it as a spot for picnics and to take care of it.  Food produced from the garden will go to families who need it and the Food Bank during the summer when kids are not in school.  It is truly amazing what has transpired from that tiny seed of an idea.

Just imagine what we could do as a community if we all put our little bit of effort into something.  A marshy portion of a field became a garden in a matter of a few months and a handful of work parties.  People who have no vested interest in either of the schools got involved.  We had adults and kids alike who were there for a baseball or soccer game during a work party pick up a shovel and pitch in, they wanted to be involved.  Amazing…simply amazing.

During this whole process a neighbor and photographer Steven Herppich came and took photos documenting the process and he was kind enough to put those photos into a very moving slide show.  It was shown at the garden dedication and it was very emotional for the adults but for the children as well.

And now you can see how far the garden has come, and the fabulous thing is, it is just going to continue to get better and amaze us all.

http://animoto.com/play/kR4NEGWY1jv4rSXEKG0N7g