The Big Cookathon

What a day the Big Cookathon turned out to be - busy but very successful.

The main Cookathon event took place at the school and this got under way as soon as the children entered the building at 8.50am. Riverford Organic Veg had kindly donated 150 enormous organic potatoes which they had delivered to school the previous day. Year 1 were the first to get going with these, with each child being given a potato to scrub and prick as soon as they got their coats off. Once cleaned the potatoes were put in a box from where they were counted into bags of 10 spuds to be given to a waiting parent. The parents, armed with cooking instructions, then took the potatoes home to be baked for 2 hours.

The Year 2's were next to get underway with scrubbing potatoes, whilst others got started on chopping vegetables for their vegetable chilli topping. Next the reception children were organised into a long line, ready to start their potato preparations. By 9.30 16 bags of potatoes had left the building to be cooked and the school oven was filled with as many potatoes as could be fitted in!

Next the children set about preparing the toppings. For the reception children this involved opening 15 cans of baked beans, grating 3 kg of cheese and making tuna mayonnaise.

In the meantime, some the Year 1 children were busy grating carrots and beetroot and chopping red cabbage and onion to make red coleslaw. And others got chopping to turn the huge box of donated organic salad items from Riverford Organic Veg into tasty cucumber and pepper sticks and bowls of leaves and tomatoes.

Red Coleslaw

Ingredients

¼ red cabbage

¼ quarter red onion

½ carrot

1 beetroot

Mayonnaise

Equipment

Sharp knifes

Chopping boards

Grater

Bowl

Spoon

Plastic tub with lid

Method

Chop the red cabbage up as finely was possible and put it in the bowl. Peel and chop the piece of red onion and add this to the bowl too. Peel the carrot and grate it before adding it to the bowl. Next grate the beetroot and also add this to the bowl. Mix all the vegetables together then dollop in enough mayonnaise to coat the vegetables thoroughly. The coleslaw is now finished and can be tipped into the plastic tub for storage in the fridge until needed.

At the far end of the building the Year 2's were by now well into the preparation of their vegetable chilli and a few children were busy chopping up butter into portion sizes.

Vegetable Chilli

Ingredients

15 ml vegetable oil

1 onion

1 carrot

3 cloves garlic

1 red pepper

1 yellow pepper

1 stem celery

1 level teaspoon chilli powder

8 fresh mushrooms

1 tin whole peeled tomatoes with liquid

1½ tins kidney beans with liquid

1 tin sweet corn, undrained

1 teaspoon ground cumin

Method

1. Peel and finely chop the onions, carrot and garlic.

2. Cut the peppers into quarters and carefully remove all the seeds. Then chop the rest of the pepper into small pieces.

3. Finely chop the celery and mushrooms.

4. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Fry the onions and carrots until tender. Stir in the garlic, green pepper, red pepper, celery, and chilli powder. Cook until the vegetables are tender - about 6 minutes.

5. Stir in the mushrooms and cook for another 4 minutes.

6. Stir in the tomatoes, kidney beans and sweet corn and add the cumin. Bring to the boil and reduce the heat to medium. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.


By break time huge tubs of toppings and salad were safely stored in the fridge whilst the aromas of baking potatoes and vegetable chilli wafted from opposite ends of the school. And for a moment, at least, all was calm.

Of course, it was a different story over in Nursery where by now they were reaching the finishing touches of their morning's cooking session. Here 30 four year olds had been busy baking their own potatoes and making their own toppings ready for snack time.

Back in main school, phase 2 of the cookathon sprung into action at about quarter to twelve with the transformation of the school hall into a dining room. As well as the usual lunchtime tables and benches a special coothathon serving area was set out with hot potatoes at one end, salad in the middle and toppings at the other. Just before 12 o'clock the volunteer parents returned with their bags full of hot potatoes and at 12 o'clock, as the first of the school children came into the hall for their lunch, other parents turned up with their home-cooked potatoes ready to sample the children's toppings.

Over the next hour 130 children, 20 members of staff and 27 parents sat down to eat a baked potato, their favourite topping and some fresh organic salad.

As the children returned to lessons and tidying up got underway in the hall, over in nursery they began their second cooking session of the day with the afternoon children.

But that was far from the end of the cookathon day. Over at the Red Hot World Food Buffet people had been turning up all day to sign up for the cookathon and this continued all afternoon until 120 people had signed up there. After school, a few parents and their children set up a stand outside Tescos and managed to encourage 40 more people to join in with the cookathon by baking a potato for tea. And friends, family and work colleagues of all the school's parents were being persuaded to cook a potato for their dinner. Word spread by phone, email, Twitter and Facebook until even friends in other countries were getting involved.

Now all that is left to do is gather together all the lists and count up the grand total of everyone that joined in with Kents Hill Schools Big Cookathon!

The final Cookathon preparations

It has been a busy week behind the scenes, preparing for the Cookathon. With the survey results back it was time to compile the results and write a fact sheet based on the findings. The fact sheet now contains interesting information about baked potato nutrition as well as cooking tips and some of the suggested topping ideas. Also included are a few of the lovely potato characters drawn by the children. Look to your left and you'll see them all scrolling past in a slide show. All of these also made it onto the Cookathon posters which have now gone up at school as well as other noticeboards around the area.

Also from the survey results we have been able to see which toppings are the most popular. No surprises that cheese beat butter to poll position (only just), with baked beans not far behind. So it should also be no surprise that butter, cheese and baked beans will be on offer on at school on the Cookathon day itself. Joining them will be tuna (another popular) choice, and coleslaw and chilli (because they will be fun to make... well, it is all about cooking after all!). We are very grateful to Riverford Organic Veg for promising to donate 150 potatoes for our event, as well as salad items that will go nicely with the spuds. Red Hot World Food Buffet will be signing people up when they visit the restaurant on Tuesday and we have sixty 15% off Red Hot keyrings to give away to parents turning up to help out or join in at school. Tesco were also generous enough to give us £20 towards our shopping as well as allowing us to stand in their foyer on Tuesday to pester their customers into cooking a baked potato that day too. Other generous offers have come from 35 parents volunteering to help out. With 200 potatoes to cook and only one oven we are sure going to need help!

On Tuesday, with only a week to go, a photographer for the Citizen newspaper turned up at school to take a picture of the children with their potatoes then on Thursday an article promoting the event appeared in the Citizen.

By Thursday all the children had decided which topping they fancied on their potatoes, leaving a rather big shopping list. So Friday afternoon, a trip to Tescos was needed to stock up on 12 blocks of butter, 6 wedges of Cheddar, 15 tins of baked beans... well, you get the picture. There are 200 children to feed!

But 200 isn't enough... we need more! If you are know someone from Kents Hill School make sure you put your name down on their sign up sheet. Otherwise, email the address at the top of the page to tell us that you too will be cooking an spud on Tuesday. We need you!

Cookathon Launch Day

This Monday morning Hazel and Sarah went into assembly at school in order to launch the Cookathon with the children. The children were very enthusiastic about cooking in general and they all seemed to like baked potatoes - well, what's not to like! Mrs Anderson asked them what they liked on their baked potatoes and along with the usual answers of cheese and baked beans were a few more unusual replies such as gravy. Sounds yummy!

After assembly Hazel and Sarah, along with Amy, Ros, Callum and Bailey from Year 2 went along to Reception with some pieces of baked potato and four different topping to try. A few brave Reception children came along to have a taste. The cream cheese and pineapple topping was popular, as was the chicken and sweetcorn. One lad loved it so much he went back to finish the other pieces in the bowl!

Next it was time to head to Year 1 where 8 pupils were allowed out of class to taste the 4 toppings. This time it was the tuna that proved most popular. One girl was brave enough to try coleslaw on her baked potatoes despite admitting she didn't like coleslaw or baked potato! Let's hope she changes her mind before the Cookathon.

Finally it was down to Year 2 - first stop Willow! They were a very keen bunch, all putting their hands up to want to have a taste and all promising to get their whole families involved in the Cookathon on 16th March.

By now it was break time so the tastier session moved outside where a huge bunch of Year 2 children gathered around to have a taste, many children coming back for seconds and thirds!

So by 10.30am the whole school was buzzing with talk of the Cookathon and all the children were primed to go home and tell their mums and dads all about it. To help, a letter in the bookbag explained the finer details. Now the children have 5 days to design a potato man (or lady!) character for the posters and stickers, and to fill in the potato survey so we can gather together some tasty topping recipes. Can't wait to see the results!