Nutrition
At Mentone Park Childcare and Pre School, nutrition is one of our highest priorities. We pride ourselves on the high quality menu that we offer children and we have an excellent nutrition policy.
- Children have the choice of milk at all meals
- All dairy products are full cream
- All eggs are grain fed and organic
- All bread is wholemeal
- Water is available at all times
- Fruit juice is not served unless it is from a vegetable/fruit juicer
- Children are able to have second helpings of all snacks and meals if they wish
- Menus are planned to give the children a wide range of choices from highly nutritious foods
News from the kitchen
Our priority in the kitchen is to encourage your children to have a lifelong love of food and table conversation. The kinder children have been amazing with their table etiquette and appreciation of the food served – well mostly!
I've really enjoyed (as all the staff have) cooking back to basics for the little babes, the favourite being mashed veggies, yum yum! It's amazing how a bunch of seasonal veg, a few spuds, some kumara, Swedes and spinach with pepper, butter (milk and cheese optional) can taste so good.
The one thing I have to say is you can never quite gauge what dish is going to be most popular. A few weeks ago I forgot to buy lamb for our roast lunch. So I put everything from the pantry onto the bench and tried to come up with something that would complement the pumpkin, potatoes, silver beet, peas and broccoli. The result was a very successful lentil and vegetable curry.
We want to share this recipe with you because there were a handful of children (that were usually very small eaters) who along with most of the group came back for seconds. The table conversation was all about how delicious the meal was. So please try this recipe and let me know if they really did enjoy this meal!
Please continue to keep in touch with regards to your child's dietary requirements.
Lentil and Vegetable Curry
Olive oil
Garlic
Red chili
Cumin
Garam masala
Curry powder
Chili flakes
Coriander
Tumeric
Onion chopped
Cook these ingredients for 5 minutes.
Add cubed vegetables of choice and stir into curry mixture. Add canned diced tomatoes, canned lentils, salt and pepper and allow to simmer until veggies are cooked (approx 30 min).
Serve with rice and natural yoghurt. We also served with naan bread which was brushed with olive oil and sea salt and fried in pan.