Gails kitchen at Maraylya Early Learning Centre


	Gail's Kitchen At Maraylya Early Learning Centre, we believe in making meal times fun and interesting – after all, it’s an important part of our children’s development. Toddlers and pre-schoolers are at an age when they start to show their independence and often have a reputation for being fussy eaters. Well have no fear, our chef Gail has made a huge impact on the tastebuds of our Maraylya munchkins. Gail is a qualified chef who has worked in a number of a la carte restaurants, and she is a mother of two herself. Her innovative approach to enticing children to try a variety of tastes and textures has proven to be a big hit with our children and parents alike! Using a wonderful range of recipes, coupled with clever ideas to make the food look “kid-friendly”, Gail produces meals and snacks that are both nutritionally balanced and delicious. All our meals are made on the premises with no preservatives or artificial colourings or flavourings. We even have our own vegetable and herb garden to use in our cooking!

	Themed Days Throughout the year, we orient our meals around specific programming. For example we often talk about different countries and cultures, and what better way is there for the children to get a feel for multiculturalism than to try food from different regions? Some examples of what we have done include: Chinese Chicken Chow Mein (using chopsticks) Indian potatoes dhal with cheese and garlic naan Mexican burritos Italian toasted ciabbata, lasagne, fettucini bosciola Pad Thai Lebanese mjuddra French chicken provincial Russian beef stroganoff Hungarian chicken paprika

	Etiquette and Serving We also use meal times as an opportunity to teach the children table etiquette and self-serving skills – all with a little help of course! Setting the table Table manners Using knives, forks and serving utensils Serving the food Pouring drinks Cleaning up

	Recipe of the month Each month we will feature a recipe from Gail’s Kitchen for you to try at home. . . this month it’s Orange Coconut Tarts. Ingredients: 3 sheets ready rolled short crust pastry (thawed) 415gm can sweetened condensed milk 1 teaspoon grated orange rind 30grams butter or margarine, melted 1 tablespoon golden syrup 2 eggs 1 ¾ cups self raising flour, sifted Icing sugar sifted ¾ cup coconut Method Cut 16 disks form each pastry sheet and use to line dome-shaped patty tins. In a large bowl combine all other ingredients (except icing sugar) and mix well. Place a dessertspoon of mixture into each pastry lined tin. Bake in moderate oven at 180C for 15 to 18 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from tins and cool. Dust with icing sugar before serving.

	If you have a recipe that your child loves and you’d like to share it with us, we’d love to hear from you. Click here to send us an email with your recipe.

Gail's Kitchen