News

South Australian schools win with sauce!

1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd in Tasting Australia’s Tomato Sauce Competition

Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Schools have swept the field with first, second and third places in South Australia’s Botanic Gardens Tomato Sauce Challenge 2012, primary school category – what an achievement!

1^st place getter: Wirrabara Primary School

Wirrabara PS was pretty excited about having their sauce judged to be the best. Staff and students had already been jokingly saying it is the best tomato sauce ever, so when Principal Liz Hughes saw the challenge in the Tasting Australia newsletter she entered.

The sauce was made using a Sally Wise recipe and tomatoes from the school garden. The school had so many tomatoes they cut them up in 1½ kilo bags and froze lots for making more sauce later. They sell the sauce from the school as well as at the local producer’s market along with all their other preserves – feijoa jam, three-fruit marmalade, white peach & rosewater jelly, among others!

The sauce was delivered to the Botanic Gardens during the school holidays and the judging took place during the event. Judges included Walter Duncan and Sophie Thompson and they received a lot of entries. Jane Doyle and Walter Duncan made the winning presentations. Wirrabara PS’ prize is a two-hour cooking lesson at Maggie Beer’s farm shop. (A nice coincidence, as Maggie is the Kitchen Garden Foundation’s South Australian Ambassador!)

2^nd place getter: Kilkenny Primary School

How cool is that!! The students were thrilled. The Year 7 class entry got the 2nd prize and the Year 6 class got a special merit award. It was a great day and I was very proud. The students did all the work from finding the recipe to making, bottling and labelling the sauce. I thought it was brilliant that three Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Schools won 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes – quite an achievement!! (Mel Gush, Kitchen Specialist, Kilkenny PS)

3rd place getter: The Heights School

The Heights Kitchen Garden Program took part in the Botanic Gardens Tomato Sauce Challenge using a 100-year-old family recipe of the school’s Kitchen Specialist, Kylie May. They were very excited with their third place win.

All the school’s garden classes helped to grow the tomatoes. After harvesting, one kitchen class prepared the sauce and began cooking it. To make sure the sauce didn’t burn, the next class stirred and stirred until their arms almost dropped off! The last kitchen class bottled the delicious end result.

As a treat the kitchen classes also made sausage rolls and spanakopita to have with the sauce. The sauce was very popular with students and teachers, who snapped up any spare bottles sold within the school.

Congratulations to Wirrabara PS, Kilkenny PS and The Heights School! We’re delighted to see a clean sweep in the primary school category by our fantastic Kitchen Garden Schools, and it is great to see the fantastic work they are doing recognised.

See all the winners here.