Over the past 20 years, Stephanie Alexander’s Kitchen Garden Foundation has taught children to plant, grow and harvest food in more than 1000 Australian schools. Her latest cookbook, Fresh, celebrates simple, plant-rich recipes that will turn kids into vegetable lovers.

Chocolate and pumpkin seed biscuits

Many kitchen gardens produce an astonishing crop of pumpkins. The
pumpkins are used in all manner of dishes, and sometimes enthusiastic
students might clean and roast a few of the seeds. It’s laborious but fun to
do. The white pumpkin seeds need to be washed and the fibre scraped from
them and then allowed to dry. The next day they are roasted for 15 minutes,
then rolled in a few drops of olive oil, before the husk is cracked to extract
the kernel. These biscuits include pumpkin seeds, and you can decide which variety you use (see below). I use nut-free muesli in these biscuits but you can
substitute plain rolled oats.

From the garden: pumpkin seeds

INGREDIENTS

• 125g unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 85g brown sugar
• 100g (⅔ cup) self-raising flour
• 100g nut-free muesli or rolled oats
• 75g dark chocolate (70 per cent cocoa solids), chopped or bought as small buttons
• 50g pumpkin seed kernels (or store-bought green pumpkin seeds)

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 180C fan-forced (200C conventional). Line two baking trays with baking paper.
2. Place the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer and process until light and fluffy using the paddle attachment. Add the flour and muesli or oats and mix briefly. Add the chocolate and pumpkin seeds and mix briefly to just combine.
3. Divide the dough into 3cm balls, then place them on the baking trays, leaving room between them as they will spread. Flatten slightly with the back of a spoon.
4. Bake for 15-20 minutes until golden brown. Transfer to a wire rack and leave to cool completely. Store in an airtight container. They will keep for a week or so if you hide the container from enthusiastic tasters.

Pumpkin seeds: Most pumpkin seeds have a hard white husk and inside a smaller green kernel, sold as pepitas. The less common Styrian pumpkin, now grown in Australia, produces green seeds that do not require hulling. Those pumpkins have very little flesh and are unlikely to be grown in school gardens. It is important for everyone to know that when pumpkin seeds are called for as a snack or an ingredient, it is not the white husk that is needed, but the kernel within.

Makes 20

Giant shells or cannelloni with eggplant and pork stuffing

This is a great recipe for little hands to get very busy with teaspoons to stuff the
shells or tubes. It is also a delicious introduction to eggplant. Leave out the meat if you wish – you will then probably need to double the quantity of eggplant. This recipe uses store-bought dried pasta, either giant shells or cannelloni tubes. Store-bought dried pasta has no eggs and is made from durum wheat, which when ground becomes semolina. Water is the only other ingredient. It is loved by millions of Italians and it is quite incorrect to believe that only egg-based pasta is top quality. Store-bought cannelloni tubes vary in length. Choose shorter ones or, otherwise, after pre-cooking, cut the longer tubes in half so that the filled shapes will settle nicely in your gratin dish. Longer ones can fall sideways.

From the garden: eggplant, garlic, basil

INGREDIENTS

• 100ml extra virgin olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, unpeeled and bruised
• 1 medium-large eggplant (about 350g), peeled and cut into 2cm slices, each slice then cut into 4 squarish pieces
• 1-2 Italian-style pork and fennel sausages, stripped of skin and broken into bite-sized pieces (about 200g)
• 3 tbsp coarsely chopped basil leaves
• salt
• 12 giant shells or 16 cannelloni tubes
• 400ml tomato passata
• freshly ground black pepper
• 60g butter
• 60g freshly grated parmesan
• 2 tbsp breadcrumbs

METHOD

1. Heat half the olive oil in a large heavy-based frypan over medium heat.
   Add the bruised garlic cloves and all the eggplant. Cook for at least 10 minutes, turning the eggplant pieces as they brown. You may need to add more of the olive oil once the pieces have started to colour. Once the eggplant is golden on all sides, add the sausage and stir to mix. Add the chopped basil. Continue to cook for another 5 minutes. Set aside to cool. Discard the garlic.
2. Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil over high heat and add a heaped
   teaspoon of salt – your pasta water should taste like salty seawater. Drop the pasta in. Expect it to take about 10 minutes to be al dente. As the pasta will cook further once stuffed, cook it a little less than you would if you intended to eat it straight away.
3. Settle a colander in the sink. Drain the pasta in the colander, giving it a big
   shake, and tip the pasta onto a baking tray, keeping the shapes separate.
   Drizzle with a few drops of olive oil to stop the shapes sticking to each other.
4. Now roughly pulse the cooled eggplant and sausage mixture in a food
   processor. Scrape into a bowl and stir in about 125ml (½ cup) of the tomato
   passata. Grind a little black pepper over the top, mix and taste for seasoning.
5. Preheat the oven to 160C fan-forced (180C conventional).
6. Butter an ovenproof dish and pour in half the remaining passata.
7. Using a teaspoon, fill each shell or cannelloni tube. Arrange the filled pasta
   on top of the passata in the dish, open side or open end uppermost. Spoon the rest of the passata on top and scatter with the parmesan and breadcrumbs.
8. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes until bubbling and golden. (If you
   have assembled the dish earlier and it has been in the refrigerator, it may take 30 minutes to become thoroughly cooked and golden.) Serve immediately in heated serving dishes.

Serves 4

Eggplant curry with yoghurt

This is an example of the sort of easy family cooking I love to encourage, which follows an idea rather than being a strict combination. It is Indian in spirit without any specific origin. I served this dish along with three others for a family curry night and it was a hit with all ages present. The eggplant is cooked gently on top of the stove until it becomes very soft and creamy. Yoghurt does not like to be heated too fast or it will split. Here, we make sure that the yoghurt is at room temperature and it is stabilised with a little starch – the best to use is chickpea flour (also known as besan or gram), but cornflour will also work. Mix the starch with the room-temperature yoghurt before warming it, always gently, and stirring gently.

From the garden: eggplants, coriander, garlic, tomatoes

INGREDIENTS

• 2 tbsp cumin seeds
• 2 large eggplants (about 750g in total), sliced into 1cm rounds
• 2 tsp ground turmeric
• 2-3 tbsp olive oil or vegetable oil, plus extra if needed
• 200g plain yoghurt, at room temperature
• 1 tsp chickpea flour or cornflour
• ½ tsp chilli powder
• large handful of coriander leaves, roughly chopped or left whole

Tomato sauce

• 2 tsp coriander seeds
• 2 tsp cumin seeds
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 8 tomatoes, roughly chopped or 2 × 400g cans peeled tomatoes
• 1 small handful of coriander, finely chopped
• 1 tsp salt
• ¼ tsp chilli powder

METHOD

1. Toast the cumin seeds in a dry heavy-based frying pan over low heat for
   3-4 minutes until they smell fragrant. Allow to cool a little, then grind the
   seeds in a mortar and pestle, food processor or spice grinder. Set aside.
2. Spread the slices of eggplant on a large baking tray and sprinkle with the
   turmeric. Turn the slices a few times so both sides come in contact with
   the turmeric.
3. To make the tomato sauce, dry-fry and grind the coriander and cumin seeds,
   using the technique mentioned above. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over
   medium heat, then add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add the ground
   coriander and cumin, along with the tomato, coriander, salt and chilli powder. Simmer over low heat while you cook the eggplant.
4. Heat the oil in a frying pan over medium heat and cook the eggplant until golden on both sides, about 5 minutes on each side or until a fine skewer slips through the slice without resistance. Do not rush this step – the eggplant must be tender. You may need to drizzle in an extra tablespoon of oil after turning the slices.
5. Mix the yoghurt with the chickpea flour in a small bowl, then heat the mixture in a saucepan over low heat for 1 minute, stirring constantly. (If using cornflour, you will need to mix it with 1 tablespoon of water before stirring it into the yoghurt.) Add the ground cumin and chilli powder to the warm yoghurt and stir them in.
6. Pour the tomato sauce onto a warmed serving platter and arrange the eggplant on top. Drizzle with the warm yoghurt mixture, sprinkle with coriander and serve the platter to the table.
7. If you have prepared the sauce and eggplant ahead of time, the assembled dish can be reheated (without the yoghurt) in a 160C fan-forced (180C conventional) oven for about 15 minutes until gently bubbling, before you spoon over the yoghurt mixture and add the coriander.

Serves 6-8

Indonesian mie goreng

This is a classic and much-loved Indonesian dish using traditional flavours of
garlic, chilli, palm sugar and shrimp paste. Here I use pressed tofu, but it could
be chicken or prawn. Use whatever fresh produce is available – I tested this
using Chinese broccoli, bok choy and young silverbeet leaves and they were
all good. Mie goreng is an excellent dish to get students feeling comfortable cooking over high heat using a wok. Young cooks will need a bit of supervision. There is also a lot of chopping involved, which is excellent for teaching or reinforcing knife skills. The wheat noodles used here are purchased ready to use in vacuum sachets. They come in different thicknesses.

From the garden: eggs, carrot, capsicum, snake, or green beans, spring onions,
Asian greens, Asian herbs, (coriander, Vietnamese mint, hot mustard leaves), limes, garlic, shallots, chilli

INGREDIENTS

• 2 free-range eggs
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 200g firm tofu, or chicken breast fillet, or peeled and deveined prawns, chopped into bite-sized pieces
• 1 carrot (100g), peeled and coarsely grated or julienned
• 1 capsicum, deseeded and thinly sliced
• 100g snake or green beans, chopped into 3cm pieces
• 2 spring onions, trimmed and sliced diagonally
• 200g ready-to-use Hokkien noodles
• 150g Asian greens, roughly chopped
• 90g (1 cup) bean sprouts (optional)
• 1 large handful of mixed Asian herbs, to serve – coriander, Vietnamese mint, a few hot mustard leaves
• fried shallots, to serve (optional) – available in most supermarkets and all Asian food stores
• 2 limes, cut into slim wedges, to serve

Spice paste

• 2 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
• 1 shallot, roughly chopped
• 1 long red chilli, deseeded and sliced
• 1⁄2 tsp shrimp paste
• pinch of salt

Kecap manis sauce

• 2 tbsp kecap manis
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1 tbsp chopped or grated palm sugar

METHOD

1. To make the spice paste, put all the ingredients in a mortar and pestle and
   pound to a paste (or use the small bowl of a food processor). Set aside.
2. Whisk the eggs well in a bowl. Heat a seasoned omelette pan over medium heat, brush with some of the oil and immediately tip the egg in. Using a spatula, drag the cooked edges to the centre, swirling to allow the uncooked egg to fill the space. Now wait and allow the omelette to cook completely – this will take about 1 minute. Turn off the heat, rest for 30 seconds, then turn the omelette out onto a chopping board. Allow to cool slightly, then loosely roll up the omelette and cut it into 1cm slices. Set aside.
3. Mix the kecap manis sauce ingredients together in a small bowl.
4. Now make sure you have all your ingredients ready on a tray.
5. Heat a wok over medium-high heat for 30 seconds, then add the rest of the
   oil. When it starts to smoke, immediately tip in the spice paste. Stir rapidly for 30 seconds – it should sizzle. Now add the tofu (or chicken or prawn) and stir to mix with the paste. Reduce the heat to medium and immediately add the carrot, capsicum, beans and spring onion. Stir well, then cover and cook for 2 minutes.
6. Increase the heat to high, uncover, then drop in the noodles. Stir to break them up and mix with the other ingredients. Add the kecap manis sauce. Stir very well, then add all of the Asian greens and bean sprouts (if using). Stir for 3-4 minutes, then drop in most of the sliced omelette. Reduce the heat and cook until all the ingredients are steaming and well mixed. Taste for salt (you most likely won’t need any).
7. Top with the fresh herbs and fried shallots, and the extra sliced omelette.
8. Tuck the lime wedges around the dish and serve.

Note: Whoever has chopped the chillies needs to be reminded to wash their hands very well and to use a nailbrush.

Serves 2-3 very generously

This is an edited extract from Fresh: Family recipes and stories inspired by Stephanie’s Kitchen Gardens by Stephanie Alexander, published by Macmillan Australia, RRP $44.99. Photography by Alan Benson. Buy now