SANTA BARBARA - A school food sweet success story!
Peabody Charter School in Santa Barbara is small, but mighty when it comes to serving a healthy school lunch.
Laurel Lyle has been the Executive Chef for 16 years. She believes the kitchen is the heart of a home and every school should also have a kitchen.
Healthy food made possible by some parents who were fed-up with poor, highly processed school food and united to change the lunch tray.
The menu looks more like a mini farmers market with nothing frozen or fried. Food so good parents come and pay to eat with their kids.
Some of the school food is grown right in the school garden. Other food is delivered fresh from local farms.
A school lunch program that's so popular it actually makes money.
They plan to add a takeout meal program next year.
This will be a service for families and an additional source of revenue for the school. It will make use of the cafeteria kitchen at "off" hours" and provide additional skilled jobs for our community. A win win.
As food and labor costs go up and government subsidies stay flat or go down, Peabody is being proactive to keep the cafeteria fiscally strong.
Peabody proves "cooked from scratch" meal programs don't cost more than centralized, frozen food-fare kitchen programs.
Parents don't subsidize the food program. It is fully supported by meal sales and the National School Lunch Program.
The sCool Food Initiative, a program of the Orfalea Foundations, helps educate and empower other Central Coast schools to get them cooking from scratch and serving healthy food like they currently do at Peabody.
LAUREL'S KALE CHIP RECIPE
One bunch curly, fresh kale
Olive oil - approx ½ to 1 ½ tablespoons
1 clove garlic, minced
Salt, pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 350
Wash kale and shake dry
Tear kale into bite sized pieces and "massage" the oil, garlic, salt and pepper into the kale. You need to use your hands for this part.
Start with ½ T oil and light sprinkling of salt and pepper, increase if there isn't enough oil to lightly coat the leaves.
Taste test a leaf for seasoning - adjust as needed…more salt, pepper or garlic to taste.
Spread kale on a baking sheet and bake for approximately 15-20 minutes.
The kale should be dry and crispy, but not brown. Watch your oven-if the leaves start to brown before they dry out and crisp, lower the temperature.
After kale has cooled, the chips can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days.
They won't last that long!
