On May 25th, VOICE had the pleasure of spending the afternoon with St. Laurence O’Toole’s third and fourth class students to host a Food Waste Tea Party.We used the fantastic kitchen facilities of Sheriff Street Recreation Centre just across from the school, who run regular cooking classes and food educational events with the local community. We were very impressed with their set up and community composting.This event was to demonstrate to the young girls that old or funny looking fruit veg can be transformed into delicious cakes and other tasty treats. Carrot and orange cake was the mission of the day, and it all began with a lot of muscle power to grate the carrots and squeeze the oranges.[gallery columns="2" link="file" size="large" ids="3724,3727"]The food, provided by FoodCloud, was all rescued supermarket produce. The carrots, oranges, yogurts and dried fruit we used would have all been destined for the bin simply because of ‘sell by’ dates on the packaging.The cake prep was messy, fun and crazy as you can imagine, making sure all of the girls got a turn at reading the recipe instructions, greasing the baking tins, measuring the flour and sugar, cracking an egg and mixing in the yogurt and juice.

Unfortunately there was a vote against the dried fruit with just two girls opting for a sprinkle on top of their muffins. It was decided that the dried fruit would go in the teacher’s cake only.The cakes finally made it into the oven and the girls went off for their lunch, after an hour or so they excitedly returned to check out the final product. Thankfully it all turned out well and we all enjoyed a slice of warm carrot and orange cake served with a dollop of yogurt.Still a bit turned off at the idea of having carrots in their cake some of the girls were more interested in the leftover oranges and that set it off for a queue lining up for slices of orange until we had run out. Despite the fresh oranges proving more popular than the cake itself I was delighted to cycle home with a lighter load on my back![gallery columns="2" link="file" size="large" ids="3725,3726"]When things calmed down again we had a chance to chat about food waste and why some foods don’t make it to family homes simply because of supermarkets putting good food in the bin. We also talked about ways to help reduce waste at school and at home. Every girl went away with a handout to read with their families with recipes for banana pancakes, bread and butter pudding and the orange and carrot cake we made that day.Overall it was a great event and we’d like to thank both St. Laurence O’Toole’s and Sheriff St Recreational Centre for having us, we hope to visit again soon.

Food Rescue Supported by: