Dural South Kitchen

As our name suggests, we take healthy eating very seriously, and as such we've developed a menu of of delicious and nutritionally balanced food that our kids love. We understand that children can be very fussy eaters, but we persist in serving a range of different foods (including fish!), in a variety of ways, and find that once children see their friends eating, we often have more success than you might have at home.

One thing's for sure, no child ever goes hungry at Fit Kidz! Each day we serve breakfast to children at 8 o'clock, followed by morning tea, a hot lunch and dessert, afternoon tea, and a late snack late in the afternoon. Soy milk, whole milk and juice are served every day to suit the menu, as is seasonal fruit, prepared fresh each day to suit each age group. This could be mushy stewed apples for the babies, big chunky slices for the toddlers, and unpeeled mandarins or bananas for the pre-schoolers to practice their fine motor skills!

As part of our school readiness program, we do "lunchbox month" towards the end of each year for our pre-schoolers, where we pack each child a lunchbox to include things that you might send them to school with. This way they can practice opening all that tricky packaging like cling-wrap, and unwrapping and pushing the straw into a popper. So you see, our school readiness program even extends to our kitchen!

H

i my name is Emma-Rose, and I've been cooking for the children here at Dural since the Centre opened in March 2010. I live in the Hawkesbury area and my previous job was working for a large function and wedding reception centre. My friend Miss Jasmine has had the kitchen at Fit Kidz Vineyard for a few years, and she had always told me how much fun it is to work with Fit Kidz.

I'm really spoilt here at Dural with the huge gardens right outside my kitchen door, where the children keep me in great supply of fresh herbs and seasonal ingredients, and of course the chickens are a source of the most beautiful free range eggs. I have a full commercial kitchen, and right beside that we have a huge dining room for the children to use for meals, and also for the variety of cooking, kitchen and "mess-making" experiences that they do as part of their program. The facilities are excellent.

Our menu gives the children and I lots of variety and I take great pleasure from watching them try new foods and eat things that I never would have had when I was little. Hopefully we are setting them up to enjoy a large range of different foods and establishing habits that they will take right through life. They really do develop a great palate coming to us!

Below is a cute little recipe book that you can print out in two parts. Print Part 1 first, then turn the paper over and print Part 2 on the back. You can then fold down the middle and staple along the spine to make a booklet to follow in the kitchen with your little ones.

(It even has the recipes for our home-made playdough and clay, for lots of messy fun at home!)

Fit Kidz Recipe Book (part 1)

Fit Kidz Recipe Book (part 2)

For more of the technical type information relating to our menu planning, policies and food hygiene, please refer to the Fit Kidz Nutrition Booklet in our parent resources section at the bottom of the page, or open it here. In there you will find much more information about the food pyramid, the nutritional guidelines that we follow and even some tips on dealing with fussy eaters.

Please feel free to visit me in the kitchen at any time, and of course, if your child comes home talking about one of our recipes, I'll always be more than happy to provide you with a copy of it.

Here are five more of my favourite recipes, tried and tested in our Fit Kidz kitchen to be healthy, nutritious and most of all: yummy!! Bon Appetit!

They should all serve four people.