That's so sweet

My son gets to go on some pretty interesting field trips.  They are not particularly fancy.  In fact, the kids typically walk to their destination, which blows me away. 

I must admit that I was a bit envious of today's field trip.  The students walked to a local farm and harvested sweet potatoes.  To prepare for the trip, we taped two plastic bags together and wrote his class name and his name on the outside bag. 

When the time came (as reported to me by my son), the kids walked through the park to the farm.  Upon arrival, they stood along a temporary fence and each child pulled two sweet potato plants up from the ground.  They grabbed all the potatoes from the roots and put them into their reinforced bags.  The kids then put their bags into a wagon that the teachers pulled back to the school while they walked back.

When I picked him up from school, I couldn't believe how heavy his bag was.  Inside there were 13 sweet potatoes of varying sizes.  He was so excited to share his experience with me.  He loves to harvest anything from the garden.  We've grown potatoes in our garden, but never sweet potatoes (which doesn't grow in the short, cool northwest US summers).

I promised him that we would make a traditional Japanese dish of sweet potato rice.  It was a popular dish during World War II because there was a rice shortage and the potatoes helped to extend the rice.  When I told some of the moms what we were planning on cooking with the potatoes, several of them told me I was an old woman.  I guess a lot of grandmothers make this dish, but not a lot of young mothers.  My husband always made sweet potato rice after harvesting the spuds with his kindergarten class.

I didn't care what they said.  My son was super excited to make the sweet potato rice. 

Once we got home, my son scrubbed three small potatoes while I washed three cups of rice.  I put the rice in the rice cooker along with one and a half tablespoons of both sake and mirin, as well as one and a half teaspoons of salt and enough water to cook the rice.  He cut the sweet potatoes into bite size pieces and put them on top of the rice.

We ran the rice cooker on it's regular cycle.  57 minutes later, the rice cooker sang its song to let us know the rice was finished.  I stirred in 1 tablespoon of sesame seeds (traditionally black sesame seeds would be stirred in, but I only had brown).  Our carbohydrate was ready for dinner.

It was delicious and everyone exclaimed how yummy it was.  My son was so proud of the dinner he helped to create. 

I am so impressed with the topics covered at my son's school.  Teaching kids where food comes from is an important life lesson.  Today, he got to see how sweet potatoes grow firsthand and he will remember it because it was real and not just a story.