Joshua Cowell Elementary School in Manteca can say with pride that they are No. 1 in the country.

The school’s recipe, “Central Valley Harvest Bake,” won first place at the judging held Monday at the American Federation Culinary Conference in Texas. Manteca Unified Board of Trustee Evelyn Moore proudly made that announcement at the end of the board meeting Tuesday night. She said the news was relayed to her via e-mail from Director of Nutrition Services Patty Page.

“We are extremely proud of our team and will be featuring our winning recipe on both the high school and elementary menus. Our team put in many hours of work developing, improving and practicing the recipe to reach this level of success,” Page stated in her e-mail.

“It was a very rewarding experience for all involved and we are proud to be one of the top three out of more than 350 recipes submitted,” added Page.

She then went on to congratulate South Education Center Alternative of Richfield, MN, the school that won the Grand Prize in First Lady Michelle Obama’s Recipe for Healthy Kids competition, and the second-place finisher, Jones Elementary School of Charleston, S.C.

The competition in Texas was the climax of the year-long competition process. In June, Joshua Cowell learned that their recipe won first place in the “dark green and orange vegetables” category of the contest. There were four categories in the competition. The rest were Whole Grains, Dry Beans, and Peas.

In May, a team of judges visited each of the finalists to taste-test the entries and watch the preparation of the recipes on site before voting on their favorite creation as well as to meet the members of the winning team.

The Recipes for Healthy Kids competition was launched in September 2010 by the First Lady and the Unites States Department of Agriculture. Its goal was to challenge kids, nutrition professionals and community members to create healthy recipes to be incorporated on lunchtime menus for the National School Lunch program.