there was a glimmer of hope in the everyday dinner dilemma as Miss K is doing food technology and so for two Tuesdays in a row she has brought home dinner.
first we had cottage pie. which was a joy. send ingredients into school. put assembled pie in oven when it gets home for 30 minutes and serve.
last Tuesday it was chicken biryani. which was not such an effortless creation. first we had to send some of the ingredients pre-prepared.
including 500g cooked basmati rice.
any of you know how much uncooked rice you need to make that?
no, me neither.
in the effort to make sure we had enough I of course cooked far too much..
and then the food health and safety bells started ringing.
rice is a prime target for botulism poisoning, you need to be really careful about storing and reheating it.
then there were eggs to boil. this was easier than trying to pack raw eggs, so I'll forgive the teacher this one.....
and there were two trips to the supermarket, I forgot the coriander the first time.....
and then off it all went, with plenty of ice packs to keep it fresh. at least till it got to school.
it looked delicious when it came home, but I wasn't totally sure the chicken was cooked through, and so reheating it became an important challenge. boiled eggs explode when you microwave them. so do whole cherry tomatoes. I know that now!
today the teacher has decided that having the whole class cook at once is too much for her, and so they are working in pairs. next week will be Miss K's turn to cook. so there will be no dinner tonight. I can't decide if I'm disappointed or not.........
do you have any memorable school cooking lesson stories ?
How lovely to have your own chef!
ReplyDeleteBut I'm astonished they asked you to send in cooked rice, to then be (presumably) mixed with hot ingredients at school and then brought home and reheated. In fact I'm not just astonished, I'm shocked.
All I remember is the one girl who said her family wouldn't eat any of the marvellous creations we made at school so every week as we were putting toads into holes or stufing breasts of lamb or trying to get enough air into eggs to make swiss rolls armed only with hand whisks, she would be at a table on her own making scones.
Oh yes. We had to make a fruit pie once. I took my cooked pie out of the oven and place it onto a cooling tray only to find that it only had 3 legs, so slipped straight off the cooling tray, onto the table, then onto the floor - SPLAT!!!!!
ReplyDeleteMy cookery teacher (who was a complete cow by the way), wasn't very impressed with me - as if I'd done it on purpose. Anyway she said she'd make me another one to take home. My mum, who was a brilliant pastry cook, took one bite and said the pastry was terrible.
My parents are always going on about my cookery creations- they forget that I have turned out countless flawless meals, worked as a chef for many years in the 90s and that the people that they tell about my one big disaster are usually the people that I am cooking lovely meals for every night- but will they let the one Lancashire hotpot at the age of 12 with the raw potatoes drop? Noooo- but to MrPs credit he did point out that I must have been very young and that he loves my cooking now- bless! So yes I remember the raw lancashire hotpot- and the Christmas cake that we all ate on the way home on the bus...
ReplyDeleteWe only ever made puddings, except once when we did a moussaka, which was a little too liquid. I can still vividly remember carrying it home in a tin, constantly aware of the layers collapsing with every step.
ReplyDeleteBut mainly puddings. Lots of them. That was the only savoury thing we did.
we didn't do cooking at school in Italy... and I'm not sure it was a good thing or not.
ReplyDeleteHaving eaten a very dodgy biscuit that No 3 brought home recently (it was kind of grewy...) it was probably a good thing!!
I can imagine how you felt about the rice and chicken - I tend to be over cautious so would have been equally concerned!
ReplyDeleteMy memories were lots of 'grey' looking bread which my dad always ended up eating (and never complained!).
x
All my cookery lessons were memorable. Like the time I set fire to my recipe and then my tea towel on the gas burners because I'd only every cooked on an electric hob before...
ReplyDeleteYoungest son is doing GCSE cookery and has made some lovely stuff - I know this cos its so good he and his mates eat it all at break time or on the bus coming home!
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed that anything actually made it home! I just remember being presented with empty plastic boxes in need of washing up!
ReplyDeleteFunnily enough, eldest came home tonight with ready made supper for the family from cookery lesson today - it was a salmon and broccoli quiche - and it was actually pretty good. I have learnt to send in v. good ingredients (the salmon was a fancy marinated fillet) so it ensured that no matter what she does to it, it will still at least have some flavour!
ReplyDeleteMy cookery lessons at school were traumatic. I managed to make a flat slab of what were supposed to be rock cakes. In an exam, I dropped a tray of half baked scones when trying to switch shelves with my cooking partner. Panicking, I scraped the half cooked splattered dough off the oven door and rolled it back into scone shapes, searing the skin on my hands in the process. I was the butt of endless class jokes...look at her 'dropped scones'...you can imagine!
By the way, I think your quilts are stunning.