Pro - Does anyone else's nest boxes get soaked in rain?

[Alis girls]

OOh those fun days of Home Economics - Scones, Queen of puds and a wicker basket with a floral cover to keep everything dry.

How things move on now its Food Tec - ES of 14 is making apple crumble - off he goes with Waitrose carrier - Lidl or Iceland just won't do - too chavvy

Lost marks for his rissotto as helpful mum here chopped his veg for him

The soup he made was lovely, rissotto great, never saw cakes - disappeared betwwen here and school His teacher is a man " but hes like a woman" his words not mine

I had many a disaster - meringue stuck to oven ceiling on my Queen of puds - mum made another lot when I got home to console me My scones could have been used a grenades in a riot.

Thankfully cooking has improved. Must go and get custard ready for the crumble

[Cooks]

yes I have this too, my sons love cooking but I never thought my youngest would be as good at it as he is, he gets high marks for everything he makes and I chop nothing.. but I do weigh the things out for him as I feel on the list it says what he needs so that's what I supply in right quantities.

He made Cherry Scones (they disappeared really fast, not by me I might add ) , Pasta Salad (he put no dressing on it so he could give some to the chickens. ) flapjack etc.. Crumble is next on his list.. it's PHSE day today so no cooking.

[Busybird]

The results are delicious but the cost

 

DD's lists of ingredients for school must be followed to the letter and costs several times more than my usual basics. I currently have a half used pack of a particular type of brown sugar that I had never heard of, an opened jar of a brand of 'flavoured' syrup, tubes of icing sugar, food colouring, margarine when I always use butter...

 

It cost so much I can't bring myself to throw it away but neither can I think of what to do with it all!

[Cooks]

yes I agree I have similar 'left overs' from OS's cooking he makes more adventurous stuff being 2 years older..

Some bits are strict but others we are allowed to substitute which does help.

But we do NOT eat seafood and one time last year they had to make Paella, as it happened my son was off school with a severe tummy bug so didn't cook it.. luckily I hadn't bought it all as it would have ended in the bin.

[Griffin]

The results are delicious but the cost

 

DD's lists of ingredients for school must be followed to the letter and costs several times more than my usual basics. I currently have a half used pack of a particular type of brown sugar that I had never heard of, an opened jar of a brand of 'flavoured' syrup, tubes of icing sugar, food colouring, margarine when I always use butter...

 

It cost so much I can't bring myself to throw it away but neither can I think of what to do with it all!

Same here! Daisy is in year 8 and has been cooking this term. The most expensive thing by far was a chicken thai green curry. I objected heartily to having to buy chicken. It had to be chicken breasts, the oven ready homegrown bird from the freezer wouldn't do. If I buy chicken it has to be free range and have you seen the price of free range chicken breasts? I cook for seven people every night and I like to think I'm quite frugal so that was a budget busting meal I didn't want any ingredients to go to waste so Daisy came home and prepared the rest of it to feed us all. Admitedly it was yummy but it's ridiculous to expect those on an even tighter budget to have to fork out for such items. The chicken stir fry was almost as expensive and Daisy was the only person to eat that, she had it for lunch at school. I reckon the leftover packets of noodles & bottle of soi sauce will live on in my cupboard for years

[Seagazer]

Both my boys have gone to the same secondary boys school and they have only just put a kitchen in for the boys to learn to cook in so ES missed out. I think they start cooking in year 8. YS loves cooking anyway so it won't be a struggle for him. ES (and his girlfriend) could definitely do with some lessons

 

DD has always cooked at home and is a chuck it all in with plenty of spice type of cook and its always lovely. I don't remember her doing cooking at her school at all.

 

I enjoyed cooking at school but remember my mum moaning about the cost of the food for the lessons. My best thing I made was a 'proper' cheesecake, the cooked american type ones. I got A+ for that

[Geoid]

Its called 'Food Technology' now

[PurpleTree]

I've got all this to come, I guess.

 

I used to hate Home Ec, didn't like that I had to try and do everything in an hour, including the washing up. I could probably do it now, but when you've never made scones or fairy cakes before it's nice to be able to take your time. I had to make pizza once, so I bought ready made bases - time saving! The teacher had a real moan, saying I should have made my own Have to admit I used to pretend I was ill on Home Ec days, and stay home from school, needless to say I dropped it as soon as I could.

[chickenNutter]

Awaiting DD's summer pudding from today's home economics lesson

 

Still traumatised by ES's attempt at fusion cooking 4 years ago.

[Cooks]

I remember making one of those upside down flans, and one say we were told to make muesli.. :lol: well that took all of two mins.. my brother loved it though and wolfed it down

[ClaireG]

Adam is really into cooking, he is thinking of becoming a chef. The high school he starts in September has got a really good food tech room.

 

I remember making cakes and apple crumble but not much else at school. I did food tech as part of my NNEB though and had to get my ingrediants through an hour an a half bus journey and then upto the fifth floor Heaven knows why they choose to put it up there. As we had all morning for our lesson most of the time what we ha made got eatern for lunch. I do remember taking a melon basket filled with fruit salad home on the bus though I'm suprised it survived.

[ubereglu]

Oh how I wish I'd gone to your son's school nochucksyet. The food tech teachers at my school were awful, always buying the cheapest possible ingredients, then you weren't allowed to cook what you'd made in the lesson and had to take it home...so you'd cook something 1st thing on a Thursday morning and then come back home at 4:30 or so due to rehearsals and have something completely inedible left as it had been carted around school the rest of the day.

 

The things I cooked were identical to what my brother had cooked 12 years before, the booklets were nearly identical, except they had 5-a-day borders around them.

 

Me and my friends were left with the whole sink load of washing up and all the tidying as the boys had gone as soon as the bell went.

 

Nothing was as bad as pasta with cheese sauce made first thing, carted around school and then taken home at about 7pm as we were on a swimming trip.

[chickenanne]

Our classess were terrible!!!!

 

The first thing we got to "make" was....

 

 

....now, wait for it....

 

 

 

 

You'll be impressed by the culinary prowess.....

 

 

....a .....

 

 

CUP OF COFFEE (instant) served with... a biscuit (from a packet). Seriously. I was about 12 or 13 and this really wasn't a class for kids with problems or anything.

 

Ah yes, and egg mornay. Which is basically a whole boiled egg served on a plate of white sauce, with a sprinkle of paprika powder on top which tasted bizarrely revolting, and strangely I've never felt the urge to make since. I'm not sure we actually ever did anything else... I could've blocked it out though to protect my poor psyche from further damage at the memory

[Alis girls]

Well I have to say it was delicious. Had 2 helpings as so nice. I think the teachers at the school are quite sensible in the it seems to be plain fare - or they allow a bit of jazzing up eg cinammon in the apple and oats in crumble topping and a week ago rissotto which can be meat or veggie. I would be annoyed if I had to get stuff for paella - non of us eat seafood and due to allergies in family I dont think we would. Hes really happy with the result.

[Chucky Mama]

Our classess were terrible!!!!

 

The first thing we got to "make" was....

 

....now, wait for it....

 

You'll be impressed by the culinary prowess.....

 

....a .....

 

 

CUP OF COFFEE (instant) served with... a biscuit (from a packet). :

 

That is so funny

[craftyhunnypie]

I remember making a pear sponge flan. We had a set time for cookery & my flan wasn't cooked at all, as I had to wait for a spare oven. I was on the bus home..round the corner the bus went & so did my flan. The pears remained, but the liquid flan all went whoosh over the seats!

Best thing we made was sticky gingerbread sponge & a bacon, potato layered hotpot. mmmm.

I think our cookery was far better at Junior school, than at high school. At juniors, we made melting moments, raspberry buns, quiche, swiss roll, scones etc.

I was gutted when someone stole some of my jam tarts & I was left with a measly 3 to take home.

 

I'd have loved to have been a chefette!

 

Emma.x

[Yorkshire Pudding]

Our classess were terrible!!!!

 

The first thing we got to "make" was....

 

....now, wait for it....

 

You'll be impressed by the culinary prowess.....

 

....a .....

 

 

CUP OF COFFEE (instant) served with... a biscuit (from a packet). :

 

That is so funny

 

My poor sister had a similar experience - she got to make a Nesquick milkshake!

 

 

 

I was luckier, started with cheese and potato pie, working up to sausage plait, bakewell tarts etc - using all the traditional baking skills.

 

My favourite was the swiss roll that we decorated to make a Yule Log. It snowed, the bus home didn't come, and I had a 3 mile walk, slipping over every 200 yards or so. By the time I got there I was the proud owner of a naked Swiss roll and a cake tin generously lined with chocolate buttercream, plus an icing-coated sprig of holly.

[Alis girls]

Sorry YP had to giggle at that - I suspect my meringue topping was stuck to the school oven for yrs for yrs to come and the smell of burning must have been horrible

[sunshinesupernova]

I never got home economics or cooking of any kind at school. Our school didn't do it...

 

I used to see the kids from other schools coming home with stuff they'd made and felt really short changed. I SO wanted to do Home Economics !!

[Lewis]

We don't do anything either, probably because its a boys school the girls school we are kind of related to, does do home ec - a friend goes to a different school and they have to prepare all the ingredients before the lessons at home and just assemble it at school

Apple crumble, cut and chop the apples, mix the sugar, flour + butter at home then put it together and cook at school - seemed a but pointless to me

[Guest]

My daughter has just been given a 'Cooking for Students' lesson. She is in year 13 and will be 18 next month. She had a demonstration of how to scramble an egg and was told that none of them knew how to cook. She was also told that students couldn't afford the luxury of free-range eggs and RSPCA stamped Farm standard eggs would be fine.

She was so cross about it all (being quite a good cook) and said it was a waste of time. Quite rightly she pointed out that if you are bright enough to be at university then you are also bright enough to follow a recipe.

 

My first cookery lesson was in year 5 and we were making soup. I was really looking forward to it and was bitterly disappointed to discover we were learning how to make a cup-a-soup! How totally ridiculous. Add hot water and stir.

[chickencam]

The variations here are amazing. I didn't have good experiences of cooking at school, but instant coffee and cup a soup Why can't schools teach simple things like grilling a sausage and making mash and veg to go with it? Good nutritious simple food.

 

My worst experience was having to make a steak and kidney stew. This obviously could not be cooked in an hour, but it was at least a real meal. My mum refused to buy the requested Oxo cube, she always used Bisto, but failed to tell me that unlike Oxo this had to be mixed with cold water first. I ended up with sticky brown gloop, was very embarrassed, there were no spares. I went home with luke warm meat and veg swimming in water, I had to cycle from the bus stop for a mile to get home. needless to say this was a tricky journey

[Janty]

The results are delicious but the cost

 

DD's lists of ingredients for school must be followed to the letter and costs several times more than my usual basics. I currently have a half used pack of a particular type of brown sugar that I had never heard of, an opened jar of a brand of 'flavoured' syrup, tubes of icing sugar, food colouring, margarine when I always use butter...

 

It cost so much I can't bring myself to throw it away but neither can I think of what to do with it all!

 

I have to say that as a Food Tech teacher myself, I arrange for school to provide unusual ingredients. For example, the Year 8s make a chicken curry. They only have to bring in the chicken, onion, ginger and a tin of tomatoes. We provide all the individual spices, etc. We also send home weekly feedback sheets for the parents to complete so that we can constantly update and improve the recipes and lessons.

 

Do your daughter's school have a feedback system whereby you could suggest that they provide unusual ingredients, etc?

[Alis girls]

Very interesting and funny reading. To the food tec teacher a feed back sheet would have been good. We werent asked to buy anything really out of the ordianry - I had to get butter for the crumble topping as ES said marg wouldnt do. Not a prob - used the rest in muffins. I think some schools are silly - either make something they can do that is healthy and not too expensive and can do when they leave home. Cup a soup

[Janty]

We made shepherd / cottage pies today with the Year 8s.

They had to decide which one based on the family's tastes.

 

They turned out lovely and the Year 8s were so pleased with themselves.