I'm a bit miffed about this Food Tech ingredients list

[IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads]

Not feeling brave enough for AIBU, and I'm sure the teacher has her reasons, but this is what DS needs to take to school next week. He's 14/Y9, do not into GCSE course yet, and food tech isn't one on his options. Also, he has food tech after lunch, and has to carry his cooking around for the rest of the day, as the fridges are full of heat the morning lessons have made. OK for scones, but for chicken?

Here is the offending ingredients list:

Thai Green Curry - 1 onion, 1 clove of garlic, 80g sugar snap peas, 2 small chicken breasts, 30ml Thai green curry paste. 200ml coconut milk, ½ lime, small bunch coriander.

My concerns - there's about £8 worth of stuff there, many of which (curry paste, coconut milk, coriander) come in bigger packs than required. That doesn't seem to be considerate of the CoL crisis - it's a big standard academy comp in a not-particularly affluent area.

Also - no veggie alternative ingredients offered - so half our household wouldn't eat the results anyway.

DS is not matey enough with anyone in his FFT class to suggest sharing ingredients. Expensive ingredients!

I'm delighted that the school is teaching the kids to make something other than scones and pizza, but there are so many cheaper curries to mark in an hour! They could start by making the curry paste! Or school providing (and charging for) the ingredients the kids won't need need "all" of.

(DS's previous school/DD's school charge for all FFT and RMT ingredients and materials at the start of the year, abs supply everything. I appreciate limited kitchen space doesn't always make this possible).

I find it very short sighted that food tech teachers can't suggest a vegetarian option. DD did food tech until year 9 (2011 - 2014) and the teacher always suggested a vegetarian option. It isn't difficult.

@Needmorelego A lot of fake meats are high in fibre - much higher than real meat. It is marketed as being more healthy, but not for people with IBS. DD is vegetarian and one of her favourite meals is mince and dumplings. She lives away from home now so I like to cook her favourite meals when she comes home. DH and I like everything so I just cook veggie food when she is home, but I find I can't eat too much quorn either.

Generally we just eat vegetable based vegetarian food and don't use fake meat, but sometimes a dish can't be replicated very well with vegetables. Last weekend DD cooked toad in the hole for us using Richmond meat free sausages. TBH that did work well.

Jings.
Here In my part of Scotland the school buy the ingredients.

Maybe in Scotland schools are better funded?
In England it is common for schools to expect pupils to buy the ingredients. In my day, when my children were at school, and still today. In fact, schools have less money today than ever in their budgets for stuff like that

@ginlovingqueen I probably could do with some school cooking lessons.
I remember we did about a terms worth in secondary. I vaguely remember making fruit salad, flapjacks, shortbread and cupcakes and a pizza. That was about it 😂
I'm not a very confident cook at all.

I don't get what people expect school to teach the kids to make instead. Chicken curry is is staple for many households, and if you are veggie surely you just use your own initiative and swap out the chicken for some veg?

And as for carrying it round- most kids eat what they've made before it makes it home anyway- sharing it on the bus or eating it for their lunch!

Those ingredients cost £6.47 on Ocado

And even if he doesn't eat it then by the time he has made it if he's not even starting it until after lunch it will be almost home time so it's not going to have developed dangerous levels of bacteria by 3.30

Personally would get rid of the chicken as that’s just some sort of D&V red flag if there isn’t a fridge
Swap it out for a can of chickpeas
Lidl coconut milk in a can is I think about 60-70p

Thai Green Curry Paste I think is also at Lidl but I would swap out if you see something cheaper

Always find Coriander in the reduced section at Tesco

Onion and garlic usually have them around. I have loads of red onions atm as they were Tesco clubcard price 19p for a big bag of them last week. Or buy an individual loose onion and garlic and lime.

Can you ask your Ds to give your number out to other parents who have children in his class so that you can get together and WhatsApp and team up with other parents and split the cost of the ingredients and make it more convenient by dc only taking 1 jar/tin/packet of stuff between 2/3/4 of them.

Of course having said all of that. It isn’t just the cost of stuff its the question of if you can actually get the ingredients.

Can he split some items with a friend? Tthat's what both of mine did for recipe items where they wouldn't using be using the whole jar/tin.

Very easy to make it a veggie recipe. I always substitute the meat when the kids cook at school. You don't need to send the whole tin of coconut in. Use the rest to make another curry at home.
If you genuinely can't afford the ingredients I'm sure the school would help.

Also - no veggie alternative ingredients offered - so half our household wouldn't eat the results anyway.

Another thing. My dc is allergic to most of basic food ingredients. What we do? We get into contact with school, so he can actually cook something he can eat. Simple. If he is a vegetarian and don't eat meat, contact school and ask them to let him use alternative ingredients.

How long can uncooked chicken sit in a warm school bag for before it's cooked?

In my school if you were no good at sewing then it meant you were crap at cooking.

I actually was really looking forward to
cooking lessons but if your needlework skills weren’t great we were deemed to be too stupid to cook without a huge amount of prepping.
The teacher would spend 2 whole lessons making tea and toast before we were allowed to make tea and toast

i remember making fruit salad and a vomit inducing (literally) Christmas Pudding.

@Kennykenkencat I read a local history book and it had about my school back in the 1930s. Girls (only the girls of course 🙂) had to sew their apron and cap before they could start doing the cooking lessons.

One clove of garlic??? No ginger, no lemongrass, no chillis. It doesn’t sound very appealing!

Won't that be in the curry paste? I make my own, which has all those things in, so I'm assuming a premade one would be similar

That's quite a pricey list and they really should.provide fridge space. Could you replace the chicken breast with frozen chicken strips? Asda do them quite cheap. Also saw a half can of coconut milk the other day. Do you have a large thermos flask, it could go in that straight after cooking? Alternatively he could ask other teachers who might have an office with a fridge to store it in?

@RosesAndHellebores off topic but what's brown sauce? Guessing you don't mean HP sauce...or maybe you do and I need to up my cooking!

I'm in England and work at the school DS goes to. When he was in those Years we used to pay £6 for 6 lessons (one term of cooking). The school bought in bulk via the canteen.

The kids then made enough for one portion which they ate in the classroom (so no potential food poisoning by keeping food out on a hot day). If they made scones or something similar they'd make three or four so they could take those home but curry/fajitas etc would be eaten in class.

DS would bring the recipe home and make it at the weekend for everyone (the food technicians always did a one portion recipe and a 4 - 6 portion recipe for the kids).

Nor me - I buy the packets for putting in the microwave. Love shortcuts to avoid cooking.

The school email out the ingredients list to the appropriate parents every fortnight. This is the first time they've done a dish where meat has been such a significant ingredient. There is sometimes a veggie alternatives list - usually just missing out the meat, which is fine for pizza! Nothing suggested this time. The teacher has previously said that age doesn't want all the kids to bring in loads of different alternatives, as it makes the class difficult to teach. Fine, so why not suggest an "official" alternative? I have plenty of ways of making it vegetarian. Because now there will be loads of different alternatives bought in!

But my issue is not actually about whether there is a veggie alternative, it's that school should be sensitive to CoL concerns and just do a cheaper recipe with less waste potential. This is a high cost recipe for anyone!

I think thats expensive considering it would probably only serve 2 people

Definitely this. Substitute vegetables for the chicken. Or tofu/meat free substitutes.

You think £3.24 is expensive?

Like I mean obviously it's not cheap but there is meat involved it's not going to get much cheaper than that