To think school cooking should be done better than this?

[Knottingley]

DS1 is in yr8 and TBF most of what he brings home is really pretty good. Today he made Jewelled Cous Cous which we had with roast chicken, was excellent and saved me a job

Last week they made pizza from scratch.

Next week something seems to have gone wrong! They're making rice salad and the ingredients they need to take include "a packet of Uncle's Ben's microwave rice. "

My objections are many:

• The cost! £2 for 2 portion of rice
• It's not teaching them to cook
• It's not teaching them about what we would have called Home Economics. £2 this week when I'm paying isn't the end of the world. £2 every time he cooks rice the way he was taught at school for the rest of his life is huge.
• If they can make pizza base, surely they have time to put some rice on while they chop the rest of the ingredients for the salad?

Or am I missing something?

its possibly a germy issue - cooked rice is a breeding ground for bacteria ya know!

I imagine they will be taught "rice salad" with micro rice and will be told that they could use any old cooked rice at home.

Maybe they are showing them how to make a quick healthy meal?

I was going to say the same as waffily.

At least they are trying to teach them useful recipes!

How is cooked micro rice less "germy" than ordinary rice (genuine question, you could be right)

The Uncle Ben's micro rice isn't even all that great tbh

Pop to lidl or aldi, they have microwave rice for about 49p.

The germs come into it when you cool and store cooked rice, while it's warm it can breed bacteria, not ideal when they then have to make the salad, store the salad, and take it home. The microwave stuff will be cooled quickly in a controlled environment then sealed so less chance for bacteria to enter and as it's not as warm bacteria can't breed as quickly.

So you don't think they're going to microwave it at school?

If I was making rice salad I'd add the dressing while the rice was warm.

I would if I was going to eat it then and there, but for the sake of storing and taking the salad home I thought it would be cold.

And it depends on when cooking is. We used to cook in the mornings, and there was very little fridge space so whatever we cooked would cool slowly and hang around at room temperature for the afternoon- so we couldn't do anything that could be considered risky in terms of food poisoning.