To not send in cooking ingredients to school tomorrow with DS2

[AFingerofFudge]

So DS2 has just announced he's cooking at school tomorrow. (He likes to spring these kind of surprises on me, in fact he's given me more notice than usual)
It's pea and ham risotto. I don't have the risotto rice, the bacon, the peas or the onion.
As a dutiful parent I'd normally whinge a bit, tell him off and send him to the shops for the ingredients.
However tomorrow I'm working until 9.15pm, so I've already prepared dinner. DH doesn't get home until late, DS1 will be looking after DS2&3 and serving up the meal to them. So the risotto thing will not get eaten, and also erm, the chances of it being edible anyway are minimal as his talents lie elsewhere
So AIBU to send a note with some sort of excuse?
I'm not normally a slack parent but I'm reluctant to part with money to pay for food that will go to waste.

its the norm to provide ingredients or to pay and the teacher kindly does the organising and shopping and brings them in. Pea and Ham risotto is one of my favs and is lovely even my daughter can cook this and she is 11. He needs to sort his act out and when he gets the recipe for next week pin to fridge for shopping purposes.

But actually I would like to ask if something says Tomato Sauce what do you think should be provided ... I send ketchup - WRONG!!!

Tinhattie - you have a lovely teacher who goes and does this in his or her own time to help out so people don't forget and get left out and makes sure that everyone is included even if can't pay. Buy them chocolate and wine....

"It is totally normal for schools to ask parents to provide cooking ingredients"

Yes it is. DD's school is the 4th most underfunded school in the country. They can't afford to buy ingredients for cookery lessons, and nor would I expect them to. It would be like expecting them to pay for my evening meal.

"This is a REAL surprise to me because it's unheard of round here"

Now, that is a real surprise to me. I would be interested to know where "round here" is. Are you in the UK?

Afternoon on a Sunday most shops are shut. I would try to get him the ingredients best you can though because at the end of the day it sounds like Food Tech, A lesson. If your like me sending a 14 year old to the shop alone is a no no. Theres no buses so he'd have to walk miles haha . Id be telling him in future if this happens again you won't be getting the stuff but this once is a warning
Cant you freeze it and reheat ?

Speaking as a former food teacher, you absolutely must send him to buy the ingredients - it's a royal pain in the arse when kids don't have their ingredients.

As for potential waste, the only thing he's likely to bugger up is not cooking it well enough. As long as you store it in the fridge you can reheat it and add more stock on Tuesday to finish off the cooking. It needs to be piping hot but there is no danger of this being a food poisoning risk. And the PP is quite wrong - pea and ham risotto sounds lovely!

"Afternoon on a Sunday most shops are shut"

Supermarkets are open until 4pm now.

I'm in Glasgow. (Still part of the UK despite best efforts of SNP).

Since I was at school it has been the norm to pay money to the Home Ec department for ingredients. In my day it was 50p a week or whatever, nowadays my son's school asks for it all up front. Makes so much more sense - class of 20 making something with bacon, you buy 2 x 10 rasher packs rather than every child coming in with a bit of bacon which is all sweaty and nasty as it's been festering in their bag all day. YUK.

I do appreciate that this means shopping on behalf of the Home Ec teachers and I don't know who does this or where - although I have seen the milkman making deliveries of milk/eggs/butter/cheese. It would probably be less hassle though than dealing with half the class who have brought the wrong stuff, and more who haven't brought anything.

Also everything my son has done up to now is veggie - pizzas, bread, soup, cakes, apple tarts, pasta sauces - nothing needing meat or fish. I never see any of it as he has Home Ec just before lunch and wolfs the lot.

iamastonished
I was thinking of the time I posted this which was 4pm. Also op has other children, don't know if she drives, how close the nearest shop is. She might have to get other kids on a bus to the shop. My main point was she should get the stuff but ds needs to realise he's 14 not 3 he should have spoken to her about this Friday night at the latest really and he should be told next time she won't ...

Ah, sorry marvel

you can make risotto with other rice and you can send something else to stand in for the peas and ham. the teacher might not like it but the dc is still learning to make risotto.

I have recently found out that if the recipe is suitable, it is ok to send in half the quantity of ingredients stated in the recipe rather than make the full amount.

So I would send him in with 50% of the ingredients and you will probably find your ds eats it anyway (my ds in year 10 is permanently hungry!). Even if he doesn't eat it, there is less waste but your ds still gets to learn the cooking technique. My ds is not penalised in any way for cooking a half portion.

Obviously this doesn't work for cakes etc.

doubleshot it's not that I don't think it's important, it's about the timing. He is quite a serious student in that he generally does homework on time etc but he has a massive problem with organising himself, losing things, and a bit of a lack of common sense.
I generally don't try to mollycoddle him as I want him to be able to do things for himself but it's hard sometimes judging when to step in and bail him out and when he needs to learn for himself.
Anyway, he's back with the ingredients. He has just said "oh by the way mum I'm also making cauliflower cheese on Thursday just to warn you" do something has sunk in!!!

I would have sent him out to buy the ingredients as you have done, but I would definitely like to know how the school intends to eliminate the risk of food poisoning outlined by previous posters.

excellent he got what he wanted and he might have learnt a thing or two haha

Ugh you absolutely cannot make risotto with other rice.

Inertia - the same way we do in homes - storing in a fridge and reheating till piping hot.

I would send him without ingredients with a note explaining to the teacher that he only told you last minute and you are using this as an exercise to teach him to plan ahead.
He can spend the lesson reading. (Not doing his homework!)

Oops just read the last post.he is learning!

Blimey I'd buy that home ec teacher a serious gift at the end of the year! He'll be properly trained at the end of all that cooking

I've made risotto with pudding rice plenty of times, it's fine. I've also used pearl barley risotto/paella style, it doesn't go gloopy like a risotto does but has a bit more nutrition and is 1/2 the price of rice!

I would say 'you can get the ingredients if you promise you will cook this again for us at home in 2 weeks time' and mark it on the calendar.
If they know when they are cooking, then he should mark the days on the kitchen calendar. Or put reminders in his phone to remind you.
They do need a bit of reminding, the 14yr olds. As they don't normally do grocery shopping they don't know that the stuff isn't just in the cupboards.
Tell him to make sure his bacon is good and crispy at the start. And don't stop stirring!

I would send him in with the ingredients but would definitely be sending in a note to the teacher asking explicitly how they were planning on chilling it down rapidly to stop the BC developing - with rice being cooked in the last lesson I'd guess it would be quite a risk as there's a good chance that it will still be warm when it's put into bags to take home - and could easily stay warm and cool very slowly until supper time if the dc don't go straight home after the last lesson but have an after school club, a long bus ride and so on, so perfect breeding conditions.

I'd at least want to know what they noted about this in their risk assessment for the lesson - and if not, why not. I'm also wondering how they cope with cooling the rice down and putting it in the fridge if it's an earlier class - because fridges aren't really designed to have lots of hot things put into them at the same time - it's going to affect the other things in the fridge.

@Megatherium www.nhs.uk/chq/Pages/can-reheating-rice-cause-food-poisoning.aspx?CategoryID=51

As others have said, the lesson is about learning to cook, not providing tea for the family, so if you have concerns about reheating, he should still go and make it, and you can bin it.
It IS a waste if this is what has to happen, but we don't expect our kids to produce great literature when we buy pens and paper, they are for learning - it is the same for the cookery lesson.

I send my kids to buy their ingredients - they have to learn tonbidget and shop wisely - all part of the lesson