School cookery, very expensive

[Toomanyblanklooks]

I’ve just checked what DD needs for cookery tomorrow. 8 chicken breasts!
AIBU to thinks it’s too expensive and too much food?

I know you shouldn't have to, but is there any way the parents could arrange among themselves to go shares on the spices and stuff?

This is so wasteful (and expensive!). Just pray she never needs (eg) saffron.

‘knob of ginger’? 😂

Lots of the reviews say that the quantities are all wrong, it's very bland, or the people who made it added a lot more spices....

That curry would probably feed 12-16 if the chicken breasts were large! We somehow managed to feed ourselves for two days off one particularly large one recently 😂 (curry and pasta dish).

It's stupid as all the spices are bought at ludicrous expense rather than the school providing them for a small charge. My Mum used to despair at all the random items I needed and I've seen people searching for masala in the spices and garam masala in the wine...

If the English Department can buy books for students at a discount with parents paying on ParentPay and PP kids getting them free, I don't understand why Food Tech can't do the same for ingredients!

My child came home having made something with chicken which contained undercooked chicken and whole raw garlic cloves. Even worse, they'd tried to pour off the fat unsupervised and covered their feet in boiling chicken fat. They got sent to the Nurse without any medical attention from the teacher. Luckily their socks and shoes meant their skin wasn't too badly burnt/scalded.

I was extremely glad when Food Tech ended...

I was going to ask this. What on earth are you supposed to send your child in with if they're veggie/vegan? 8 blocks of tofu? Madness

As a Punjabi woman, that “curry” isn’t authentic and the quantities are incorrect. Also, traditional cookery (which I completely understand that the school might not be going for, so in that case should really stick with cooking that which can be authentic/traditional) generally doesn’t use some of those things on the list (and I do recognise that parts of India cook completely differently to us as well).

@Toomanyblanklooks I would send in chicken thigh instead because they will be much “juicier”. The quantity of fat isn't enough to properly caramelise the quantity of onion required. With that amount of chicken, you could definitely leave out capsicum (if that is what red peppers means, which I should think it does). If you only have chilli powder and not paprika, send that as with the amount of chicken, 1 teaspoon of paprika isn't going to do anything! I used to use at least that amount when the kids were little (under 2) to get them used to eating hot food. And I’m not sure why yogurt and cream?! Forget the cardamom pods. Send some cumin or fennel seeds to temper the oil with before the onions go in. 1 inch of ginger, 5 garlic cloves and 5 chillies per 500 gram is the usual rule of thumb that I use when cooking a quick curry. I would probably send 2 tsp of garam masala too. However, if you don’t like curry, or hot food, then disregard this! And one tin of tomatoes (400g) is plenty. Try to get diced/chopped tomatoes of the non-Italian variety, as I find the Italian chopped tomatoes don’t break down unless they are cooked for longer so I blend them if they’re the only ones I’ve got. Forget the tomato paste for this curry, as I think that’s why they’ve put mango chutney to offset the acidity of the tomato paste, so forget that too!

With my DDs school it used to frustrate me because they needed 1tsp of something and we’d had to buy an entire bag of it just got 1tsp.

The school I used to work at had a great idea because the kids just needed to bring in £1/2 and the teacher would buy the ingredients.
If the student wanted a different topping or filling then they could bring their own of that.

@Toomanyblanklooks

If you require a method for the ingredients I’ve listed, I can do that for you too!

No, they say chicken breasts and chicken breasts can be on the bone which you would know if you'd ever jointed a chicken. Most of the time the breasts are sliced off the bone. If they'd meant thighs they'd have said so.

8??? That’s bonkers!! Ring / email school & check it’s not a misprint. Can’t imagine while they’re feeding 8 chicken breasts to!!

I had to buy ingredients from scratch a few months ago (coming from an appointment which finished unexpectedly, so DD3 could go to school when we didn't think she was able to). The recipe cost £23 to buy enough of each ingredient. I had leftovers, but I still had to buy it all to be able to send it in to school.

Interestingly, DH told me yesterday that the school he works at have been told they're not allowed to use cocoa powder in school dinners because it's too expensive.

At our school, the HE department provides all the ingredients and pupils just pay an amount at the start of each term to cover this. Never heard of pupils having to provide their own ingredients.

Pretty sure that should be chicken thighs and not breasts

I'd be annoyed too because we would only eat free range chicken which would be an expensive proposition. Surely 8 would be too much for a meal for four. The cake recipe looks like it's missing half the ingredients like flour and sugar too.

@RaraRachael

Our school requires pupils bring in items for dissection!! Hearts a few weeks ago.

Not the point, but 'food tech' is so cold and clinical a term for what should be a joyous and creative thing.

I think the rot set in when it stopped being "Cookery" and began to be "Food Tech".

As a PP said - learning how to make basics such as decent pastry, and economical use of ingredients is far more important than being able to cater for a meeting of the UN at short notice, should the need arise.

I feel your pain. My DS is doing food tech GCSE and cooks pretty much every week and we have to provide what I think are really quite expensive & unnecessarily large quantities of ingredients. TBF, the food is delicious and if DS didn't eat have of it on his way home it would feed the whole family but for some people it really is prohibitively expensive & making a real dent in my weekly food budget.

So far we've had:
Pot roast chicken:

Whole chicken, lemon, various fresh herbs, onion, carrots, bulb of garlic, stock

Chocolate Eclairs:
Pot of double cream, flour, 3 eggs, sugar, chocolate

Apply pie:
Flour, milk & eggs, 8 apples, raisins, vanilla pod, sugar

Chicken Kiev
4 large chicken breasts, garlic, pat of butter, panko breadcrumbs

Fish Pie
Fillet of smoked haddock, salmon & cod, milk, butter, eggs, fresh parsley & bay, potatoes, peas, milk.

I would have preferred just plain Cookery- ours was "Home Economics" in the 1980s.

At least they sound like really decent recipes @lechatnoir

I'd love it if my kids came home with those 😁

My DD did bolognaise last week which she hates do I sent her in with soya mince. I'd send yours in with the veggie option it will be much cheaper then teach them to cook chicken at home!

They really are very good @TheKeatingFive - I'm trying to fit in collecting him from school on food tech days to hopefully save the food being shared amongst his mates on the bus and have a meal that night.

My kids would never ever eat stuff they'd made at school in Food Tech. They were disgusted by the hygiene standards - or lack of them- and how skanky the other kids were. Stuff was brought home and consigned straight to the bin. Fortunately we could afford to dump the food. When I volunteered to cook with kids at the local middle school, i would set aside time to thoroughly wash and clean up BEFORE we started. Never did work out how utensils I'd washed thoroughly the week before ended up so dirt and encrusted with food again. Yuk!

I was thinking the same. It's ludicrous when so many families are really struggling.

That recipe will be an enormous quantity. Even 2 chickens breasts and half the tomato and red pepper would be a hefty volume.

As luck would have it i am going to be making a leftovers curry tonight (unless family would rather have the chicken in enchilladas). I'll be adding significantly more seasoning.

I also mashed up some over-ripe bananas last week. They ended up in cookies, but that school recipe looked like some of the muffin ones I discounted. I'd be having dark chocolate with the sour cream, though.

Unless you are at a catering college, it would make more sense to get kids to cook cheap, nutritious meals and buy communal spices for the group.