Food Tech

It's finally happened.  Bear has food tech, starting next Monday.

I've been dreading it.  I just wish that the school would have the policy some others follow of having the ingredients ready and the pupil just pays a fixed amount to cover the costs.  Unfortunately the school are trying to do things right, and are giving the pupils some discretion in the first few recipes so that they actually have to think about it.  On Monday, bear makes a fruit salad.  He has been asked to bring in some fruit to prepare plus 250ml of apple juice.  Did you know that apple juice is only sold in 200ml and litre sizes?  I'm going to have to dig out a screw top bottle. 

Regardless, bear has chosen the fruit that he plans to take in, and we have a box that probably won't leak, but the timing is dreadful.  Bear has food tech on the same day as he has sports, so he will be carting in the apple/grape/kiwi/juice box on top of a sports kit that has to include trainers, football boots, jogging bottoms, warm shirt, cool shirt, shorts, shin guards, gum shield and special socks.  This is added to his usual backpack with all the exercise books that he normally carts around every day.  I need to pass my driving test.

The fruit salad won't be too bad, especially if it doesn't leak, but the next lesson (the first after Christmas) is a fruit crumble, student to choose the fruit.  Bear said that they are encouraged to be inventive.  They would have to be - there's no spices.  When I make a fruit crumble, there is usually something like cinnamon or ginger or mixed spice in either crumble topping or the fruit.  This looks very bland.  There is also a typo.  Bear has given me a booklet which gives ingredients and method.  The crumble mix is fat and flour mixed in, quantities given (I can't share the quantities as the booklet is hidden in bear's backpack and I'm not going there), then oats and a small amount of sugar is stirred in (I think it's around 50g of oats and 75g of sugar, which would make it nice and crunchy) with the sultanas.  The sultanas are not mentioned in the ingredients list.  I am going to have to hope bear remembers to ask and just send in 'some'.

And then, once he's baked the dratted thing, he has to bring it home, spending an hour on the bus with it.  There are a lot of opportunities for disaster, especially as he will be bringing home his sports kit at the same time.  I looked on eBay and bought a thingy which is like a casserole dish, but with a silicon lid that is allegedly leak proof that can be put on the cooled dish.  I have no faith.  Bear will be 12 at this point and accidents happen in creative ways at that age.  I really need to pass my driving test.

It's not a long course.  They also have to make pizza, again with some choice in ingredients, a plain sponge and a chocolate sponge, and I think there's something else but I couldn't tell you what.  Bear sometimes supervises me in the kitchen, and is a fan of the Sorted Boys.  This is a YouTube channel with some young lads (two chefs, three others), trying out lots of different recipes.  They're quite ambitious, so bear has a lot of ideas about cooking, and I'm sure I will get the benefit of this at some point.  The really useful stuff, like knowing when you can substitute ingredients, extending food to feed more, how to plan a cooking session, getting the most nutrition for the price and when to give up and order pizza, he can learn from me. 

If you have any suggestions about which fruit would work for the crumble, please let me know.  I was considering peach, but they are a faff to blanch, which I guess he would have to, and my usual apple with lots of sultanas and cinnamon doesn't look appropriate.  I wonder if he could get away with pear and crystalised ginger?  There's a stall on Leeds Market that sells 'crystalised ginger scraps' which are small flakes of lovely hot and very sugary ginger and perfect for baking.  Bear will have the final say, of course, but it's only right that I give him some suggestions.