Tag Archives: children cooking

The Salad Challenge

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We had great fun in our cookery club last week and the children got all creative with a wide selection of different veg, herbs and dressings to choose from to come up with their very own tasty summer salad. Here are some names the children chose to call their creations and some of the descriptions they used to try and get you to eat them!

Explosion Salad

Cuscano

George’s Super Salad Surprise

The Epic Salad

The Super Dooper Salad

Exspelyarmous – this salad will cast a yum spell on you

Clever Couscous Fantastic Salad – brilliant and delicious

The Fancy Salad – not suitable for those who don’t like chilli

Martha’s Mystical Salad – suitable for people who like lots of vegetables

Freddie’s Fazzbear Delight – my salad is the best in the world – it’s juicy, it’s fresh and it’s yummy Sunny Side Salad – this may be the underdog but it can pack a punch, it could be winter but it would warm you up and put a smile on your face.

Holly’s Awesome Salad – all ingredients are fresh

Richard’s Roaring Salad

Cosmos Salad – my salad is the best in the entire galaxy

Mad Hatter’s Tea Party

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This is what one of my lovely customers said about her daughter’s birthday bash!

I would not hesitate to recommend a ‘Cookies’ party – definitely the easiest party we’ve ever hosted, as well as one of the most entertaining for the children.

Michele and her team were amazing, they arrived in a whirlwind of cake, decorations and general ‘bonhomie’.

They dressed the table, helped the kids to make their birthday tea [pizza], decorate cakes and ‘Mad Hatter’ hats, as well as keeping them entertained for every single second of the party, and then dismantled and cleared up – to be honest, I was quite weary just watching them – needless to say, the children loved it all.

To top it off, my daughter was even allowed to ‘custard pie’ the Mad Hatter! and all the children took home their many creations.

The feedback has been fabulous.

Thank you Michele, Angel and Dawn.

Rowena

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Greek salads

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This week in school we have been doing a little bit of Greek cooking. While we cook we shall be learning a few simple Greek words – very useful if you are going there for your summer holiday this year. The children have been making the typical Greek Salad, using spring onions instead of sweet salad onion (the only reason for this is that sweet salad onion is not available at the moment) and we are finishing it off with some Greek mountain herbs which I lovingly picked myself.

Quite often the locals like to eat caper leaves with their Greek Salad (which at present is very difficult to get hold of in England). They also add some dill which is totally delicious when in season. Greek salad would often be eaten by the Greeks to start a meal.

Greek Friendship Salad:

Simple but delicious,  my Greek friends make this for me when I visit them…one watermelon chopped in chunks with sprigs of fresh mint and chunks of Feta cheese all mixed together.

Serve with giant croutons…slice a  baguette, ciabata, or pitta bread into chunky strips, add some crushed garlic to good quality olive oil leave to marinade at room temperature for one hour. On each piece of bread paint your garlicky olive oil then sprinkle some oregano and lemon juice then cook under a hot grill or oven until crisp and golden.

Stick your tongue out

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This week at school we’ve been sticking out our tongues…and when you stick out your tongue, you see that it’s covered in lots of little bumps. We like to think of these bumps as our taste buds, but actually, these bumps are known as papillae. Your actual taste buds are much smaller, and anywhere from 3-100 of them can fit inside a single papilla. Some papillae look different than others. This is because there are actually four different types!

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Right in the centre of your tongue, there are lots of small, skinny papillae that almost look fur-like. These are called filiform, and they don’t contain any taste buds. On the front and sides of your tongue there are little round dot-like papillae known as fungiform.They usually contain 3-5 taste buds each. The next two types can be hard to see, all the way at the back of your tongue, near your tonsils. You may be able to make out a few ridges on either side of your tongue. Those are called foliate. On the top of your tongue in that same area, you might see some large, round papillae. These are known as circumvallate, and they, along with the foliate type, each contain more than 100 taste buds each!

Half-term fun

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We had lots of fun this half-term holiday, we made sun-dried tomato ravioli, Omusubi sushi, a yummy roasted potato salad and much more. One of our favourite things we made was this chocolate flowerpot cake where we crumble some cake to make it look like soil, the kids got all creative adding some extra arty flower bits to it.

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Over the rest of this term, amongst lots of other yummy things, we are making roasted vegetable pasta, chocolate brioche bread and butter pudding. We will be looking at all things spring and springy. How many different ways are there to cook an egg? We have an ostrich egg and goose eggs to look at and we will be making a duck egg cake.

Happy New Year

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Happy New Year to all

I have written a lovely article in the Families Chiltern magazine about school dinners – go check it out www.familieschiltern.co.uk

This half term in the schools Cookies runs clubs in we will be looking at children’s school lunches from around the globe and how they compare to their lunches in our schools. We will also be looking at ‘Weird and Wonderful Foods’ from around the world. For example, what is Birds Nest Soup?  Does it really contain a nest? Would you swap your snack foods for another country’s idea of a heavenly snack? Could you be tempted to eat a chocolate covered ant or crunch into a fried grasshopper? Or munch your way through a bag of delicious chicken feet? What’s yuk and what is yummy depends on where you live and what you are used to eating. Psst…. don’t worry grown up’s, I won’t be force feeding your children these types of snacks (not unless they really want to try them!)

Autumn Spice

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Looking forward to creating some spicy dishes with the children over the next couple of weeks. As well as mixing up some yummy dishes we’ll be finding out a bit more about some familiar and exotic spices. For instance did you know:

  • Chinese Fice Spice is not named not after the number of ingredients but after the five flavors (sour, bitter, salty, sweet and pungent).
  • The name clove comes from the Latin word clavus, meaning nail., and once dried it does look like one. It’s actually the dried flower bud and it’s a rather lovely looking flower…

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  • Although it’s one of the most common flavourings we know Vanilla is actually the second most expensive spice after saffron.

Back to School Breakfast

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Here we go, back to it! Maybe like my daughter you can’t wait to get back to school to see your mates or perhaps for some who are starting new school there is a little apprehension. And for parents they also may be worrying about how they are going to settle in or maybe you are desperate to get back into a routine? Whichever it is I wish you ‘Happy School Days’.  What with children and adults alike now be recommended to have 7 – 10 fruit and veg a day it is difficult to keep an eye on them while at school and the best we can do is make sure the meals we are involved in are full of the stuff. So here are a few Back to School Breakfast ideas for you to try:

Pancakes and wraps for Breakfast: make the mix and stick it in the fridge overnight or make them up the night before. Easy to buy in the shops buckwheat pancakes (slow releasing carbs), thick American pancakes or sophisticated thins. Fill these with mixed berries, Greek yoghurt and honey or blackberry and apple puree, banana and honey. Banana and bacon sounds weird but is very delicious.

Seeded wraps: easy and readily available in the shops – poached or scrambled egg with smoked salmon and fresh spinach leaves, cherry tomatoes.

Baked beans on brown toast! Might sound odd but they are a great sauce of protein and fibre

Cereals are often full of refined sugars these days but some have less than others. Check out the others and get them into the habit of adding some fruit on top.

Traffic light scramble: 4 eggs, chopped toms (or good quality tinned), chopped up parsley served on Rye bread

Fruit salad, topped with Greek yoghurt

Homemade Smoothie:  2 handful of fruit (banana, kiwi, melon, plums, raspberries…whatever you like) 2 x Greek yoghurt and add milk to get the right consistency. You can replace the yoghurt with soya, almond or coconut milk if you prefer. If you haven’t got time to make it there are some good readymade brands out there. Serve with thick toasted brown seeded bread, or bagels, fruit bread, oat cakes with peanut butter. The combinations are endless.