Schooling in the Den

One of the life skills we spent time learning in Term 4 was cooking. I’m a passionate foodie and I think everyone should know how to cook, at least enough basics, to be able to feed themselves when they move out of home.
Lucky for me, both my kids are keen to learn. The youngest is getting to be a bit of a whizz with our Thermomix.

So in Term 4 I suggested to the eldest they pick 2 recipes to cook from our menu plan each fortnight and I’d teach her how to make them. Lemon Ginger chicken from the Women’s Weekly Chinese cookbook was one of the first and is now in regular rotation, even so much so they can cook the entire meal by themself.

Main meals include
(with link or Recipe book title)

• Spaghetti bolognaise
• Pizza (base & sauce from Thermofun)
• Lemon Ginger Chicken (Woman’s Weekly Chinese Cooking Class Cookbook p74)
• Sloppy Joes

Lunches

• Pizza Pockets
• Muffin pizza (no recipe, just our favourite pizza toppings on English muffins)
• Mac & Cheese
• Devilled Eggs
• French toast (no recipe, I’ve been cooking this since I was a kid – it’s egg & milk then you dip your bread in, then fry in butter. It’s also known as eggy bread)

Desserts & baking

• Raspberry Flummery (off the Aeroplan jelly packet)
• Beltane cakes
• Solstice bread
• Rocky Road
• White Christmas
• Rum balls (my Mum’s recipe. I’ve got it on my personal blog)
• Scottish Shortbread (my Gran’s recipe. Also on my blog)

We’ve done some cooking over the holidays (Slow Roast Leg of Lamb, Apple Crumble and a ham pasta salad) and are looking at doing 2 recipes a week in Term 1. I have a feeling it may end up being 1 recipe a week though.

The plan is to turn all the recipes they learn into a cookbook that they can continue to add to over the years.

We’ll be back at the end of Term 1 to share what we’ve been up to in the kitchen.