Welcome to our cooking blog. Here, we will keep you in touch with some of the exciting things that are cooking in our school. See the amazing cooking done by our children in our ACE Cooks curriculum and find out about Pass it On… our cooking groups for parents to share their favourite recipes. We’d love to read your constructive comments about what you find here!
If you would like to see posts from previous years then go to Home on the menu.
5A had a wonderful time in the teaching kitchen preparing a Greek salad bar for their families during their Arts Fortnight celebration. They impressed with their focus and skills, learning the claw grip and bridge hold, grating and peeling.
They loved filling the pitta pockets with the vegetables they had prepared.
We made falafel using chickpeas, roasted sweet potato, garlic, parsley, lemon juice and olive oil.
Out tzatziki combined Greek yogurt, garlic, lemon juice and fresh mint.
The finished Greek salad bar, which we shared with our families, was really tasty. We tried to make a balanced dish with carbohydrates, vegetables, protein and dairy.
Well done 5A! We’d love to hear about your cooking together at home. Send your comments on the blog or email Room17@allertonceprimary. com.
We made this delicious lentil dahl from Pakistan with Benish and Iram and served it with rice and a super tasty salad. Lovely flavours and a great warming dish. Here’s how we made it…
Ingredients
Basmati rice, brown or red lentils, onions, tomatoes, ground coriander, fresh coriander, green chilli, cumin powder, turmeric, chilli powder.
1. Slice the onions and tomatoes.
2. Wash and soak the lentils. Simmer for 15 -20 minutes with a little onion and the tomatoes.
We had red lentils which cooked in around 15 minutes. Brown lentils, which are whole grain, have even more flavour and need soaking for an hour before cooking or cooking for a little longer.
After a few minutes, add 2 tsp turmeric, 2 tsp cumin, 2 tsp chilli powder, 2 tsp ground coriander. a little garlic. Season with salt.
3. Meanwhile, cook the rice, with a pinch of salt, a cinnamon stick, 3 or 4 cloves, 1tsp cumin seeds and a little oil to stop the rice clumping together.
4. Towards the end of the cooking time of the Dahl, add the chopped coriander.
5. Make a Tarka by frying onion, garlic, green chilli in oil until crispy, stir through the dahl.
6. The salad was made by chopping, lettuce, cucumber, tomato, lemon and onion.
Thank you Benish and Iram.
If you would like to join us at Pass it On or to share a dish that you love, contact Caroline Elliott in school or email Room17@allertonceprimary.com
Greek Salad bar!
5S loved preparing a Greek salad bar to share at their Arts Fortnight Celebration. They learned key cooking skills and that it is important to eat a range of different foods from the Eatwell plate to keep healthy.
Here are our recipes so that you can try them at home. Reply to our blog with your foodie creations!
Pitta Pockets– Perfect lunch or snack after school.
This was our chance to learn some key cooking skills to prepare our salad of carrots, cucumber, tomato, pepper and grated cheese. The children chose foods to fill their pitta pocket. We found we had created a balanced snack with carbohydrate, vegetables, protein and dairy.
Greek Flatbread – So simple and really fun.
500 g Self Raising Flour
4 tablespoons – Greek Yogurt
Mix together with your hands to make a soft dough. Shape into a ball then roll flat.
Cook in a dry frying pan. After 1 minute or 2 bubbles should start to form. Turn the flatbread every 2-3 minutes or as required.
Tzatziki
Peel and grate 1/2 cucumber. Use kitchen paper to squeeze out excess water.
Stir into 200g of Greek yogurt
Mix with 1 tbsp lemon juice and 1 garlic clove crushed.
Finally add 1 tbsp of freshly chopped mint.
Falafel
These are baked not fried so even healthier. We did really well at not drying them out by brushing with a little oil before putting in the oven. These were cooked for 5-10 minutes on each side.
We started by peeling and roasting 2 sweet potatoes for 30 minutes.
Then pulsed them in a blender with 2 cans of chickpeas
1 clove garlic
1 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp cumin
2tbsp fresh chopped parsley
1 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp lemon juice
The best bit was definitely rolling the balls of mixture and flattening slightly on the oiled baking tray.
Celebration
We hope you all enjoyed 5S’s Greek Salad bar! Send us your photos of these keen chefs cooking at home! Great work 5S!
This week Bzaar and Serve shared a delicious fresh salad which comes from Kurdistan originally.
Tomatoes and spring onions are chopped into small pieces along with fresh mint and parsley.
Add boiling water to cover the couscous and leave to stand for 20 minutes.
Finally, the ingredients are combined with a good lug of olive oil and plenty of squeezes of fresh lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper.
We served scoops of the salad on lettuce leaves. So simple and really delicious.
We’re aiming to put these recipes into an ACE cookbook so get in touch if you have a special dish you would like to include.
Join us, next week for Chawal Dahl from Pakistan and on 21st October for Stir-fried Chicken with trio peppers. Can’t wait!
It’s wonderful to be back together, cooking with parents.
This year, Pass it On takes place on Tuesdays 1-2:45 pm.
We kicked off the year with a Mexican Veggie Chilli. We used onions and garlic grown in the school allotment, peppers, tinned beans and tomatoes along with fresh coriander, cumin and cayenne pepper. It was lovely to share the food. Looking forward to next time.
Get in touch if you would like to join us by emailing Room17@allertonceprimary.com.
What will you put in your Greek flatbread?
This year, each class will be cooking as part of their Arts Fortnight. 5J made a brilliant start, keeping the Greek theme to learn the skills to prepare a Greek salad bar.
Hands washed and aprons on, they were ready to cook. They first learned to peel, grate and chop safely using the claw grip and bridge hold to prepare a delicious salad of carrot, cucumber, tomato, pepper and cheddar cheese.
They loved loading their pitta pocket with the salad to make a snack containing all the main food groups: carbohydrate, vegetables and fruit, protein, dairy and oils and spreads.
The Greek flatbreads themselves were made of self raising flour and Greek yogurt, cooked in a dry frying pan. Such a simple bread, which must have been around since the times of the Ancient Greeks, and which makes an easy snack, even today. The children, learned how to cook safely with heat and that they should always do this with adult supervision. The flatbreads didn’t last long – must have been good!
And here we are, busily using all our skills to prepare our slightly Greek salad bar to share with our parents at the Arts Fortnight Celebration.
I often add oregano or sun dried tomatoes to this loaf. You could also add dried fruit and mixed spice to give it an Easter flavour. It is best eaten fresh, however it freezes very well.
150g SRflour
150g natural yoghurt
Toppings of your choice
Start by mixing the flour and yoghurt together to form a soft dough. Add a little more flour if the dough is a bit sticky. Press the dough onto a non stick baking tray, this is your pizza base. Make the base quite thin, no more than 1cm thick as it will rise in the oven. Cover your pizza base with your choice of topping. I used passata but you could use tinned tomatoes, tomato purée or even fresh sliced tomatoes. Add some herbs, fresh or dried. I like oregano but try basil, mixed herbs or anything you fancy. Top with some cheese, mozzarella is traditional but I used cheddar, see what you have in the fridge. Bake at 180oC for 15-20 minutes. Delicious!
You can add anything to your pizza base. Try chopped vegetables, baked beans, ham or maybe leftover chicken. Give it a go and please let us know what ingredients you used and how your pizza turned out.
Hello. It’s a long time since I have done a blog but here goes for the second time today. (I did one this afternoon and the second half disappeared-very frustrating) I just thought if anyone is struggling to get ingredients this recipe might help a bit. Give it a go and let me know how it went!