Hooked on cooking – burgers it shall be!

So far we've covered the pizza and the sandwich. I know I mentioned the burger too so I think, in the interests of holding the students interest lets do the burger.

It's the same recipe as for the meatballs :

Burgers

Per 2 students

500g minced beef, pork or turkey

*salt and black pepper

*garlic – either 2 tsps of paste or 2 cloves, crushed

*mixed herbs or garlic italian seasoning – a generous sprinkle

*half a tsp of chilli

*heaped tbsp of tomato paste

*1 egg

sprinkle of plain flour

Rapeseed or vegetable oil for shallow frying

Place the mince in a large mixing bowl then add the remaining ingredients marked *, mix well. At this point your mixture may be too wet. If it is, sprinkle a little plain flour over the mixture and fold in gently.

The easiest way of making uniform burgers is to weigh whatever amount you wish – 50g or 100g depending on size of appetites - with damp hands. Using a large frying pan, heat the oil gently and seal the burgers on both sides.

At this point you have a choice, you can continue to cook the burgers in the pan or you can transfer to an oven-proof dish and pop into a pre-heated oven 160fan/180c/Gas 4 for 20 minutes.

Serve on burger buns or a brioche version, toasted – add a cheese slice for a cheeseburger.

Wrap in a square of greaseproof paper and a serviette – your very own fast food!  

Hooked on cooking – dessert design

Following on from the idea of using the Smoothie Cups with lids here's the first “dessert design” to fill them.

Nothing is set in stone and free expression brings creativity and fun – all you need to provide is the wherewithal. You can spend whatever your budget allows.

Here's my basic recipe – use it as a template :

Pantry Parfait

(or pantry trifle)

Chocolate walnut cake

OR

Chocolate muffins

OR

Chocolate swiss roll (M&S the best)

Morello cherry conserve

(M&S 340g £1.70)

Chocolate ganache - 250g dark chocolate

& 360ml double cream

Chopped sour cherries and chocolate chips

for decoration

As a rough guide, allow 75g of cherry conserve per person. Melt the conserve gently adding a drop of water to loosen. Allow to cool.

For the ganache heat the cream over a medium heat, bring just to the boil, then pour over the chocolate whisking until smooth. Allow to cool before use.

To assemble, slice the cake, cut into thin rounds and layer it with the cooled conserve – you can have any many layers as you wish.

Add a spoonful of ganache and sprinkle chopped sour cherries and chocolate chips to decorate.

Suitable substitutes :

Use fresh fruit in season – i.e. strawberries together with strawberry jam, instead of cherries.

Mix fresh fruit with tins or cartons of pie filling, available from larger supermarkets and in various flavour combinations.

Finally, to avoid the plastic “glassware” tipping over, “glue” the glasses to the work surface with a small amount of Blu-Tack or, a damp j cloth will help keep them reasonably stable and avoid any mishaps.

You could provide a can of cream – the kind that they can shake and spray to finish off their creations. This is quite obviously not meant to be the healthy option, it's meant to get your students' attention for the more adventurous stuff to come. Your main aim is to keep them hooked!

Hooked on cooking – picnic plastic!

A little imagination goes a long way – especially when it doesn't cost lots of dosh. Have a mooch around your cheap and cheerful stores – method in the madness – receptacles that don't cost the earth but make excellent containers for building trifles or whatever you'd like to call them. I give you my latest find, Smoothie Cups with lids – 8 per pack – cost £1.

If you don't want lids then you can get packs of half pint and pint measures for the same price.

You could introduce a touch of competition and if you are “supervising” a group of say 4, then get someone else to judge the best and give a small prize – in the interests of impartiality, it shouldn't be you!

You don't have to spend dosh at all if you have a stash of empty jam jars – clean of course. Safety may be an issue depending on the ages of your students.

There's a huge selection of all sorts of picnic plastic out there, especially if your intention is to save on washing up – which, by the way, is the responsibility of your students – not the Supervisor!

Hooked on cooking – the main event!

Ringing the changes, today's session will be cooking supper for tonight.

The recipe that follows is easy and makes really tasty meatballs, together with a tomato sauce. All you'll have to do later on is cook the spaghetti – can't be bad! As a rough guide 450g of minced meat will give you twelve meatballs, so if you've four students with 450g per two students, you'll have 24 meatballs in total – this is not an exact science since your students are new at this and the sizes may vary!

Meatballs

450g minced beef, pork or turkey

*salt and black pepper

*garlic – either 2 tsps of paste or 2 cloves, crushed

*mixed herbs or garlic Italian seasoning – a generous sprinkle

*half a tsp of chilli

*heaped tbsp of tomato paste

*1 egg

sprinkle of plain flour

Rapeseed or vegetable oil for shallow frying

Place the mince in a large mixing bowl then add the remaining ingredients marked *, mix well. At this point your mixture may be too wet. If it is, sprinkle a little plain flour over the mixture and fold in gently.

Use a teaspoon as a measure and heaped with mixture, roll it between your hands and set aside on a board. When the meatballs are ready, heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry on a low heat, gently and carefully shaking the pan to ensure they are evenly coloured – use tongs if you are accident prone! Seal the meatballs in batches - 8 at a time and then transfer to an oven-proof dish or foil tray ready for later – cool, cover and fridge.

When you are ready for supper later in the day place the dish or tray containing the meatballs in a pre-heated oven 180fan/200c/Gas 6 and complete the cooking for 20/30 minutes – this time will vary depending on the sizes of the meatball – ensure that they are properly cooked – cut a larger one in half to be sure. Whilst the meatballs are in the oven cook your spaghetti and warm up the tomato sauce.

It may be that your students won't be interested in the tomato sauce element – it depends on their attention span – but it's easy to do and takes no time at all – in fact the sauce will improve with “standing” so if it is the case that you are making the sauce you can make it the day before, cover and fridge - after all your students have supplied the main event!

Tomato Sauce

500g sieved tomatoes or the equivalent in cans of chopped tomatoes

1 medium/large onion, chopped finely

garlic clove or tsp of minced garlic

1tbsp olive oil

knob of butter

vegetable stock pot and 250ml of boiling water

oregano or garlic Italian seasoning

black pepper

1 tsp caster sugar

Melt the olive oil and butter in a saucepan, add the onion and fry gently until soft then add the garlic. Add the oregano or garlic Italian seasoning and black pepper. Then add your stock pot and boiling water so that it melts, add the tomatoes and sprinkle on the tsp of sugar. The sugar is meant to balance out the acidity that one sometimes gets with tomatoes. Simmer the sauce for about 20 minutes.

N.B. If you want to add extra depth you can add a tbsp of tomato paste. I would suggest that you taste your sauce before you simmer for 20 minutes. If you add paste then the simmering process will cook it out and its important that you do this - it tastes horrid if you don't. A lot depends on personal taste and how good your tomatoes are.

Here's hoping your students are hooked and the rest of the family too!

Hooked on cooking!

Two small pieces of advice. If your time is “fluid” in that you can change any plans to suit yourselves then check the weather forecast – if it's going to be a great day, use it – when it's not good - cook! Design your students' cooking sessions for the mornings – if you leave it until the afternoon they'll have lost any enthusiasm and would much prefer to sit with whatever game and/or device is flavour of the month!

Since you've only just embarked on your mission to create the next culinary genius – be smart – let them be creative with their lunch today.

Definitely up there with the pizza and burger culture is the sandwich – in this case a toasted version. Most people (that eat meat that is) like a toasted ham and cheese sandwich, here's my suggestion and if you have non meat eaters omit the ham and by the way, if you are watching the pennies then don't use Gruyére cheese, use a mature cheddar instead.

Croque Monsieur

aka posh toasted sandwich

aka signature sarnie

Serves 2

4 slices of medium sliced wholemeal bread

2 tsp Dijon mustard

75g (3oz) Gruyere cheese (grated)

2 slices of ham – wafer ham works well – as good a quality as you can afford

30g (1½oz) unsalted butter

Use funky cutters!

Preheat oven to 160fan/180c/Gas 4

Spread ½ tsp of mustard over each slice of bread.

Spread half the cheese on two slices of bread followed by the ham, remaining cheese on top. Sandwich together with the other two slices of bread.

Cut out the shapes chosen.

Heat the butter in a frying pan until foaming – fry your croque monsieur on a gentle heat for 1-2 minutes on each side and transfer onto a baking sheet – repeat until all your croques are ready, place the sheet into the oven for 4/5 minutes and then serve.

The benefit of using cutters is that each student can choose their own – easily identifiable when out of the oven and ready to serve – no arguments. If, like me, you've a huge box full of assorted cutters you might even have initials – even better.

So, some supervision is required for the final stage – note to self – don't forget a sandwich for you!

Lets make afters

My first “afters” offering in “get them hooked on cooking” is Pinwheels. Once again minimum work in the way of prep for the supervisor, only a few minutes and the night before works well for me! No stress and maximum fun for the budding chefs.

Pinwheels

1 sheet of frozen puff pastry, thawed in fridge (375g)

15g butter, melted

50g dark chocolate drops (or finely chopped)

25g ground almonds

25g dried cherries, finely chopped

25g craisins, finely chopped

1 egg, lightly beaten with 1 tbsp milk

Preheat your oven 180c fan/200c/Gas 6. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper or similar. Unroll the pastry sheet and lay with the short sides left and right, you are going to roll to form a log.

Brush the surface of the pastry and melted butter then scatter the chocolate and ground almonds leaving a border at the top end of the pastry to enable you to “glue” the log when rolled. Then scatter the cherries and craisins over the chocolate and almonds. Carefully roll up from one of the shortest sides as tightly as you can forming a log.

Using a sharp knife, cut the log into 12 even slices. Place on the baking tray and brush with the remaining butter, then the beaten egg mixture. Bake for 15-20 minutes until puffed and golden.

Fondant Glaze

75g icing sugar

2-3 tsps boiling water

Pour the boiling water slowly over the icing sugar in a small bowl while stirring the mixture with a wooden spoon. Pour in only enough water to make a creamy mixture that has the consistency of pancake batter. Cool. You need to make sure the mixture isn't too stiff, you need to be able to drizzle the glaze over your pastries.

Here's some helpful illustrations and the end result.

Take a tip or three :

Use the greaseproof wrapping with the pastry sheet as a base to roll the pinwheels.

Place a damp j cloth on your worktop and then the sheet on top – it will avoid it ending up on the floor!

When you get to the stage of slicing into 12 portions mark the roll in the middle, and then each half again (i.e. quarters) and then divide each quarter into 3 – there's a fighting chance of reasonably even pinwheels.

I warn you – these will vanish at the speed of light – it's a good idea to have two batches 1 x 2 kids.

Lets make lunch

If you've ever had to cope with grumpy teenagers then a crucial ingredient in the “hook” is speed – not for nothing do we call it “fast food”.

In this spirit, first up is the Stromboli previously mentioned in the blog. In my opinion it cannot fail – it suits young and old alike – if you're overwhelmed by the size of a whole pizza Stromboli does away with this problem because you can help yourself to as many small slices as you wish.

In your “supervisory” prep ahead you might like to think about providing a range of toppings so that the kids can choose whatever they want to fill their stromboli. For example, ham, pineapple, chicken, sweetcorn, olives, salami, pepperoni, mushroom, peppers, onions, greenery of your choice i.e. baby spinach, blah blah! You get the picture – you know best the likes and dislikes of your charges.

Here's the recipe again for ease of reference :

Stromboli

400g prepared pizza dough or ready-made base

4 tbsp tomato paste

100g thinly sliced salami

120g baby spinach

100g thinly sliced mozzarella cheese

1 tbsp olive oil

Generous sprinkle of oregano or garlic Italian seasoning

Pre-heat your oven 220fan/200c/Gas 8. Place a large baking tray in the oven.

Place a dampened J cloth on your work surface. Place a piece of baking parchment on top of the cloth – it will stop it sliding – make sure you leave enough to get hold of – you're going to lift it onto the hot baking tray that's in the oven at the moment. Unroll the pizza dough gently on the parchment.

Spread the tomato paste onto the base. Add the slices of salami, followed by the spinach and then the mozzarella and sprinkle with the oregano or garlic Italian seasoning. Roll up the base from the shortest side and brush with the olive oil - make sure it's seam-side down when placed on the tray.

WITH CARE remove the tray from the oven and then carefully lift the parchment and the rolled up pizza onto it. Place back in the oven for 20/25 minutes until golden brown – check at 20 minutes.

When removed from the oven slice into portions to suit and serve.

Choose any of your favourite pizza toppings to create your own Stromboli – the fastest pizza ever.

Asda for the prepared pizza dough - £1.30 per 400g pack.

If you want to know what it looks like, check out Salad revival Italian style: Stromboli for the salad.