This week healthy eating by cooking meat, fish and vegetables in a parcel in the oven. Cooking in this way makes it nice and healthy due to the food being steamed within the oven and all the flavours joins together to make a great flavoursome meal.

We made the parcels with turkey, chicken and cod but you could use any fish, any vegetables can be used but they must be cut into the same size pieces so they will all cook at the same time. We used stir fry vegetables, carrots, new potatoes, green beans, leeks, peppers to name but a few, garlic and lemons were used by a few students. Sweet chilli sauce and sweet and sour sauce were used to enhance the flavours. The parcels were made with greaseproof paper but you could use kitchen foil, which would be easier to seal together. They take about 30 minutes to cook but make sure that the meat and vegetables are cooked thoroughly before eating, if it is not ready then put back in the oven and look after 10 minutes.








Students enjoying cooking!











Mrs Campbell enjoying a taster!!

Tonight we decided to make cookies, scones, rock buns or cakes to help us raise money for red nose day tomorrow. All the students including some new recruits came along and had a wonderful time with all the ingredients.
Here is an example of the food produced:








Here are the recipes for you to try:

Cookies Makes 18

100 g (4 oz) margarine
75 g (3 oz) soft light brown sugar
2 x 15 ml spoon (2 tbsp) syrup
175 g (6 oz) Be-Ro Self Raising Flour
100g (4oz) Fruit, chocolate drops, marshmallows, coconut
2 x 15 ml spoon (2 tbsp) milk


1 Heat oven to 180ºC, 350ºF, Gas Mark 4. Grease two baking trays.
2 Beat the margarine until soft, add the sugar and cream together until light and fluffy.
3 Stir in the syrup, flour, fruit etc and milk and mix well.
4 Place spoonfuls of the mixture on the prepared trays and bake for 8-10 minutes. Remove from the tray immediately and place on a wire rack to cool.


Rich Scones MAKES 8

225 g (8oz) Be-Ro Self Raising Flour
50 g (2oz) margarine
25 g (1oz) caster sugar
50 g (2oz) Dried fruit/coconut/cherries/dates/walnuts
1 medium egg, beaten with sufficient milk to make 150 ml (¼ pint) liquid

1 Heat oven to 220ºC, 425ºF, Gas Mark 7 and grease a baking tray.
2 Mix flour, rub in margarine and stir in sugar and fruit.
3 Add egg mixture and milk reserving a little for brushing the tops.
4 Knead lightly on a floured surface and roll out to 1 cm (½ inch) in thickness and cut into 6.5 cm (2½ inch) rounds.
5 Re-roll the trimmings and cut more rounds.
6 Brush the tops with egg and milk and bake for about 10 minutes.


Rock Buns Makes 16

225 g (8 oz) Be-Ro Self Raising Flour
100 g (4 oz) margarine
100 g (4 oz) dried fruit
50 g (2 oz) caster sugar
1 medium egg
milk to mix

1 Heat oven to 200ºC, 400ºF, Gas Mark 6. Grease two baking trays.
2 Mix the flour and salt, rub in the margarine.
3 Stir in the dried fruit, mixed peel and sugar.
4 Mix to a stiff dough with egg and milk.
5 Place in rough heaps on the baking tray and bake for 10-15 minutes.

Tonight we made healthy option cakes. Every student chose their own fruit to put into their delicious cakes and each took home 12 cakes to enjoy at home. Take a look at the picture and then try the recipes at home, so you can enjoy them as much as we did.


Date and sultana cakes made with muscavado sugar, tropical fruit cakes and sugarless banana and fruit cakes.


Fruit cake recipe

225 g (8 oz) Self Raising Flour
100 g (4 oz) margarine
100 g (4 oz) caster sugar (use brown or muscavado for a different taste)
175 g (6 oz) mixed dried fruit (tropical, cranberries, blueberries etc)
2 medium eggs
2 x 15 ml spoon (2 tbsp) milk

1
Heat oven to 180ºC, 350ºF, Gas Mark 4. Grease an 18 cm (7 inch) cake tin, or make 12 muffin size small cakes which will take less time.
2
Mix flour, rub in margarine.
3
Stir in sugar and fruit. Beat together eggs and milk.
4
Mix together to a soft consistency.
5
Place in prepared tin and bake for about 50 minutes. Small cakes should take about 25-30minutes. Check if ready by placing your finger on the top if the sponge is ready it will spring back up.

VARIATIONS

Lemon and Sultana
Add 175 g (6 oz) sultanas and grated rind of 1 lemon.

Dried fruit
Add 175g (6oz) any dried fruit eg apricots, cranberries, blueberries, cherries etc some students added lemon zest and juice to their mixture.

Date
Add 75 g (3 oz) chopped dates and add 25g (1 oz) walnuts if you like.


You can add coconut to make a different textured cake by omitting 30g or 60g (1 oz/2 oz) of flour and replacing with coconut. One student sprinkled coconut on top of the cakes to make a crunchy topping.

Try lots of different combinations we did and they all looked and tasted great.

What a wonderful and exciting night we had at Chamberlains restaurant. Chamberlains opened especially for our Cook It Club so we could enjoy a night to tantalise our taste buds.

Mark Chamberlain really liked the Thank You cards made by Lauren and Tori.

Pictures of the students enjoying their meals.

Spicy vegetables and lovely liver were only two of the 10 dishes prepared for us to enjoy.

We all had a fantastic time and the students really enjoyed meeting a real chef and trying Chamberlains wonderful food.

Thank You again to Mark Chamberlain for letting us enjoy his wonderful food.

You could visit Chamberlains restaurant on Station Road, Redcar for reasonably priced wonderful tasting food. Call 01642 491300 and have a meal to remember, also open on dinner times, booking advisable.

The Circuit and the Evening Gazette also joined us on the night and have published our story of the night.