Can you help me, help my daughter....

Pink.

.....to pass her GCSE Home Economics practical?

She needs a menu. It has to be a three course meal that would be a nutritious for a mum-to-be. Obviously it needs to be high in protien, carbs, vitamins and minerals.

My daughter's ideas:

Starter: Minestrone soup a la Delia
(personally I feel this is a bit heavy as a starter, especially as her HE teacher has suggested she serve it with home made wheaten bread. Usually I make it as a main course served with lots of crusty bread.)

Main course: She likes the idea of fish pie.........we don't have a proper recipe as I usually make it up as I go along. She wants something along the lines of fish/veg in a cheese sauce, topped with mashed potatoes.

Dessert: All suggestions appreciated.........at the moment the best we can come up with is a fruit salad :rolleyes:


My daughter has three hours to produce this meal under exam conditions!

I would really appreciate any help anyone can give us to achieve a healthy (easy for a fifteen year old to make) well balanced meal for a mum-to-be.

Pink

apprentice_tycoon

my first thought is that there is a lot of veg prep here, and not just peeling, there is the dice for the soup, then spuds and all the fruit. I think that maybe a pureed soup, the fish pie and a baked egg custard is a little less hands-on.

I wonder if she gets extra marks for difficulty? the egg custard is dead easy to make, so is a pureed soup.

Penny-Pincher!!

Hi

If the menu is specific for someone pregnant, then I would probably do a basic veg blended soup (served with a chunk of HM granary bread & butter), the fish pie and love the idea of egg custard-but make sure the eggs are cooked well. Would also add extra marvel milk powder to the soup and the fish pie for added protein and calcium-you may get extra brownie points for this Maybe add a little cheese to the mash for the pie and a few peas in with the fish and sauce too.

Good Luck

PP
xx

Becles

Is the GCSE loophole on ingredients still working?

When I did it (in 1991!), if you wrote your ingredients list and had:
1 onion
1 pepper
1 carrot
you had to take in each whole vegetable and prepare it in the exam.

However, if you wrote:
1 onion, chopped
1 pepper, diced
1 carrot, grated
you could do the veg prep at home and take in little bags of ready chopped veg!

It's worth asking as it will save valuable minutes and leave more time for actual cooking.

se999

Had a look and found the official Food standards agency guidelines of what to eat and what to avoid during pregnancy. I assume she's got to follow these to get the best marks.

Here's the link:

http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/agesandstages/pregnancy/whenyrpregnant/

Hope it helps

foreverskint

how about broccolli soup ( folic acid ) and less veg prep.

If I remember correctly from my exam days, you need to go for a variety of textures, so if you have soup to start, you need to go for a less mushy texture for main.

i would try to include a red meat main course for iron. Can't think at the moment

for pud how about a dried fruit crumble.
Use mixed dried fruits stewed with tea & vanilla pod and topped with an oaty crumble mix. The dried fruits again contain some iron and folic acid ( apricots) so should score extra marks for preggie mum. the tea is an antioxidant and the oats are good for the heart. The prunes good for constipation!

arkonite_babe

Hows about:

Vegetable Soup
1 onion chopped
1 carrot chopped
1 small leek chopped
smal handful parsley chopped
1 0z soup mix (lentils, split peas and barley)
1 veg stock cube
1 pint of water
For the veg soup I'm assuming she can do this without instructions from me
Served with your granary bread.

Fish Pie
1 piece white fish
2 oz butter
2 tablespoons flour
1 pint milk (or skimmed powdered milk made up)
2 potatoes

Method:
Peel and cube potatoes and place in water to boil
Steam white fish (a la school style, on a plate over the potatoes while you boil them)


White Sauce/ Cheese Sauce
2 oz marg or butter
2 oz flour
500ml milk
seasoning

Method:
Make white sauce: Melt butter stir in flour until mix is thick then slowly add milk a bit at a time whisking continuously until all is added in and you have a thick creamy sauce. Let cook for a few minutes to ensure flour roux is cooked thoroughly. Season with salt and pepper to taste. If making cheese sauce stir in 2 oz grated chees at this stage and allow to melt.


Remove steamed fish from Plate and flake, place in oven dish, add white sauce to cover. Don't use it all if you don't have to. Mash boiled potatoes and use a small knob of butter to cream them. Pile potatoes on fish mix, smooth over to cover fish. Ruffle potatoes with a fork. Place under grill to brown potato topping.

Serve with peas or other veggies you'd like, garnish with a small piece of parsley.

For pudding I would stick to a fresh fruit salad made from
1 apple chunked
1 orange segmented
small handful of grapes cut into halves.
mix this all well in a serving dish and pour over some fresh orange or apple juice instead of using a sugar syrup. Could be garnished with a sprig of fresh mint.


I'm thinking back to when I did my HE practical. Can't remember what the brief was but I cooked:

Prawn Cocktail
Chicken and Broccoli Bake, served with mashed potatoes
Fruit fool

Seem monumental at the time to do and we had to have a timeline written out. EG, 9am turn oven to 180 o
9.05am peel potatoes etc etc etc

If you need any help Pink let me know and I will go through my catering books to see what else I can dig up for her;)

cath-w

I have a really good rice dish that takes only a little bit of preperation. It is great as you chuck it all in one pan and then cook in the oven. You can keep it warm in the oven for some time too.

Here is the recipe :

chopped garlic
brown rice (200 grams)
french beans / fine beans
peppers (yellow and either red or green)
tomatoes (peeled and chopped) - about 5
Vegetable stock cube (about 2 in a pint of water)
Pan with a lid that can be put into the oven

- Pour boiling water over the tomatoes and leave until skins burst. Peel tomotoes and chop roughly.
- chop garlic and throw in the pan
- cut up the deseeded peppers into rings and throw in the pan
- trim the beans and throw in the pan
- put rice in pan
- put chopped tomotoes in pan
- pour the stock cube over the contents of the pan - enure that all the rice is covered
- cook for about 45 mins on 200 C

Be careful as the pan handle taken from the oven will be very hot

Serve with a tuna steak perhaps? You can just season and then griddle cook the tuna



For the starter you can try a roast red onion soup.

Roughly chop some red onions and place in a oven proof dish. Pour a little olive oil over the top and season with pepper etc.

Bake in the oven for 20-30 mins. Don't let them burn or go black though as you can really taste this in the soup. Remove onions from oven and liquidise with a little stock. Add some herbs and serve with bread.

Both these recipes sound quite complicated and very grown up food, but are actualy easy to cook. It should leave her with a bit more time to do a pudding too. Also, there is a good balance of olive oil, garlic, vegetables, rice and fish in the two dishes.

Good luck

rchddap1

I will echo the need to make sure that there is plenty of Iron in the meal. During my sister's pregancy she ended up in hospital, and later stayed with Mum due to a condition that can be caused by lack of Iron in the diet.

squeaky

I'm probably stating the obvious but could you choose maybe two options of those offered in the thread for each course and then make them at home as part of your own normal meal plan. Not only does your youngling get to practice making them and figure out which would be best, possibly, for preparation - but also the most essential thing of all - a taste test

Lillibet_2

When I was pregnant earlier this year I found myself eating lots of fruit crumbles (partly becuase they were easy to whip up & satisfying on my "off" days but that's beside the point) with ginger added to the fruit to ward off the nausea & porridge oats in the topping for extra folic acid.

Anything with tinned tuna or tinned salmon was highly recommended as it contained LOTS of calcium. What about a tinned salmon fish pie with brocolli in a pureeded sweetcorn sauce rather than a white/cheese sauce?

HTH