More Cooking with Children

These are the recipes from another English camp I have taught with my students. They really enjoyed the Calzones, the wedges... unfortunately didn't get cooked all the way through, so the one group that had the best wedges kept having the other students coming around to steal theirs, and then the muffins... were really good.

The problem with cooking at the particular school I was teaching these recipes at, is that I have only 1 oven in my apartment, and when I take that with me to school (it's only a table top oven of 45l in size), not everyone's food fits in it at once, and the cooking time is extended because of so much food in the poor oven. We end up running out of time because of it. So if you were doing this with a small group of students/children it would be much easier, and you would be able to guarantee foods are cooked correctly, which would improve the appreciation rate of the chefs-in-training.

So here are the recipes we used...

Pizza Calzone dough

3/4 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast

3/4 cup warm water

2-1/4 teaspoons olive oil

3/4 teaspoon white sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

1-3/4 cups and 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour, divided

3/4 teaspoon olive oil

To Make Dough: In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Add the oil, sugar and salt; mix in 1 cup of the flour until smooth. Gradually stir in the rest of the flour, until dough is smooth and workable. Knead dough on a lightly floured surface for about 5 minutes, or until it is elastic. Lay dough in a bowl containing 1 teaspoon olive oil, then flip the dough, cover and let rise for 40 minutes, or until almost doubled.

Calzone Filling

1 sausage per person

1 bottle of pizza sauce

1 100g bag of grated cheese

Make the filling. Cut up 1 sausage per person in your group. Use 1 bottle of pizza sauce. One bag of cheese. Mix all the ingredients together.

Putting the Calzone together...

When dough is ready, punch it down and separate it into 2 equal parts. Roll parts out into thin circles on a lightly floured surface. Fill each circle with filling and fold over, securing edges by folding in and pressing with a fork. Brush the top of each calzone with egg and place on a lightly greased cookie sheet.

Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 30 minutes. Serve hot.

Wedges

450g potatoes, washed, peeled

 2 tablespoons olive oil

 Salt & freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven 220°C. Line a baking tray with non-stick baking paper.

Cut the potatoes in half lengthways, then cut each half into 1.5cm-thick wedges and place in a large bowl. Put wedges into a pot of boiling water and boil for 10 minutes.

Spread the potatoes in a single layer over the lined tray and drizzle with oil and sprinkle with salt. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes until tender and crisp. Serve immediately.

Choc-Orange Muffins  (This recipe is the same as the no milk, egg, butter or bowls cake, but with the orange juice in place of the water)

1 1/2 Cups flour (all-purpose)

3 Tbsp. cocoa (unsweetened)

1 Cup sugar

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp.  salt

1 tsp. white vinegar

1 tsp.  pure vanilla extract

5 Tbsp. vegetable oil 

1 Cup Orange juice 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix first 5 dry ingredients in a bowl.  

Make 3 depressions in dry ingredients - two small, one larger.

Pour vinegar in one depression, vanilla in the other and the vegetable oil in third larger depression.  

Pour orange juice over all.  Mix well until smooth.

Put a scoop into each muffin liner

Put into the oven and back for 12-15 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.