Cooking at school

One of my modules this semester includes cooking. We have three tasks: to prepare a main course meal for someone who is diabetic, for someone with coeliac disease, and for someone who is either over- or under-nourished (my subject is undernourished).

In fact, we aren't assessed so much for cooking, it's more about the accompanying justification for our choices, and evidence of research. I suspect that the cooking has to be included because the majority of the class has only a year or two of cooking experience, having only left home a year or two ago. Some of them have surprisingly little interest in cooking, considering that they are training for a profession that has everything to do with food. One girl had never cooked an egg in any way until one of our practical cooking sessions last year.

The meals that I'm supposed to be adapting are corned beef hash for a diabetic, chicken pie for coeliac disease, and fortified macaroni cheese for an undernourished man.

• The food rules for diabetes pretty much match the healthy eating rules for the general population, although the limits for protein consumption should be more strictly applied. I'm cutting the amount of corned beef and adding extra vegetables.
  
• The chicken pie only has gluten in the pastry and a little flour for thickening the filling, which is easily replaced with cornflour. I made a test pie-crust out of polenta, and it worked pretty well - Mr A ate it without leaving any, so that really is a solid endorsement. It would have been even better if I'd grilled the top to make it even more crusty.
  
• Fortifying the macaroni cheese shouldn't be too difficult either, given the potential for adding cream, more cheese and even salami or other fatty meat.

Home news: Mr A's mood fluctuates with, well, something that goes up and down a lot. I got home late on Thursday after the Computing lecture was late finishing, and he was almost continuously on the phone right through until bedtime. Then he had such a high temperature that I thought I might wake to find just a blackened crisp in bed next to me (he's better now). On other evenings, he just sits opposite me on the sofa, often looking rather downcast.

My schedule of half day lectures every day and the whole day on Monday is making it very difficult to get the coursework done, given that I'm having to spend about 12 hours a week sitting behind a steering wheel. If I don't spend the whole weekend working, I'm going to be in trouble.

Photo taken through the SB library window