Chicken Originally uploaded by wjharrison77.

My seniors were doing some peer assessment of their travel writing today. They just started to write yesterday after a week of reading articles by, among others, Paul Theroux (my favourite) and Bill Bryson (far from a favourite). The class loved Bryson and hated Theroux. Boooo, I said. Booooooo!
After reviewing the conventions of travel writing (for example, the mixture of personal experience plus facts) the pupils began writing their opening paragraphs. The following period the class read each other’s work and pointed out what was working well and what required improvement. I had a peek at the paragraphs too and I must say that, despite their shoddy choice of role model, their efforts were superb, especially considering these were the class’s first drafts. A few extracts that made me smile:

• Some people say the town is a fading glory. Many go as far as to call it tacky. But to me it’s simply brilliant. From the pleasure beach to the tower, the sandy beach to the hoards of tourists; I love Blackpool!

• (On Edinburgh)
The one o’clock cannon goes off and 3,000 people have a near heart attack. The odd couple worriedly wonder where the cannonball goes.

• Being a tcheuchter, I obviously cannot comment on the modern ways of the lowlander. With their new fangled televisions and four-wheeled cars us Highlanders don’t have a hope in hell of understanding how they live. Or so they’d have us believe!

A “tcheuchter”, for you non-Scots, is a person who lives in the countryside. Who you call a tcheuchter (or tchuech) depends on where you live. Coming from a village, I would be a tchuech to a city dweller. But farm folk are tcheuchs to me. And the farmers I know have a tcheuch hierarchy too! It’s all relative.  🙂

Dinner last night was very low maintenance and very good.

Chicken with Tomatoes and Peppers
(serves 2)

4 x chicken thighs (bone in)
300 g cherry tomatoes
1 orange, red or yellow pepper, sliced thickly
1 chilli pepper, sliced
100 ml stock (or water)
Handful of basil leaves
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

• Heat the oven to 180oC
• Season the chicken well.
• Put the first 6 ingredients into a tight fitting oven proof dish and drizzle with the olive oil.
• Cover with tin foil and put in the oven for an hour.
• Remove tinfoil and cook at 200oC for another 20-30 mins, until browned.

We ate this with some super healthy steamed green beans and some highly unhealthy garlic bread.

Im so handsome!

Originally uploaded by genna.rhodes.

Feeling ridiculously happy this evening. Had two surprises today. Firstly, an ex-pupil popped in to school to say hello. In a small community, as Alness is, this shouldn’t be a huge deal but Ramseena moved back to Kerala in India last year. She turned up today in my last class in a stunningly beautiful blue and gold sari rendering my boisterous (but lovely) third years speechless. Oh, I wish, I wish, I wish I’d had a camera. To have captured Ramseena in what turned out to be her honeymoon sari would have been wonderful. It was a truly bizarre sight to see such a sparkling vision in a dusty, grey computing room.

    Secondly, one of my pupils from last term gave me a bunch of flowers to say thank you for teaching her. Now, my aunt and cousin are primary (elementary) school teachers and are inundated with gifts at several points in the year. This doesn’t happen as a secondary school teacher! Was so chuffed I shed a wee tear – much to the horror of the pupil, I should add. And, if all this wasn’t enough I have a cracking weekend coming up. Off to Aberdeenshire to see my parents, go to a food festival (Taste of Grampian – will report back) and visit my best friend and her new puppy, Rufus. Isn’t he a cutie? Enough gushing. Dinner this evening was very simple but exceptionally successful. More of a suggestion than a recipe, I think.

Artichoke Heart & Parsley Omelette

20g butter
4 artichoke hearts, tinned or marinated
Palmful of fresh parsley
3 Eggs
Salt and Pepper

• Melt half the butter in a frying pan.
• Saute the hearts gently for a minute (just to heat through).
• Meanwhile, beat the eggs, parsley and seasoning gently.
• Cut the remaining butter into little cubes and add to egg mixture.
• Pour egg mixture into hot pan and stir a few times.
• When the omelette just begins to set fold in half.

My omelettes always look terrible. This one tasted fab though!

Met my new Higher class today.  They are a lively bunch and seem very keen to do well.  This is their fourth year together as a class so they have a very strong group identity.  So much so, in fact, that this morning I had to fight the feeling that I was a guest in my own classroom.  It always takes a wee while to get to know a group and work out the class dynamic.  Wondering if this will be a lengthier process since the group already have a dynamic.  We’ll see. 

Starting the term with a travel writing project.  Reading/examining writing by Paul Theroux, Bruce Chatwin, Bill Bryson and some extracts from a Lonely Planet travel writing anthology.  The pupils will use what they learn to write their own travel piece.

Talking of travel, a friend of mine was in Sicily last year and fell in love with a spiced aubergine salad.  She told me all about it and I began looking for recipes.  There were plenty to be found!  I’ve tried out several different versions of the dish and all have been lovely.  In Roast Chicken and Other Stories (one of my favourite cookbooks, though I’m not at all keen on the sniffy sequel, Second Helpings) Simon Hopkinson tell us the salad was a favourite of Elizabeth David.  What more do you need to know?  Hopkinson’s version uses allspice instead of cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg.  I prefer the latter combination as it provides more of a kick to liven up out-of-season tomatoes.  When tomatoes are at their best/tastiest the allspice version might be better.

This is my entry for Joanna’s HotM vegetable round-up.

Aubergine Salad

(serves 2)

1 aubergine (eggplant), diced

Salt

Olive oil

4 big, juicy tomatoes, roughly chopped

1/2 tspn cumin

2 cloves

Pinch of nutmeg

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Pinch of cayenne pepper

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 tbspn raisins

1 tbspn fresh mint, chopped

1 tbspn fresh coriander, chopped

Extra virgin olive oil

• Put the diced aubergine into a colander and sprinkle a generous amount of salt over it.  Leave for an hour.  (Salting aubergines was originally to draw out any bitter juices.  Apparently the majority of aubergines available these days don’t need this treatment.  I tried salting and not salting.  The former version was tastier and the salt seemed to help the aubergine brown when fried.)
• Fry the spices and garlic in a generous lug of olive oil for one minute.  Add the sliced onion and fry until golden.
• Add the tomatoes to the spiced onion and cook gently for 20 mins.  Add the raisins and remove from the heat.
• In a seperate pan, heat another generous lug of olive oil and fry the aubergine in batches until golden. This can take some time.
• Combine tomato mixture with aubergines and herbs.  Taste for seasoning.
• Serve at room temperature drizzled with extra virgin olive oil.

This is great as a bruschetta topping or simply eaten with a spoon.

tomato pastaOriginally uploaded by wjharrison77.

Tomorrow I’m off to Charleston Academy to meet with the other members of the Highland AiFL Associated Schools Group. Six (?) English teachers from across the region are meeting up to discuss our individual AiFL projects. I’ve written a case study based on the self-assessment/modelling technique I blogged about earlier this year. I’m a little worried about my lack of evidence. The kids all kept their essays for revision and I wasn’t organised enough to copy them first… Have managed to scraped together something. Don’t feel it exemplifies the results very well though.

After a great Saturday night with some visiting Swedish friends I spent today in the garden working off a wee hangover. Amongst other things I have now attached the greenhouse to the garage. If it blows away again the garage is going with it! When lunch time came I was famished and wanted something fast.

Not even sure this qualifies as a recipe.

Cherry Tomato, Rocket & Basil Spaghetti
(for 1)

A handful of cherry tomatoes, seeds squeezed out and roughly chopped
A handful of rocket
6 or so basil leaves, torn up
1 small garlic clove, crushed
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and Pepper
100g wholewheat spaghetti

• Combine the tomatoes, rocket, basil, garlic, and oil. Season to taste and leave to marinate.
• Cook the spaghetti in plenty of boiling salted water.
• Drain spaghetti and add to tomato mixture. Mix gently.

lentilsOriginally uploaded by wjharrison77.

The fourth years and the seniors are now on study leave giving me lots of free periods to sort out my room and develop materials. Haven’t quite started yet… It seems I work better under pressure. But not only is next week the school’s activity week during which I will be out and about for four out of five days, the following week our new timetable begins. Really ought to make the most of this week. I like to be super organised when I first meet a class. First impressions really do count in the classroom.

Starting to feel the pressure now – thank goodness!

Lentil Salad

The recipe I adapted this from calls this “Lentil Tabbouleh” but my Larousse tells me a tabbouleh is made from bulgar wheat only. So I’ll call it a salad instead.
Pedant? Me?

250g Puy lentils, rinsed well
1 onion, peeled
1 garlic clove, whole but squashed a bit
4 spring onions, chopped
1 red pepper, finely chopped
1 green chilli pepper, finely chopped
Big handful of fresh parsley and coriander, chopped
1 tbpn balsalmic vinegar
3 tbsn extra virgin olive oil
Seasoning

• Cover lentils in plenty of water (no salt!). Add the whole onion and garlic clove.
• Bring to the boil. Simmer until just cooked (anywhere between 20 – 40 mins). Drain well.
• Add the rest of the ingredients to the warm lentils and season well.
• Serve warm or cold. Keeps well in the fridge for a few days.