LIFE = EDUCATION, EDUCATION = LIFE

Only a short one today as not much going on.  Woke with major headache this morning and Callum was up late.  Cuppa made for me, bless him, and then off he went for a shower.  This gave me a little time to wake up and sort myself out.  Another cuppa and a chat followed.  Talked about TV shows, Tivo box useage and what we were going to attempt to do today.

Whilst I stripped the beds and put the washing on, he went up and cleared down some of his Tivo box to give himself some extra space as he's convinced there will be some programmes he's going to want to record coming up very soon.  He tends to record, but not delete, so his box was getting a bit full. He also tidied up a bit which was a bit of a shock.

Headache still not brilliant, so had to take some tablets which I hate doing and chilled out a bit longer as I was starting to feel a bit sick and I'm prone to a migraine if I'm not careful.  Callum, of course, didn't care as it meant he could go on the computer without feeling like he should be doing something else.

So what exactly did we do today.  Well, as we had some bananas that were going black and I had some veg that needed using up, we both headed off into the kitchen to cook side by side.

I chopped root veg up and put into a baking tray with salt, pepper, chilli, garlic, coriander seeds, cumin seeds and turmeric.  Callum got all the ingredients out to make banana bread.  He weighed it all out apart from the marg as he hates the feel of it and refuses to touch it or weigh it out.  He followed the recipe and used the dreaded food processor to whisk up the butter, sugar, banana and egg.  I know he probably would have been better off doing it manually, but I want to challenge him to use some of the equipment which he has a fear of.  The food processor scares him because it's fast and noisy, but he managed it today stepping well back before turning it on.  He even greased and lined the loaf tin himself today, using oil to grease the tin rather than use marg and he set the oven temperature.

Both cake and veg were put into oven and we went back to doing what we were doing with another cup of tea.

"So Callum, what 'lessons' did we cover?"
"Ummm, chemistry!"
"How?"
"Because of the chemical reaction between the liquid and the baking powder and the heat of the oven."
"What else?"
"Ummm, maths because I weighed out the ingredients."
"And?"
"......."
"How did you know what to do?"
"I read the recipe."
"So........?"
"Literacy!  Coz I had to read to find out what I needed and what to do with it."

So, there you go, even doing something as straight forward as making a cake uses various forms of lesson.  It might not be advanced.  It might not get him a degree.  But I know he can now read a recipe and cook for himself, even if it is just Banana Bread. hehe

Cake has turned out brilliant by the way and we've just had a slice each with another drink.

As to the veg.  I set half aside to make a spiced root veg soup for tomorrows lunch and the rest was cooked up with coconut milk and fresh coriander and eaten with boiled rice spiced with cardamom for dinner.  We also rinsed the butternut squash seeds and dry roasted with a bit of salt to nibble on and to sprinkle over the soup tomorrow.  Just got to make up some soda bread to go with it now.

Anyway, that's it. Cya tomorrow.

PS:  Callum has another loose tooth and the other one that caused him so much grief has come out.  It's like having a toddler again.