GUEST BLOG: Getting hands on

By guest blogger KIM IRWIN

Monday night saw Harjinder of Hairy Bikers Fame cooking up a storm at the Mersey Bank Community Centre in Chorlton.


Working with two sets of young people, she demonstrated how easy and tasty it is to make traditional dhal, disclosed some spice secrets and also showed us how to turn our hands into cooking implements! Everyone loved rolling the chappatis and cooking them on the traditional Tava… happy faces all round!

Dough!

Last week's breadmaking class with Rob was another huge success - we're so pleased to think of how many people in south Manchester can now bake their own loaves.

You can see more photos from the seesion on our Facebook page here.

If you fancy developing your breadmaking skills, why not sign up to our new Bread Special class - see the Cracking Good Food website here for full details.

Hot, hot, hot!

On Thursday, we ran the fourth of our six weekly healthy eating classes at The Angel Centre in Salford alongside social enterprise Social adVentures.


Cracking Cook Kim from Islington Mill Cafe showed the group how to make refried beans, guacamole, salsa and stir-fried veggies in chipotle chillies (Mexican and HOT!!). Piled into a tortilla wrap with lettuce and grated cheese, this was a delicious meal.


These classes run for another three weeks until 8 March 2012. For more information, contact: simone@socialadventures.org.uk and/or kim@islingtonmill.com.

You can see more photographs from this session on the CGF Facebook page: visit http://www.facebook.com/crackinggoodfood

GUEST BLOG: Italian trip

By guest blogger SARAH FANTHORPE

Residents of Arrowfield Road and Hough End estate gathered again at Buckthorn House to cook up a feast. This was the first session of our new five-week programme and there were many familiar faces and a few new ones.


Alison, our chef, showed us how to cook an Italian pasta dish called Vegetable Puttanesca, using capers, black olives and lashings of garlic. We then made a traditional roux sauce to which we added ham, mushrooms and mature cheddar cheese. All agreed that both recipes were easy to prepare and very delicious.


For more photographs from this session, please visit our Facebook page by clicking here.

The five-week programmes are available free to residents of Southway Housing. If you would like to book on to the next one, which starts on 17 April, please contact Sarah by text on 07930 898935 or email her via sarahsish@yahoo.co.uk.

GUEST BLOG: Vegging out

By guest blogger SIOBHAN KELLY

Cracking Good Food ran this lively and fun cooking session for young people in conjunction with the Riverbank Market Garden and Community Café Project. The session took place at Barlow Moor Community Centre on the Mersey Bank Estate, which is a fantastic facility with such lovely friendly and helpful staff - I was very impressed!


Kim Irwin, who runs the cafe at Islington Mill, led the session and shared with the group vegetable cutting skills, while everyone had a chat about the familiar and the rather more unfamiliar vegetables they were chopping. The session was an informal and friendly way to learn together, and was very relaxed. I really enjoyed the experience. It was really fun to eat and share what you have helped create, and with the fresh, exciting ingredients and colours, the stir-fries we made went down a treat - big smiles all round!


Siobhan is one of Cracking Good Food's new co-ordinators.

You can see more photos from this session on the Cracking Good Food Facebook page. Click here to be redirected.

Winter warmer

Thursday evening saw the third of the six weekly community classes we're running at The Angel Centre in Salford alongside social enterprise Social adVentures. The Cook 4 Life sessions are all about sharing our tips on how to cook healthy meals that are also flavoursome and inexpensive, and it's been going well.


In the latest session, Cracking Cook Kim from Islington Mill Cafe showed the group how to make stew and dumplings - a proper winter warmer! Everyone loved it and said they would be making it at the weekend as it was so tasty and cheap to make. It's great when we hear that our class participants try out what they've learnt when they're back at home.


These classes run for another three weeks until 8 March 2012. For more information, contact: simone@socialadventures.org.uk and/or kim@islingtonmill.com.

You can see more photographs from this session and also from the first two in the series on the CGF Facebook page: visit http://www.facebook.com/crackinggoodfood

GUEST BLOG: All Thaied up

By guest blogger TRACEY


Jackie Kearney’s session on Tuesday 7 February was a smooth introduction to Thai spiced food for a novice like me! Not one for noodles, I was nonetheless won over with the Thai-spiced noodle soup - this was sheer wellbeing in a bowl! The delicate flavours of cauliflower, coconut milk, noodles and runner beans were married perfectly with the ginger, carrots and lemon grass, promising different tastes and textures with every spoonful… truly wonderful.

The group members were eager to learn and develop their Thai cuisine at home, and Jackie’s tips were great: squeeze water out of tofu, smack lemon grass to maximise flavour (and use it as a stirrer - genius!), and use sliced garlic to retain flavour. The Phat Thai Jay was a delicious combination of tastes and textures; eggs, tofu, spring onions and rice noodles mixed in a wonderfully sweet, sour and personally determined hot sauce. The dish was topped with crushed peanuts, finely chopped chillies, lime juice and fresh coriander leaves… and it tasted and looked amazing.


More photos from this session can be viewed on the CGF Facebook page. Click here to be redirected.

Jackie will be running a class in Malaysian & Indonesian Cuisine on Tuesday 28 Februray, 6-9pm (£40/£35 concs): visit the Cracking Good Food website for more details including how to book.

GUEST BLOG: Currying on

By guest blogger TRACEY


Harjinder again delivered an all-encompassing cooking experience with here veggie Punjabi cookery session on Saturday. The group was welcomed into the room with some ‘mildly energetic’ bhangra music playing in the background, getting everyone in the mood for a spicy feast. The wonderful aromas of coriander, chillies, cardamon, ginger, garam masala and many many more wafted through the corridors of Chorlton High School while the taste sensation of saag paneer, tarka dhal, puris, aubergine and potato pakorah delighted all!

Not one of the senses went untouched as Harjinder told us of how her mother and grandmother used a brick to graze coriander seeds thus doubling the crop when seeded, she showed us how your own hand can be used as a measuring cup and how the claw-hand is the best tool when kneading in a bowl! The group members were quite adept at using the special puri press, applying much pressure to ensure they achieved an evenly flat good sized puri. But best of all was seeing the wonderful creations achieved in a fairly short space of time - take a look at the pictures on the CGF Facebook page here.

Adventures in cooking

On Thursday evening, Cracking Cook Kim from Islington Mill Cafe took the first of six weekly community classes at The Angel Centre, alongside Salford-based Social adVentures. Cracking Good Food are collaborating with Social adVentures to offer healthy cookery sessions to bring positive change to the local community. On Thursday, Kim showed the group how to make three types of pasta sauce - roast pepper and basil, putanesca and arrabiata - and also a feta and bean salad. All the dishes were very quick, simple and cheap to make, but all totally delicious.


Social adVentures is an exciting social enterprise that aims to support all local people to lead happier and healthier lives, and the group provides a massive range of activities, courses and events all year round. They define happiness as enjoyment of a full and meaningful life and health as a state of complete physical, mental and social wellbeing. The cookery classes form part of Social adVentures' social prescribing scheme, which aims to get individuals into activities to support them to improve their health and happiness. People attending are referred by their GP, Social Prescribing Navigator or by self-referral. The classes run for six weeks until 8 March 2012. For more information, please contact: simone@socialadventures.org.uk and/or kim@islingtonmill.com.


You can see more photographs from the session on the CGF Facebook page: visit http://www.facebook.com/crackinggoodfood

GUEST BLOG: Flavours of Thailand

By guest blogger ELIZABETH WELLS

Jackie Kearney walked us through a myriad of taste sensations at this session on Thai street food. She showed us how fragrant a simple bowl of Thai noodle soup can be: flavoured with coriander, lemon grass, coconut, chilli, lime and ginger, it really warms the cockles on a cold winter's day.


She demonstrated some new techniques that most of us hadn't seen before: deep-frying red hot chillies and then blending them with agave syrup and veggie fish sauce to make a super hot but super piquant chilli jam. This went really well with the vegetable fritters, and later the Pat Thai Jay, the veggie noodle dish. It was great to get a real authentic feel for Thai street food, to learn the differences between the way it's served up here (using wheat in everything rather than traditional rice noodles), and how the balance of flavours should combine hot, sweet and sour all at once.

See the Cracking Good Food Facebook page for more photos from Tuesday night's session, and don't forget to click "like"! You can find the Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/crackinggoodfood

Jackie will be running more sessions: the 7 February one has sold out, but there are still places available on Malaysian & Indonesian Cuisine on Tuesday 28 February 2012, 6-9pm (£40/£35 concs) and Asian Vegetarian Cuisine on Tuesday 13 March 2012, 6-9pm (£40/£35 concs). Full details and information on how to book can be found on the Cracking Good Food website at www.crackinggoodfood.org.

Bread made easy

Rob, pictured here, ran another of his ever-popular breadmaking for beginners classes on Saturday 28 January 2012. You can see more photos from the session on our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/crackinggoodfood.

The February rerun of this class has now sold out, but we've added another chance for you to learn breadmaking on Tuesday 20 March, 6-9pm at Chorlton High School (£35/£30 concessions). Visit our website (www.crackinggoodfood.org) for booking details.