GUEST BLOG: Vegging out

By guest blogger CHRIS YOUNG

Cracking Good Food partnered up with the Vegetarian Society on Saturday, holding three free cooking sessions for the general public outside the wonderful Post Box Café in Chorlton. This event was to celebrate the upcoming National Vegetarian Week (19-25 May) - we wanted to show how easy and delicious vegetarian meals are, so we cooked quesadillas stuffed with sweet potatoes and re-fried beans served with a yoghurt sauce and a fresh salsa. 

Some great people braved the weather to join us for the cooking sessions - luckily we had sturdy gazebos to cook under! We chatted about National Vegetarian Week and how by swapping just one meal a week from meat to vegetarian will benefit your health and environment - and also save you money - then our Cracking Cook Maz went through the spices and ingredients used for the quesadilla recipe, such as dried chipotle chilli and ground cumin, and showed some tricks on how to safely chop vegetables. Everyone got stuck in chopping the sweet potatoes, onions, peppers, tomatoes and garlic -the great thing with quesadillas is that they are cheap, easy to make and you can put almost anything in the mix, so look around your cupboards to see what you can use up. 

As Maz got the ingredients in the pan, a wonderful aroma started to spread in the little market place.  Several people stopped to see what we were cooking, then signed up for one of the other sessions, and  some of the Chorlton Community Market stallholders came over to get a closer sniff! Many of the participants had eaten sweet potatoes before but not with cheese (we used vegetarian cheese), and they thought it was an amazing combination! Also, some people were wary that beans can be a bit tasteless but by mixing them with different vegetables and adding herbs, spices and seasoning, they made a great, tasty filling. We would like to thank the Vegetarian Society for sponsoring us so we could hold these vegetarian sessions – all the participants really enjoyed the cooking sessions and the food!

For more photos from Saturday, see the CGF Facebook page: click here.

Our next community event is this Saturday (17 May), 11am-4.30pm, when we will be cooking and selling delicious food at the Chorlton Arts Festival Arts and Craft Market at St. Clement's Church.