Happy and healthy New Year!

After the overindulgence of the festive season, diet and exercise are at the top of most people's list of New Year's Resolutions. Why not let Cracking Good Food help you kick off a happy and healthy 2011 - our latest classes start on 15 January and run on Saturday late mornings and Tuesday early evenings until 15 February.

The best guacamole you'll ever eat, from Fernanda's Mexican Tapas class.

The Cracking Cooks encourage more home cooking through hands-on classes - by cooking together and then eating together, we pass on food knowledge and share ideas for tasty, affordable meals. We’ll show you how to eat meat ethically, fish sustainably and veggie and gluten-free easily - all the ingredients we use are seasonal, organic and fairtrade where possible, and bought from Chorlton’s fantastic independent retailers. Adele Jordan, who set up Cracking Good Food a year ago, says: “The support and demand for cooking sessions has been astounding. People really enjoy getting stuck into good food when they’re shown what to do, and it’s so social too!”

Get on a bit of a roll in Breadmaking for Beginners run by Rob!

As we're subsidised by the Local Food Fund (National Lottery) and The Co-operative Membership, we can offer our three-hour classes for just £20 per person (or £15 for unemployed people, students or over 65s). The new Saturday classes run between 11am and 2pm while the Tuesday classes take place 6pm to 9pm, all at Chorlton High School on Nell Lane. Places are limited to 12 so everyone has the chance to prep, cook and eat - and ask plenty of questions!

Kate's Thai green curry will knock your socks off in our Spicy Vegetarian session.

Breadmaking for Beginners (with Cracking Cook Rob): Saturday 15 January
Breadmaking Advanced – Sourdough (with Cracking Cook Rob): Saturday 22 January
Breadmaking for Beginners (with Cracking Cook Rob): Tuesday 25 January
Spicy Vegetarian (with Jam Street Café’s Kate): Saturday 29 January
Breadmaking Advanced – Sourdough (with Cracking Cook Rob): Tuesday 1 February
Curry Up (with Kath from Unicorn Grocery): Saturday 5 February
Marvellous Meat (with Beth of Electrik’s Guestrant Wild Food fame): Tuesday 8 February
Mexican Tapas (with Unicorn’s Fernanda): Saturday 12 February
Risottos Demystified (with Kim from Islington Mill Café): Tuesday 1 March (please note new date)

Bookings can be made online at http://crackinggoodfood.org/ (our website is having a little spring clean, so bear with us!), via email (fiona@crackinggoodfood.org), by telephone on 0845 652 2572, or in person at Hickson & Black’s deli on Barlow Moor Road in Chorlton.

Vouchers are also available if you fancy treating the food-lover in your life!

New year, new classes

Here at Cracking Good Food HQ, we're really excited to be able to announce the next round of Cracking Good classes, running in the New Year.

All classes are three hours long, giving you ample time to prep, cook, chat, pick the brains of your cooking leader and sit down together to enjoy the feast you've made. Taking place in the well-equipped food science rooms at Chorlton High School, you just need to bring yourself - we supply all the ingredients, and everything is bought locally using seasonal, ethically sourced, organic and fairtrade where possible. The Saturday classes take place in the daytime between 11am and 2pm, and the Tuesday evening sessions start at 6pm and finish at 9pm; all classes cost just £20 (£15 concessions - unemployed, students or over 65s).

Saturday 15 January
Breadmaking for Beginners is back due to demand. You’ll never buy a loaf again thanks to Rob.

Saturday 22 January
Breadmaking Advanced has been introduced after many requests. Rob will be showing you how to make sourdough among other things.

Tuesday 25 January
Breadmaking for Beginners – if you missed the earlier class.

Saturday 29 January
Spicy vegetarian – green Thai curry and spicy burgers with a Catalan romesco sauce are on the menu again. Re-run with Kate.

Tuesday 1 February
Breadmaking Advanced – if you missed the earlier class.

Saturday 5 February
Curry Up – a new class with the queen of curries, Kath. We'll be making vegetable and fish versions of this ever-popular dish.

Tuesday 8 February
Marvellous Meat – another new class, legendary Beth of Guestrant Wild Food fame will be showing you how to make good use of more unusual, less expensive cuts of meat.

Saturday 12 February
Mexican tapas – this is one of Cracking Good Food's most popular classes, with Fernanda giving an authentic insight into Mexican vegetarian cooking.

Tuesday 15 February
Risottos Demystified – Kim will be showing you how to rustle up some tasty veggie risottos, often thought to be a complicated dish. This is another new class for the new year.

Book soon to avoid disappointment! And with such variation, why not treat your family or friends to vouchers to put towards their choice of sessions? Just email fiona@crackinggoodfood.org or call 0845 652 2572 for bookings and to buy vouchers.

GUEST BLOG: Mexican rave!

By guest blogger VIC MASTERS

Last Saturday (16 October), the Mexican Tapas class was back by popular demand - and we even had to turn people away*. We did, however, let Emma Goswell from BBC Radio Manchester’s Manhunt (see me being interviewed by her below!) pop in to report on Cooking Leader Fernanda bringing Mexico down Chorlton way for the third time!


Cooking mouth-watering Mexican food with Fernanda transported me straight back to the sights and smells of the street markets in Mexico, where you can find stall upon stall selling cheap, healthy and delicious food for around £1 a head. Fernanda not only created authentic Mexican tapas, she too did it for just £1 a head. She taught us how it is possible to eat healthily on a budget.


We made - and ate! - creamy guacamole (above), spicy salsa, crispy tortilla chips, piquant refried beans and tasty tacos. All the dishes were simple to cook and the meal followed the government guidelines for healthy eating, which promote the importance of eating a well-balanced diet of fruit, vegetables, protein and carbohydrates. Check out the Food Standards Agency's Eat Well, Be Well website for more info on healthy eating.


And if the recent government cuts have kerbed your spending and you can't afford the trip to Mexico, why not come and join us at one of our cooking sessions, where we will show you how good food needn't cost the earth. Coming up, we have Traditional (and not-so-traditional!) Roasts (Saturday 6 November) and Lovely Leftovers (Saturday 13 November) - perfect for eating in this new age of austerity! Visit the Cracking Good Food website for details on all the latest classes; they cost just £15 for three hours (£10 concessions).

*Once again, this session was fully booked! Apologies if you weren't able to join us - we have a strict limit on numbers for safety reasons, and also so everyone who participates has a chance to get properly involved in the prepping and cooking. Please email fiona@crackinggoodfood.org if you are interested in Mexican Tapas and we will re-run this session in the near future!

GUEST BLOG: Arriba to vegetarian Mexican tapas!

By guest blogger ROS SWEENEY

As a veteran of the Tuesday Cracking Good Food sessions (I've been to five out of six!), it was with a touch of sadness that I attended the last one of this series: Mexican Tapas. Still, I was very interested to see what would be made in this vegetarian tapas class (and how tasty the results would be!) as tapas, to me, has always involved huge quantities of meat and fish. Fernanda was the cooking teacher for the full class of 12, and as she's from Mexico we knew staight off that we were in capable hands.


First of all, Fernanda got everyone chopping and dicing onions and peppers - meanwhile a pan of black turtle beans were simmering in the pressure cooker (a brilliant ultra-quick way to cook dried beans - cheaper and tastier - from scratch!). Some beautiful smoky chipotle chillis were added to this and, once the beans were cooked, they were mashed and part of the onion and pepper mix added along with some veg stock. It wasn't the most attractive dish, but the taste was wonderful.

The bean dish was the first of many. Next up were potato and millet tacos. Soaked millet was added to mashed potato along with some more of the onion and pepper mix.
The more daring among us heated through some tortillas - which involved putting five in a hot pan (no oil) and turning them over with a quick flick of our fingers! Once cooked, these were made into tacos by filling with the potato and millet mixture and securing with cocktail sticks.


Salsa and guacamole were also made, along with tortilla chips. Fernanda said how important coriander is in Mexican cooking and the flavour of both these dips was amazing and totally unlike any supermarket bought ones. They were relatively easy to make too. To make the tortilla chips, we simply cut the tortillas into triangles and deep fried them... I'll never buy a pack of Doritos again!

Next was the best bit. By now, we were starving and we all sat down to what was simply a wonderful feast. The tacos had been deep fried, the refried beans, salsa and guacamole were all put in bowls and we tucked in. It completely changed my idea of vegetarian tapas. Each individual dish was superb. Even better, despite our hunger, there was so much left over that we all got to take huge helpings home... I had it for my lunch at work the next day and it tasted even better!


I have enjoyed the Tuesday CGF sessions immensely. Not only have they shown me simple and easy ways to cook, but it's also been fun. The informal approach and small groups work really well and it's great that all the ingredients can be found in local shops. I'll miss the groups over the summer and look forward to the next round come September - I recommend anyone to join up. I went on my own to all the classes and the atmosphere in every one was so friendly that by the time we sat down to eat, it was like being among old friends!

Fernanda is running a second Mexican Tapas class tomorrow (Saturday 17 July), 11am-2pm at St Ninian's Church Hall.

Cooking session #6: Mexican Tapas with Fernanda

Cracking Cook Fernanda Alvarez (pictured on the right, during one of our training sessions led by Rob) works at Unicorn Grocery, where she cooks up the fabulous creations for sale from the deli counter.


Fernanda will be leading two sessions teaching you how to make delicious Mexican delicacies from scratch using fresh flavourful ingredients, from tacos and tortillas to re-fried bean, salsa and guacamole dips. The first class is on Tuesday 13 July at Chorlton High (6-9pm) while the second takes place on Saturday 17 July at St Ninian's (11am-2pm).

All details on the June and July sessions, which cost just £15 for three hours (£10 concessions), are on the Cracking Good Food website here.

**On Saturday 4 September, Unicorn will be the location for one of our famous Cooks On The Hop events. Pop it in your diary and make sure you say hello between noon and 4pm!**