GUEST BLOG: School dinners

Guest blog by ADELE JORDAN

Our final session at Dial Park Primary School in Stockport was on Monday (14 February) and this time Avril cooked up an Indian takeaway with the pupils and their parents. She started by getting the map of the world out so everyone could locate India, where a lot of the spices we would be using came from.

She then got everyone chopping the veggies for the vegetable jalfrezi. Adding cumin seeds to a dry pan, we enjoyed the sound of them popping, then added oil and onions and left it all to sweat. When the heady aromas of garlic, chilli and ginger were added to the onions, various people passing through the corridors couldn’t resist coming to see what we were doing!


Once the root veg was in the pan and the curry was simmering away, we turned our attention to making the side dish tarka dhal - a mixture of lentils and spices - as well as our very own chapatis! These were a delight to make, and the kids loved rolling the dough balls out into circular shapes then cooking them in a dry frying pan. By pressing down on the bread with a teatowel, bubbles popped up and brown spots appeared – just like chapatis you get in restaurants! As soon as the bread was cooked, we all sat down to a a slap-up "takeaway" and it was a real shame it would be the last time at the table together.


Unfortunately all good things come to an end and the fourth and final session was over. We’d like to continue cooking at the school as the regular team of parents and pupils say they’ve been truly inspired, and Justyna, Ian, Natalie, Elaine, Clare, Blake and the staff have been absolutely stars. With a bit of luck, we've inspired them to set up a cooking club - certainly, the seed has been sown and we hope their talents in the kitchen flourish.

More photos from the class can be found on our Facebook page here, and there are albums for the first three sessions at Dial Park on Facebook too.

Adele is the Director of Cracking Good Food. If you have any questions or queries, or you'd like to find out about how Cracking Good Food can help your school or community group, you can email her via adele@crackinggoodfood.org

Top of the class!

Cracking Good Food are really pleased to be running a series of workshops at Dial Park Primary School in Stockport, with the help of funding from The Cooperative Membership. Four sessions will take place in total, and we're halfway through!


On Monday 24 January, Juliet showed the kids and their parents how to cook Healthy Pot Noodles. Everyone got cracking with the chopping of vegetables to stir-fry - mushrooms, leeks, carrots, onions - and it was a great chance to try out some new flavours and see how simple it is to prepare tasty, vitamin-packed food from scratch.


On Monday 31 January, Kim inspired the class with her Homemade Hotpot, cooking a wholesome warming winter stew using beans and root vegetables including beetroot, butternut squash, parsnip, carrot, potato, leek and onion. This was served with rosemary-flavoured dumplings, mustard mash and caramelised onions, and everyone agreed the end result was yummy as well as easy on the wallet.


Tomorrow, Rob will be making Fancy Fast Food from fishcakes to veggie burgers, then next week Avril will be cooking up a Curry without the Takeaway. We're really looking forward to both these classes, and hope the kids and their parents also find them helpful and rewarding.


For more photos from the school classes, please visit our Facebook page by clicking here. And don't forget to keep checking back to see photos from the upcoming classes!

GUEST BLOG: Use your loaf!

By guest blogger AVRIL POVAH

It’s easy to take bread for granted, being such an important part of our diet. We went from farm to fork in the bread-making lesson at Chorlton High School on Saturday 9 October, with Rob, our Cooking Leader for the day, explaining that bread is one of the oldest prepared foods, perhaps developed by accidental cooking or deliberate experimentation with water and grain flour. The uses and properties of wheat flours were eloquently described by Rob, along with the composition of wheat, which we consumed raw many millions of years ago. Eventually, using tools to pound the grain and adding water to the crushed kernels to form a wholesome gruel, early humans developed what we know today as our daily bread.


The myth and process of bread-making was slowly unravelled, and we watched yeast (our leavening agent in bread) slowly ferment; the fermentable sugars present in dough turn into carbon dioxide, causing it to expand or rise as gas pockets or bubbles. The scientific aspects were quite intriguing to us all, and for a minute I felt I was back in the chemistry classroom. The actual name for bread is old English, derived from many Germanic languages (Brot in German and Brod in Swedish), and may be connected with the root words of "brew" or even of "break" or "broken pieces".


There are many variations of bread: it can be made with yeast, bicarbonate of soda (as used in traditional Irish soda bread), different flours and by incorporating other ingredients and nutrients, and we made a variety of loaves and baps. We also made some naan bread - a very popular choice! These were stuffed with garlic paste and cheese and devoured straight from the pan for our lunch with some marinated olives, avocado and roasted red pepper hummus. Made with love by hand, not by machine, this bread was truly delicious!

More photos from the bread-making class are on our Facebook page.

GUEST BLOG: Getting back to our roots

By guest blogger AVRIL POVAH

Working in the Food Tech kitchen at Chorlton High School is a dream, and the most recent Cracking Good Food cooking class (on Saturday 18 September) - seasonal roots and squashes - was a real fairy tale; pumpkins included!

First up on our menu was Borscht Soup. We discovered that there are a number of ways to spell Borscht - Borsch, Borstch, Borsh, Barszcz or Borshch - and it depends which part of the world you come from. A very interesting question came up at the beginning of our lesson: what does Borscht mean? We all assumed it meant beetroot as this is the base ingredient for this hearty soup but in fact it derives its name from hogweed. This plant can be eaten raw but cooked hogweed leaves and stalks make this wonderful greeny brown coloured soup. Nina, our Cooking Leader for the class, shared with us her German mother's recipe, made from raw beetroot and other seasonal roots and greens. She said that it's traditionally eaten with a blob of sour cream, but we made a dairy-free version by adding a dash of lemon juice to soya cream (you could use oaty cream too) and served it with a good thick slice of dark rye bread.


Our dessert was Pumpkin Cheesecake, which we made using Tofu, a beancurd protein of Chinese origin made from soya milk which is pressed after coagulating. There are many different varieties of Tofu, which can be used in both savoury or sweet dishes, and it is low in calories as it contains little fat, and high in iron and calcium. Pumpkin is a squash-like fruit in season at the moment, and with Bonfire Night coming up soon this recipe is an ideal way to use it and great to try out for friends and family. Pumpkin originates from the Greek word 'pepon', meaning large melon, and was adapted by the French to 'pompon', then changed by the British to 'pumpion' and later by American colonists to the word we use today. Pumpkin is very fibrous, so we began by roasting slices in the oven to soften it for our cheesecake mix. Once combined with the tofu and added to the biscuit base, the cheesecake was baked. It tasted absolutely delicious, with all the warm spices of cinnamon and ground ginger coming through, together with the sweetness of the maple syrup and molasses we used.


Lots of our five a day were incorporated into our meal so I didn't feel too indulgent in devouring it all! Nina had sourced most of our ingredients locally, too, which was good to know and the beetroot came from Ormskirk, the potatoes from Yorkshire and the cabbage from Dunham Massey.

GUEST BLOG: Causing a stir!

By guest blogger AVRIL POVAH


On Tuesday evening, we set up our stall once again at Buckthorn House on Nell Lane in Chorlton to give the residents in the area a hands-on taster of how easy, cheap and delicious home cooking can be. Cooking Leader Kim demonstrated how to make a simple butternut squash risotto: a great rescue meal (especially at this time of year, when squashes are just coming into season) and very nutritious, being a good source of iron.


Making her own vegetable stock, Kim produced a natural juice from fennel, carrots, leeks and bay leaves to feed the risotto with. The secret to risotto is in the stirring, massaging the stock into all the ingredients to slowly release the starch from the Italian Arborio risotto rice (easily bought from supermarkets and places like Unicorn Grocery). After a final squeeze of lemon, a dollop of plain yoghurt and some fresh oregano leaves, this well-balanced, one-pot meal was devoured by everyone who stopped by to see what was going on.

GUEST BLOG: Sensible snacking

By guest blogger AVRIL POVAH

The menu on Wednesday 1 September for the Chorlton Good Neighbours group meeting at St Ninian's Church consisted of quick and easy snacks - but nutritious as well as tasty. We began the session making Mexican refried beans to use as a healthy topping on a variety of different crackers and breads (great for a quick lunch!), together with chickpea houmous. Both were excellent sources of protein and fibre, and really delicious.



Next we prepared one of Elvis Presley's favourites: peanut butter sandwiches. These were orginally cooked in butter or lard and topped with grilled bacon, but we opted for a lower fat version using sunflower oil (see photo below). They went down a storm, the piece de resistance of the day, and a true legend of all sandwiches! As we munched on them, Cracking Cook Lorenzo regaled the group with tales of some of Elvis's other famous dietary quirks, telling us how he was renowned for cravings such as Fool's Gold Loaf: a loaf of Italian bread filled with a pound of bacon, peanut butter and grape jelly. His mother, Gladys, said he had "sandwich after sandwich of this favourite".


We washed the food down with some delicious lemonade homemade using real lemons: tangy and very refreshing. Lorenzo was by now in full flow with all his stories about organic food growing and everyone went home with some great ideas and plenty of tips on how to follow a healthy diet.

The great outdoors

After having to cancel our Cooks On The Hop at Plover Terrace on Tuesday 17 August, we were really worried when it was incredibly windy with torrential rain the day before our rescheduled second Hop on Tuesday 24 August. We even resorted to borrowing an ultra-strong gazebo from the local police station for more shelter - just as well, as ours was blown over in a particularly strong gust!

Still, at least the rain held off and Cracking Cook Avril managed to dish up loads more of our by now famous homemade pasta sauces, hopefully providing inspiration for people to give it a go for themselves. Healthier and loads cheaper than from a jar - what's not to like?


Tina Murphy, Customer Involvement Officer for Southway Housing Trust, which manages many of the properties on Arrowfield Road Estate, popped along to see what we were up to. She dropped us an email afterwards to let us know how enjoyable and useful she found it.

"I attended the cooking session recently organised by Cracking Good Food on Arrowfield Road Estate, and I was amazed by how easy it is to create such wonderful tasty food with such little effort or expense. The event was very well organised and the methods of cooking were very well explained by Avril. She knows her stuff! I can highly recommend that you get yourself to one of these events. I'm looking forward to the next event where pizza is on the menu."


The pizza-making session took place on Tuesday (31 August), a week later. You can see more photos from the day on our Facebook page. It was (finally!) glorious weather when residents of the Estate came down to the community allotment run by Action For Sustainable Living. Everyone got stuck in making pizza bases from scratch, kneading and rolling out the dough, then adding tasty homemade tomato sauce and wholesome veg picked straight off the plants on the plot. The pizzas were then baked in the special cob oven that was built in 2008 and served with a freshly harvested salad. Result: smiles all round!

GUEST BLOG: Plover Terrace Hop

By guest blogger AVRIL POVAH

Cooking on a windy field in the middle of Southway Housing's estate just off Nell Lane seemed a tall order, but once me and fellow Cracking Cook Lorenzo had worked out how to erect a gazebo in the gusts, we were away! (Never take us away camping!)

On the menu on Tuesday 3 August was pasta and homemade sauces, full of all those Mediterranean flavours of fresh garlic, purple and green basil leaves, extra virgin olive oil and plump fresh red tomatoes. There were lots of children around that evening, especially after we set up at 5pm; and while we set about boiling and chopping, Adele (our children's entertainment manager) kept them amused with a nutrition game explaining the Eat Well Plate and what foods to eat to follow a balanced diet.


It's so easy to make your own tomato-based Italian sauce for pasta and so much cheaper than buying ready made. Fresh sauces just taste so much nicer too, especially alfresco. We prepared different types of pasta, including wholewheat, and we added fresh broccoli to one of our sauces to get those extra vitamins. Everyone lapped up the tasters we provided and we couldn't cook it quickly enough, especially as we served up around their teatime!

The Hop at Plover Terrace was organised as part of the Lost Plot project on Nell Lane Allotments and funded through Action For Sustainable Living. You can see more photos of the Plover Terrace Hop on our Facebook page!

Cooking session #3: Tasty salads With Pulses'n'grains with Avril

Avril Povah works for Nutrimens and The Sunshine Cafe in Sale, and is on Cracking Good Food's team of Cracking Cooks. She recently coordinated a session on puddings for Chorlton Good Neighbours, assisted Kim with the Easy Puddings class last week and joined coordinator Adele on a trip to see the set-up at Jamie's Ministry Of Food in Bradford. She will be running a public session called Tasty Salads With Pulses'n'grains on Tuesday 22 June at Chorlton High (6-9pm).

Avril says: "I'll be showing how to use different grains to make tasty salads, perfect for the summer, for vegetarians or for those wanting to adopt a more healthy lifestyle. We will be making Tabbouleh - a refreshing Middle Eastern bulghur wheat salad full of fresh mint and fresh parsley - and a tasty quinoa salad, which makes a great gluten-free option.

"For the pulses part, we will be making easy snacks to accompany summer barbecues or pop into school lunchboxes. Homemade hummus, sweet potato and lentil dip, and refried beans are packed with protein and nutrients and can be used as sandwich fillers, on baked potatoes or as dips. To accompany these, we will prepare some vegetable crudites using fresh carrots, cucumber, celery and peppers for all those vital vitamins, and some homemade pitta breads."

It all sounds amazing - healthy, flavoursome and perfect for accompanying all those World Cup barbecues! Once all the dishes are ready, you all get the chance to dig in, but don't forget to bring a container in case you want to take any leftovers home to impress your friends and family.

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.

GUEST BLOG: Ministry Of Food

By guest blogger CRACKING COOK AVRIL POVAH

The sun was shining as Adele and I set off over the Pennines to Bradford on Monday 24 May. We were going to see the latest Jamie's Ministry Of Food centre, opened by Jamie Oliver following his famous TV programme of the same name. The first opened up in another Yorkshire town, Rotherham, which was highlighted in the show as being one the “fattest” places in England, and we were keen to learn how people were being inspired to get back into the kitchen to cook good wholesome meals instead of eating takeaways and ready meals.

Jamie's Ministry Of Food centres are council funded and their kitchen costs, whatever they may be, are outweighed against the long-term savings in treating obesity in their respective areas. The centres are centrally positioned right in the heart of the towns so local people just passing by can pop in to learn the basics of cooking and how to make good simple meals on a tight budget, or just get friendly advice on recipes, shopping, nutrition, equipment, and local and seasonal ingredients.


Soraya Overend, the project manager at Bradford, made us feel very welcome, showing us the ultra modern and sleek kitchen, perfectly designed with cookery classes in mind. She explained that they offer 10-week cooking programmes covering a range of meals from simple egg dishes to homemade soups, pasta and pizza, and roast dinners. People from all walks of life can learn how to cook quick, simple, healthy and cost-effective meals in just one hour, and the “pass it on” strategy encourages them to tell their friends and family all about it. One lesson is just £4 and you get to eat the food afterwards, either at the centre or to take home.

We arrived early to ask Soraya (pictured on the left, with me on the right and Adele reflected in the window!) how it all started and how it’s going, then joined the Week 5 group for a Thai green curry lesson. Some of the participants had popped in during their work lunch break - what a great idea: learning a new skill and getting fed too! Soraya explained all the ingredients we were using for the Thai green curry - we even had fresh seasonal asparagus to cook with - and demonstrated how to make a Thai green curry paste. There was lots of herb smelling, and we were all hooked on the fresh lemon grass and coriander. We picked from a choice of chicken, prawns or Quorn (which Adele plumped for immediately), then we were let loose on the induction hobs to prepare our stir fries. When we tucked into our creations afterwards, all the fresh flavours came flooding through - it was absolutely delicious!

The next Jamie's Ministry Of Food centre opens in the centre of Leeds this month, and I hope it's as successful as the others. Please come to Manchester, Jamie!


Avril works for Nutrimens and The Sunshine Cafe in Sale. She is also on Cracking Good Food's team of Cracking Cooks and will be running a public session called Tasty Salads With Pulses'n'grains on Tuesday 22 June at Chorlton High (6-9pm). 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.

GUEST BLOG: Chorlton Good Neighbours puddings cooking session, Wednesday 2 June

By guest blogger AVRIL POVAH


Adele was on her jollies en France – ooh la la - so I stepped in to coordinate a cooking demo for Chorlton Good Neighbours at St Ninian's Church on Wilbraham Road. The session was on themed puddings, which Rob, our Cooking Leader, executed wonderfully, helped along by our super cooking assistants, Kate from Jam Street Cafe and Donna from Chorlton High School.


At first, I was worried that it seemed rather an ambitious menu for a two-hour session, but despite all the chopping, fruit stewing, mixing and baking, we pulled it off! Our menu consisted of Apple and Pineapple Sponge, Rhubarb and Apricot Crumble and Semolina Pudding with Prunes, accompanied by lashings of homemade custard. Each had plenty of fruit content, but as they were also laden with fat and sugar, we explained straight away that puddings aren't nutritionally balanced and we cannot live on sweet dishes alone (I wish), but that they're to be eaten as a treat and not over portioned.


The sponge was delicately spiced up with cinnamon, while the hint of ginger in the crumble really made all the difference in tasting at the end of the session - truly delicious. Rob was a brilliant raconteur, relaying passionate stories of ingredients and origins of food, together with his vast knowledge of working in the food industry.


You can join Rob for his sessions on Cooking With Fish The Sustainable Way on Tuesday 8 June at Chorlton High (6-9pm) and Saturday 12 June at St Ninian's (11am-2pm). Meanwhile if the thought of puddings has tickled your fancy, Kim will be running a session for the general public on Tuesday 15 June at Chorlton High (6-9pm). 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.

Avril is on Cracking Good Food's team of Cracking Cooks and will be running a public session called Tasty Salads With Pulses'n'grains on Tuesday 22 June at Chorlton High (6-9pm). She also works for Nutrimens and The Sunshine Cafe in Sale.

Cracking Good Food official launch

Cracking Good Food's official launch is approaching fast and a week today (Saturday 27 March), we'll be rocking up at Chorlton's Big Green Festival with our Cooks On The Hop gazebo!

Chorlton's Big Green Festival gives people the chance to sample sustainable living in fun and friendly surroundings, putting environmental issues centre stage with a vibrant and varied programme of live entertainment, activities and workshops. The festival is a really great showcase for local suppliers of tasty, responsibly sourced food and drink, and this year there will also be plenty of info about grow your own and allotments as the theme is "growing locally".


Cracking Good Food is really pleased to be involved and we'll be running our unique Cooks On The Hop sessions on the day, which kicks off at 11am. Make sure you pop in to the school hall at St Clement's where Cracking Cooks Avril, Rob and Lorenzo will be in action, rustling up sensational stir-fries. You get to choose your ingredients, chop them up then combine them in a wok with one of the fabulous sauces blended just for you. The best thing is you get to eat your creation, so you'll have plenty of energy to enjoy the rest of the festival!

Clare