GUEST BLOG: Rice is nice

By guest blogger DEANNA THOMAS

I’m always looking for interesting opportunities to cook with and for people. I am a professionally trained chef but now I’ve got two small children, long and split restaurant shifts are no good for me. I need to find a way of spreading the word about how wonderful cooking from scratch can be, without compromising my family life. So it is with great pride and joy that I’ve been welcomed into the stable of talented chefs who work for Cracking Good Food.

To become one of their cooking leaders, or Cracking Cooks, everybody must attend one four-hour training session and volunteer to help out at a class. I was lucky enough to attend De-mystifying Risottos, held by experienced vegetarian chef Kim Irwin from Islington Mill Cafe.

Like many of the sessions, it was held in one of the bright, well-laid out cookery classrooms at Chorlton High School. After brief introductions and hand-washing, everyone’s offered a cup of tea and a sitdown. Kim explained how the class was going to work and what we were going to be making. This class was made up of people from all different backgrounds and cooking skills. One fabulous woman even worked as a private chef but loved coming along to classes to watch people learn and get excited about cooking.

Kim got us to make two risottos. The first was butternut squash and lemon with two grains. Risotto has to be made with a particular type of rice, medium or short grain and high in starch to help it absorb liquid and become sticky. Kim’s recipe used 150g Arborio rice but also 50g of barley (to serve four). Barley is a wonderful underused grain that adds an interesting, almost chewy texture to the finished dish, plus a wide variety of vitamins and minerals.


We sat round a large central table helping to peel and chop the vegetables and garlic. It’s a perfect way for people keen to improve their cooking knowledge to chat to professionals in a relaxed atmosphere. Kim was also eager to show everyone how easy it is to make your own vegetable stock from scratch rather than using a stock cube. We got this on first as it needed at least an hour to simmer. She also gave us a tip on how to make it even better at home when we’ve got more time - by roasting the vegetables first.

We then split into three groups and took turns adding the ingredients to the pan and stirring them over the heat. Risottos usually take about 25 minutes to cook and need to be stirred constantly, adding stock one ladleful at a time, so the rice absorbs the liquid slowly and becomes creamy. Being tied to the stove for all that time may put some people off, but the stirring motion is quite therapeutic and if you’ve got a glass of wine and some good company, what’s the problem?

After adding some lemon, Parmesan cheese, Greek yoghurt, chopped parsley and seasoning, we served it out and sat down to eat, giving everyone the chance to ask questions and share tips.

Next, Kim wanted to show us how to make a risotto using wild mushrooms. She set us to work by covering a few handfuls of aromatic, mixed dried mushrooms with boiling water to soften them for half an hour or so. Meanwhile, after chopping up and frying more onions, garlic and fennel, we poured in the rice, some white wine and repeated the stock-adding and stirring process. At this point, we’d all got to know each other and the atmosphere was really buzzy and chatty.


Some of us sliced up chestnut mushrooms and sautéed them in a frying pan with a little olive oil and garlic before adding the rehydrated mushrooms we’d soaked earlier. This risotto was quite different to the first one. Once we’d finished the dish by adding some double cream and Parmesan, it became really rich and comforting. A perfect meal even the staunchest carnivore wouldn’t find lacking.

We all sat down together to eat again before helping to wash up and clear away – many hands make light work, and it was done in no time. Adele the co-ordinator was there to make sure everything got packed away and she then handed out some feedback forms so Cracking Good Food can continue to improve, reach more people and get even better.

Most classes last for three hrs, cost £20 per person (concessions available) and the class size is never more than 12. This is a pretty good deal for a fun evening out where you gain a skill (and some cool tips) plus a meal at the end of it. There are a wide variety of classes on offer all year round and the most popular classes often get repeated at a later date.

I’m completely inspired, full of ideas and can’t wait to get cracking and teach my own classes. My first class is on 19 March and is going to be about making and decorating cupcakes. Cracking Cooks all have to emphasise healthy eating, so I shall be baking sweet cupcakes using vegetables and nuts, such as the classic carrot cake and the more unusual beetroot and chocolate. Hope to see you there. To see what courses are coming up, visit the revamped www.crackinggoodfood.org.

You can read more from Deanna on her blog www.foodographic.co.uk

Fish for compliments

Our recent fish class with the Chorlton Good Neighbours community group went swimmingly. First off, cooking leader Steve from Hickson & Black's (above) showed everyone how to prepare and cook the classic mussel dish moules marinières, with a sauce of shallots, garlic and dry white wine (below - yum!).


Next, he and two volunteer helpers, got coley goujons (posh fishfingers!) and a yoghurt dip on the go (below). Everyone really enjoyed the final results and agreed it was all pretty simple to do at home, and not at all expensive.


*There are now more photos from this session on our Facebook page.

GUEST BLOG: A proper roasting

Guest blog by SARAH-CLARE CONLON

I'd barely put my bag down and washed my hands, and I was straight in to untrussing a whole chicken and stuffing its cavity with shallots, garlic and fresh sage leaves and thyme. Next, I rubbed rock salt into the skin, drizzled over some olive oil and gave the whole thing a good turn of freshly ground black pepper. A second bird was also prepared, along with a shoulder of lamb - whole cloves of garlic were jammed in next to the muscle along with sprigs of fresh aromatic rosemary. These were put into hot ovens; one lamb was already in, having been given a bit of a head start by Cracking Cook Rob before we got there.

Once the meat had started roasting, we could throttle back slightly, and had chance to pick Rob's brains about cooking times and techniques (start with a high oven, then reduce the temperature after 20 minutes, then reduce a third time; yes to basting; either way to covering with tinfoil; buy with or without giblets but cook these separately) and also about the provenance of the meat. The lamb came from W.H. Frost the butchers in Chorlton Precinct, and, while it wasn't organic, it was local, hailing from the fields around Macclesfield. The two chickens were bought from Wild At Heart on Railway Terrace and reared organically on the Rhug Estate in North Wales. Both weighing about 1.2kg and costing in the region of £13, they were more expensive than the standard supermarket offering, but they were so tasty, didn't shrink during cooking and fed all nine adults and one very well-behaved two-year-old in the class plus Cooking Leader Rob, Cooking Assistant Vic and volunteer helper Caroline, with leftovers for next week's Lovely Leftovers class.


Next we prepared all the lovely fresh veg Rob had sourced from Unicorn Grocery on Manchester Road, including celeriac, pears, shallots and garlic to add to the meat roasting trays; squash to soften in the oven wrapped in foil; plus two varieties of spud, which we scrubbed half of and peeled the rest, then parboiled and roasted; dirty carrots which we washed, peeled and cut into matchstick-thin Julienne then sweated over a low heat in a pan with the lid on; and finally two types of cabbage, which were chopped finely and cooked on the hob with the tiniest amount of water and olive oil and some sliced garlic for extra flavour. We also made some spicy creamy butter beans by adding red chillies, cumin, creme fraiche and the flesh from the squashes, and really beautiful three rice mix (organic basmati, wild and red rices) by frying the dry rice in a little olive oil for extra nuttiness and colour, then adding hot water once it had cooled slightly and allowing this to be absorbed before throwing in the special secret ingredient of chopped dried apricots. Normally I'm not a fan of dried fruit, but this gave the whole thing a lovely sweetness and depth.


Last but not least, the gravy was made - taking the meats out to rest under a blanket of foil, the roasting tins were put on the hobs and water added to deglaze the caramelised juices, then a thickening paste was made using cornflower, and bouillon powder and yeast extract were added to the chicken stock and honey and tahini (sesame seed paste) added to the lamb stock. Yum! The table was set and everyone brought over the various components of the meal they were in charge of. We went round filling our plates, then sat down and silence descended as we all tucked in! This was definitely a good sign as the "mmmms" started and everyone agreed how tasty it all was and how useful the tips we'd picked up would be over the upcoming festive season.


This coming Saturday, Steve of Manchester Food & Drink Festival Awards nominated Chorlton deli Hickson & Black’s will be showing you how to get your money’s worth from a roast and make use of all those Lovely Leftovers, with homemade chicken stock, soup, stir-fry, bubble and squeak, and more (Saturday 13 November, 11am-1pm; Chorlton High School; £15; £10 concessions). Places are booking up fast, so be quick! To book...

* email fiona@crackinggoodfood.org
* call 0845 652 2572
* visit www.crackinggoodfood.org
* pop into Hickson & Black’s in Chorlton

*There are now more photos from this session on our Facebook page.

GUEST BLOG: Roast veg

By guest blogger SARAH FANTHORPE

Cracking Good Food surpassed itself in delivering an alternative to the standard veggie Sunday lunch of nut roast. We all gathered at Chorlton High School in its state-of-the-art food technology room. Our chef for the day Anna (pictured below left) explained the menu, Veggie Roast with Seasonal Vegetables, which included a Vegetarian Wellington made with delicious chestnut mushrooms from Chorlton's Unicorn Grocery. Adele was on hand to tell us all about cooking with locally sourced organic ingredients while Tammy, a volunteer with Cracking Good Food, demonstrated how to prepare the greens ensuring a grit-free delight with every mouthful.


I guess this is where I introduce myself. My name is Sarah and I'm a volunteer with The Lost Plot Chorlton community allotment project. We grow many of the ingredients used in the class and are always looking for volunteer diggers in return for a take-home bag of fresh veg. Hough End Allotments also have their own bee hives, and Eleanor was able to share her experiences of bee-keeping with the group as we prepared the honey roast parsnips.


Back to the Wellington, and after rolling out our puff pastry, we prepared the filling with fresh herbs and an abundance of soy sauce. Anna then demonstrated the simple plaiting technique which secured the tasty goodness and we popped the packages in the oven while we got on with the accompaniments, including a rich red wine gravy.

All that was left was to gather round the table and dine in style. Everyone then helped clear and clean, and we were finished one minute before our departure time! I hope to meet all the participants again at the next Cracking Good Food do, as our feedback suggested a good time was had by all!

You can see more photos from the veggie roasts class on our Facebook page. This Saturday, Rob will be roasting chicken and North African-style lamb, using organic meat from Chorlton's Wild At Heart. To book a place, be quick and email fiona@crackinggoodfood.org or call 0845 652 2572.

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: 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: Great bakes

By guest blogger RICHARD

I can be quite obsessive when it comes to organising things. Prior to hosting an event such as this CGF cookery course, I have to have it planned (almost) meticulously before I can feel at ease, and if I fall short I tend to worry quite overtly. I am pleased to say that for this occasion everything was tickety-boo. Nothing could go wrong: ingredients had been sourced, the recipe finalised and the schedule completed – I was happy. Natalie was to be my co-ordinator for the class and we had talked much beforehand. For my introduction to vegan moussaka and lentil bake, all I could think was, “Bring it on!”


On the day, Natalie had to pick up the equipment and me then take us to Chorlton High School. We arrived early and made our way to the Food Science Room. Never, in my day, did I experience such a well-equipped and pleasant classroom. There was plenty of space, tables, cookers and equipment for all eight attendees. There was no excuse for a shoddy display. We were soon joined by Caroline, who was a volunteer helper. Once we were all set up, we waited for our guests; and gradually they arrived.

And so it began. I can’t speak for Natalie and Caroline, but I entered in “showman” mode: gregarious and welcoming and a little extrovert. I recognised several faces and we all felt at ease very quickly. I introduced myself briefly before cracking on with the demonstration. I would like to think I was informative and helpful as I slowly guided everyone through the process of veg prep, making white sauces, and building and cooking both a moussaka and a lentil bake. Everyone pitched in and helped produce some lovely food. The group split into two and made their own white sauce, which was accomplished beautifully. The whole event was very informal, the interaction was great and everyone had a good time. Once the bakes were ready, we sat down to taste them and chat about the results.


Finally we were done. Everyone slowly dispersed and we finished cleaning up. All three of us agreed it went well, and seemingly so did our guests.

More photos from the Great Bakes class are on our Facebook page.

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: Learning how to make lots of sweet treats

By guest blogger SARAH-CLARE CONLON

I promised to take a Cracking Good Food session, so I put my money where my mouth is and put my mouth round a nice slice of homemade cake.

The Easy Puddings masterclass was held last night at Chorlton High School, in a very well-equipped domestic science lab. Following Adele's quick runthrough of some general housekeeping points (emergency exits, location of loos, tidying up afterwards), Cooking Leader Kim and Cooking Assistant Avril were straight into passing out scales and sponge cake ingredients to the three groups of three and four eager students.

Particularly democratic in our group, one of us worked out 200g unsalted butter then transferred it to a saucepan to soften, one of us measured out 200g brown caster sugar to be creamed into the butter using an electric handwhisk (sooo much easier than doing it with a wooden spoon, I can tell you!), and one of us weighed out 200g self-raising flour, to be sifted into the creamed butter along with three eggs, cracked in, one by one, by each of us! We were having fun! After adding a splash of milk, we poured half the mixture into one silicon baking case and the other half into a second. While the sponges baked for 20 minutes in an oven pre-heated to 175C (gas mark 4), we moved onto our second dessert.


Next on the menu was a no-bake cheesecake which turned out to be very easy, very impressive and very berry! Having taken out the stresses of the day on some digestive biscuits with a rolling pin, we pressed the resulting crumbs (complete with a generous pinch of ginger) into separate ramekins to create individual dessert pots. These were refrigerated while we made the filling: blueberries broken down for 10 minutes on the hob with some sugar, folded into a mixture of cream cheese, Greek yoghurt, icing sugar and lemon zest and juice. It made for a tangy taste, with all the flavours coming through one after the other. The rich purple and white marble effect goo was spooned over each of the bases and a couple of sprigs of fresh mint added for presentation, before the pots were popped back in the chiller until later.

Back to the Victoria Sandwiches, and as the sponges were left to cool on the side, we got on with the filling: sliced fresh new season British strawberries and double cream, whisked to a stiff thickness. These were layered on the first sponge, with the second pressed down on top. A top layer of icing sugar was drifted over, and three fresh'n'fancy Victoria sponge cakes were ready! Once cups of tea were distributed, we all tucked in. Mmmm.


Avril will be running the next workshop for Cracking Good Food: Tasty Salads. The details about this courses and all the others are on the Cracking Good Food website.

Sarah-Clare Conlon is a writer, editor and press officer who lives in Chorlton and does PR for Cracking Good Food. You can read her award-winning blog about arts and culture 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.