GUEST BLOG: Foraging in Hebden

By guest blogger SARAH BENJAMINS

A gorgeous sunny day enticed us out to the hills of Hebden Bridge on Sunday 18 May, through beautiful mixed woodland, along babbling brooks and gullies, crossing a hidden waterfall, and up onto sunny meadows. Late spring brings an abundance of interesting plants, both culinary and medicinal, as foraging expert Jesper Launder (pictured) explained. Woodavens, Nettle (rich in iron and other minerals), Toadflax, Jack by the Hedge, Rosebay Willowherb, Meadowsweet (aspirin precursor), Hawthorn Flowers (good for the heart). 

We collected basketfuls of watercress from a stream, along with a graphic explanation of why foraged watercress should always be eaten cooked not raw (liver flukes are not to be messed with). We also found Easter Dock, an important, nutrient rich wild spring food which is celebrated nearby at the annual Mytholmroyd Easter Dock Pudding Festival. The highlight for some was looking for pignuts, along with a lesson on how to forage legally, sustainably and responsibly, ensuring we leave a habitat able to continue to provide its bounty year on year. Back at base, Jesper cooked up our finds, making fritters and soup, and sharing with us some of his home brewed Oak leaf and Knotweed wines. A great way to spend a Sunday!

There are more great photos from the trip to Hebden Bridge on our Facebook page here and here.

Jesper is leading some special elderflower forages this month, and on 25 June you get a free Le Parfait jar to preserve your jams, jellies, pickles etc - see our website for more: click here.

GUEST BLOG: Wild night out

By guest blogger SHARON ROBINSON

Our forage this week was no more than half a mile, along one edge of Chorlton Water Park and about 50 metres of the River Mersey. Foraging expert Jesper Launder explained that we’re in a bit of a seasonal transition period wild food wise - spring has sprung and the recent sunshine has encouraged some early summer activity. 

The evening seemed to have a bit of a cocktail/wine theme as we started right next to the sloe – the berries will be perfect in autumn for pepping up vodka or gin. As well as dandelion and nettles, there were young oak leaves and hawthorn flowers for making wine, and water mint for mojito. My favourite was the elderflower and I’ll be back for some to make elderflower champagne.

We ended the evening with Jesper creating a sweet and savoury tempura feast washed down with some summer oak leaf wine. Very tasty!

See the Cracking Good Food Facebook page for more photos from Wednesday's forage.

GUEST BLOG: Great bakes

By guest blogger CORIN BELL

It’s definitely the start of summer, and it was a beautiful sunny day when we turned on the ovens at Chorlton High School for some dough-based action with our resident bread-making expert Rob Tomlinson. The half-day bread-making course runs with a little more speed than the luxurious full-day course we ran at Flixton Girls' School for the first time last week (see our blog post), but our lovely group still got to make FOUR different kinds of bread… phew!

The group started by learning how to make a classic white loaf, keeping the recipe nice and simple to focus on techniques, the right steps to take, timings and how you can devise the perfect bread-baking process to suit you. While the group got into some technique lessons on kneading, myself and volunteer James got cracking making pizzas - it’s hard work all this bread lark, and our group were going to knead (sorry…) a good lunch and everyone gets to hear how to make this extra kind of dough, and takes home the recipe. Once the white loaves were kneaded and resting happily, the group went on to learn how to make an enriched dough (one with fat, in this case olive oil, added to the dough at the start) as the base of a sun-dried tomato and olive focaccia. Smells of garlic, rosemary and olives filled the kitchen, and thankfully the pizzas were ready just before anyone started eating their raw dough!

After a quick lunch break, and some chat about different types of yeast, and how to fit making a daily loaf into your life, the group moved onto making garlic naan. Tip of the day… we all need to stop saying “naan bread”, because naan is the traditional Farsi word for bread, so w'ere basically asking for "bread bread" when we head out for Indian - thanks, Rob! Naan dough is made using yoghurt, so this was a new adventure for lots of our group, and as the bread is pan cooked rather than oven baked, there were lots of new techniques to learn. By the end of the session, the group had a cracking stack of naan, beautiful herbie focaccia, and a perfect tin loaf to take home… bring on the carbs!


There are more photographs from this session on the Cracking Good Food Facebook page - click here to be redirected, and please do "like"!

More bread making sessions are coming up in Chorlton (14 June, 13 September and 11 October), Prestwich (7 June and 27 September) and Flixton (12 July and 8 November). Visit the Cookery Schools pages on our website for full details and online booking - click here.

GUEST BLOG: Spring into action

At the ‘Well Seasoned’ session last Saturday Jules Bagnoli shared her incredible knowledge of how to use food and flavours to their absolute maximum and avoid waste. Renowned low-carbon chef and slow food exponent Jules, who has run two celebrated Michelin-listed restaurants, led one of the free cook and dine sessions Cracking Good Food organised last year at The Biospheric Foundation during Manchester International Festival, and is an expert on cooking sustainably and getting the best out of British ingredients.

On the mouth-watering menu on Saturday was sumac-spiced spring lamb and roast garlic on a homemade oatcake served with spring leaves and fresh, local asparagus, plus a dollop of red onion jam and dill yoghurt (pictured above), plus a delicious vegetarian option of pan-fried samphire and chickpea fritters.

Participants first got the lamb in the oven, after giving it a good rub with herbs and spices, then started making the onion jam, which was left to cook down for the full duration of the session (pictured above) and only tended to by a glug of wine every so often. The kitchen then turned into a hive of activity, with oatcakes, fritters and a delicious dill yoghurt being prepared. At least one of the batches of the samphire and chickpea fritters worked (we won’t mention the other!).

Jules showed everyone how to plate up like a professional (pictured above), which we all replicated - to a certain extent! Eating the food is always the best bit, and this session didn’t disappoint as all the flavours balanced out wonderfully!  

  

GUEST BLOG: All in a day's work

By guest blogger CORIN BELL

Our full-day bread-baking course, Our Daily Bread, kicked off in style on Saturday in our new, very spacious venue at Flixton Girls' School. The amazing Rob Tomlinson was on hand to tell us everything we ever wanted to know about yeast, sourdough, flours, processes and bread-making myths. The session started with a chat about the loaves that we’d be making as we had a coffee and some of Rob’s lovely homemade flapjack (he does look after us). The group then began by making a classic white loaf, keeping the recipe nice and simple to focus on techniques, the right steps to take, timings and myths. There are so many books, websites and blogs about bread, and all of the experts have different tips and steps they swear by, so it’s great to have Rob explain how they all fit together and how you can devise the perfect bread-making process to suit you. 

While the participants cracked on with kneading, myself and our delightful volunteer Judith made some pizza dough and a lovely thick tomato sauce to whip up some pizzas for lunch. Although the group didn’t make the pizzas themselves, me and Judith talked them through the process, which is very similar to the basic loaf recipe, and everyone got the recipe so they can have a go at home. The end result… four different pizzas, a beetroot and farro grain salad, and a well-earned break!

Over the course of the day, with lots of time for coffee and questions, the group also made a beautiful black olive, sun-dried tomato and rosemary focaccia, and a light rye bread bloomer. It’s great to be able to compare how the different types of flour behave, and how different additions to the basic loaf (the focaccia is an enriched dough, with olive oil in the basic recipe, for example) affect the rising time, and how you treat the dough to get it light and airy. This new bread-making day was a really engaging workshop with a lovely relaxed pace… as Rob always says: great bread has five ingredients, flour, yeast, water, a pinch of salt - and plenty of time. 

There are more photographs from this Our Daily Bread session on the Cracking Good Food Facebook page.

Our next full-day bread making session is in Prestwich on Saturday 7 June - book here. Our next half-day bread making session is in Chorlton on Saturday 14 June - book here.

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.

GUEST BLOG: Wild times

By guest blogger SHARON ROBINSON

It is amazing how much tasty food there is free on your doorstep. Jesper, a cross between Brian Cox and James Martin, shared his amazing scientific knowledge and love of cooking with butter in Fletcher Moss Park and the surrounding green belt. This started right at the entrance to the park with Jesper pointing out the young leaves on the lime trees. 

Moving through the Alpine Gardens, we learned about the rejuvenating properties of pine pollen and tried the tasty three-cornered leek, considered to be an invasive pest. Out in Millgate Fields, we foraged for mushrooms and found Oyster, St George’s, Fried Chicken and Stinky Ink Cap varieties. We gathered wild garlic, ground elder, water mint and horseradish among many other things and at times it felt like we were trampling over someone’s dinner as we moved round the fields. The evening ended with a cook-up of some of our bounty washed down with a splash of dandelion wine. Delicious!

There are more photos from this wild food foraging trip on the CGF Facebook page. Click here.