Saturday 11th March 2023, 1pm – 7:30pm
£70 – Including teas, coffees, cakes and dinner
Menu: Brothy beans, with winter greens. Wholemeal bread and cultured butter with herbs.
This seasonal cooking class will be focused on using the pantry and winter vegetables to cook balanced meals at home. Eating seasonally in winter doesn’t mean you have to compromise flavor; I’ll be teaching you to make comforting, vegetarian food from humble ingredients.
The menu of my seasonal cooking classes changes each time, but always highlights local seasonal ingredients. In these classes we will look at sourcing seasonal, local and ethical ingredients, stocking a pantry, choosing tools, reducing waste in the kitchen and some foundational cooking techniques, like knife work.
This class is perfect for both beginners and enthusiastic cooks, as well as those looking to reduce waste, cook on a budget and shop more ethically.
Click here to buy tickets via eventbrite
Power of the pulses
More and more, cooks and farmers are looking to pulses as a solution to some big environmental and social issues in the food system. Not only can pulses play a key role in soil regeneration and agroecological farming, but they are a cheap and nutritious source of protein for the consumer! While modern diets are heavy in animal proteins, those that came before us would have consumed more plant proteins on a day-to-day basis in the form of dried peas and beans.
There are lots of ‘bean myths’ out there that scare many of us into sticking to canned pulses. or avoiding them entirely. When do you add salt? Will the skin be too tough? Do you pre-soak or not? In this class we will be sorting facts from fiction, learning how to layer flavors, perfect techniques, and make a show stopping meal from the humble bean!
Real bread rules
We will also be learning to bake wholemeal bread. I’ve been baking this loaf twice a week for years now and I never get bored of it. Homemade bread is superior to supermarket bread – I promise you’ll never look back either.
Bread is a staple food in most households in the UK, but the majority of bread sold and eaten is highly processed. I argue that the best bread is made at home.
To the non-baker, baking bread is seen with great wariness and there is a misconception that it’s very hard and best left to experienced bakers. However, I argue that once you have mastered a few basic techniques, bread baking is easy and rewarding. By baking bread at home and choosing your ingredients with care you can make high quality, nutritious bread, at a fraction of the cost a fancy bakery would charge.
Understand how to mix, knead, proof, and bake your bread. Learn to know when your dough has proofed and understand how temperature/ingredients can affect this. You’ll learn about working with white and wholemeal flour. We’ll look at a variety of different grains; how they are milled and blended.
The best butter
Making butter is a wonderous thing! To see thick glossy cultured cream transformed into lumps of rich, yellow butter is one of the greatest transformations in the kitchen. A magical reminder that in the kitchen you are a scientist, as well as a cook. We will be flavoring our butter with hardy winter herbs… perfect for melting onto hot bread.
Teas, coffees, cakes and dinner
Teas and coffee will be served throughout the class, as well as some sweet treats for our afternoon tea break. The class will end with a shared dinner from what we have made together. Plus, you will take home a loaf of bread and some flavored butter.