Monday, October 18, 2010

A lot to catch up on!

It has been quite the few months. My new cookery school is now up and running, and there are more recipes to catch up on that I could nearly spend a week posting to catch up!
We have completed four weeks of lessons. The first week was all about EGGS! My favourite ingredient. If you have eggs in the house, it is so easy to rustle up something delicious. Especially if they are delicious organic eggs.
The next week was all about fruit, and we made smoothies, stewed fruit and fruit salad kebabs.


The children tried all sorts of combos using the yummiest fruits and we learned all about how to peel, slice and cook them.

The next week was all about vegetables, and we made guacomole, we made different combos of winter vegetable puree. The students' favourites were butternut squash and celeriac. (My favourites too!)

Then last week we were cooking with beans and pulses. This was my favourite week, because we made Falafel, Hummus and homemade baked beans. The recipe for this is included below. I guarantee you that when you make these a couple of times it will be practically impossible to go back to tinned beans!

I know the photo could be better, but they are yum, and pretty quick to prepare.



Baked Beans

First heat up a saucepan and add a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil along with a finely chopped onion, a grated clove of garlic and a teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves.
Sweat gently until the onions are soft and translucent.
Then add
1 tin of canellini or haricot beans, 1 tin of chopped tomatoes, 2 T tomato puree, 1 t caster sugar, 200ml vegetable stock, salt and pepper.
Stir well and bring to the boil. Lower to a simmer and allow to simmer for about 30 minutes or until the sauce has reduced and thickened.
Serve with just about anything!

I use canellini beans in this recipe, mainly because they are more widely available, but you could use haricot, kidney beans, chickpeas or whatever takes your fancy.

This week our class will be making homemade pasta and ravioli fillings.
Yum Yum!