“I feel much more confident cooking from scratch”

As we start another year we thought we’d take some time to reflect on the past few months. We’ve been really busy recently running adult courses, welcoming school groups to our venues and doing lots of outreach sessions.

We’ve had some great feedback on our eight-week adult courses, with group members learning lots of new skills and recipes, and even making the recipes at home again for their families. It’s always great to hear people becoming more confident in the kitchen and knowing that they’ve got the skills to be able to provide their family with a healthy, nutritious meal.

Here are some of the things they’ve told us:

Given me the confidence to cook a meal for the family.

I feel much more confident cooking from scratch than before the course. I now want to do more.

We’ve been working closely with a number of schools this term, welcoming them to our bases at Shaw House and The Storehouse. Some of the older students from High Park School have been attending and learning some valuable life skills to help them with their independence, and making various pasta dishes, omelettes and Eggy Bread Muffins and tasting new fruits and vegetables.

We’ve had students from West SILC (Specialist Inclusive Learning Centre) who have been developing their cookery skills, and together we’ve made curry, pasta dishes and pizza and spent some time discussing healthier eating and portion sizes.

Finally we were joined by Bradford Christian School who came to us to learn how to make tasty fajitas and we had a lovely time visiting them at school to teach them all about food safety.

In addition to people visiting us, we also love to get out into the community to deliver outreach sessions. In the past few months we’ve delivered food safety courses to various organisations, giving them the knowledge required to stay safe in the kitchen when catering for other people. In November we delivered cooking workshops at Bradford Inclusive Disability Service (BIDS) Teen Zone at Beacon Church in Wibsey. We had lots of fun with the young people there making pasta and couscous and learning how to add lots of flavour to dishes.

Another Community Organisation, Shine at St Stephens Church in West Bowling asked us along to teach some recipes from their recipe book ‘Cook With Shine’, we made a lovely Leek and Potato Soup and a Vegetable and Bean Risotto. These are both great recipes for using up fresh vegetables and making filling and nutritious meals – and the recipe book is available to purchase online from Shine.

After such a busy few months, we took a short break over Christmas and we’re gearing up for more courses and workshops shortly. We have a new eight-week cooking course for adults starting on Wednesday 12th January, and our February half term kids’ cooking classes will be available to book very soon.