Nine New Schools, Three New Teachers

Wow! What a couple of weeks it has been!

When I started running a few cookery classes for friends and neighbours a couple of years ago, my aim was that other children would be inspired to cook nutritious food from scratch in the same way that I hoped my own would.

Well, we are now certainly on the way to achieving that goal and Little Cooks continues to reach out into new schools and clubs through our after-school programme and pre-school workshops. And this September has seen a significant boost to our footprint as we have signed up with nine new schools across Oxford and Bucks.

Having so many schools on the Little Cooks roster inevitably means I can no longer teach at the majority of the schools myself and so I have therefore spent much of the summer holidays finding and training three new teachers to continue to spread the Little Cooks ethos. Not only has this meant gaining the relevant accreditation including CRB, Food Safety and Hygiene and Environmental Health, but also taking each of the teachers through what it means to be a Little Cooks teacher and what makes a Little Cooks class so special.

Now we are up and running with the new term I am really pleased with our widened teaching group and I am sure our new younger cooks have hours of fun, inspirational cooking ahead of them.

Summer Fruit Pud

The Children's Food Festival 2009 was great fun with over 14,000 families visiting over the weekend. Little Cooks ran a couple of very successful workshops - on Saturday afternoon in the Kids' Kitchen marquee, organised by cookery writer and broadcaster Amanda Grant; and on Sunday we ran a couple of workshops in the under 5's area.

Children participating in our workshops over the weekend made deliciously fruity individual summer fruit puddings. The recipe is below. Why don't you try it out?

‘Summer Fruit Pud’ - A deliciously fruity seasonal pudding that’s lots of fun to make and absolutely scrumptious!

Ingredients

250g summer fruits (blackberries, raspberries, redcurrants, blackcurrants, strawberries)

2 tbsp blackcurrant cordial

2 tbsp caster sugar

2tbsp water

4 slices white bread

Equipment

We use a 370ml pudding basin, lightly buttered but if you can't find one use a 300ml pudding basin instead.

Method

Place fruit (except for strawberries) in a saucepan with the cordial, caster sugar and the water and cook gently for about 5mins until the sugar has dissolved but the fruit remains unspoilt .

Remove the crusts from the slices of bread. Cut a circle of bread to fit the base of the pudding basin and another for the top. Cut the remaining 2 slices of bread in half and then into thirds.

Drain the juices from the fruit into a separate bowl and dip each piece of bread liberally into the juices as you assemble.

To assemble; push the circle for the base into the bottom of the pudding basin, then place each piece around the edge, overlapping slightly, without leaving any gaps.

Now spoon in the softened fruit, adding the strawberries here and there and finally add the last circle of bread to cover the pudding. Pour any remaining juice over the top and cover with cling film.

Place a plate over the pudding and a can to weigh it down. Refrigerate for at least 2hrs or overnight.

To serve; place a serving plate upside-down on top of the pudding basin and flip over. Serve with yoghurt, cream or ice-cream.

Children's Food Festival

I'm really pleased to announce that we have been invited to take part in the Children's Food Festival - an annual celebration of food and cooking that is taking place near Abingdon on 27th and 28th June. I went to the event last a couple of years ago with my two children and it really was loads of fun. There are lots of things to try out and taste and this year Little Cooks will be running a workshop in the Kids Kitchen where children will be able to make one of our favourite recipes - a deliciously fruity summer pudding. The festival, fronted by celebrity chefs, Raymond Blanc and Sophie Grigson is aimed at families and you can just turn up on the day. More information is available at www.childrensfoodfestival.co.uk.

Dietary Restrictions

I was recently asked by a parent whether we cater for children with different dietary restrictions. We work with parents and guardians to try and accommodate everyone, and so far we have been able to without any problems. This has included both children with food allergies and intolerances and also those with dietary restrictions such as halal, vegetarianism, kosher etc
If you have any worries or questions regarding this topic we would be very happy to speak with you, please do get in touch.

Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances (the hall had doublebooked us) we have needed to move our Little Cooks Easter Classes and Workshops to Monday April 6th. The location (St James the Great Church, Plomer Hill, Downley, HP13 5YP) stays the same but we have also needed to adjust the times slightly.

The Class (for pre-schoolers and reception) will now be from 2.30pm to 3.15pm and the Workshop (School Year 1 to Year 6) will now be at 3.30pm to 5pm.

If you have already booked, I hope you can still come and I will be in touch with you to check. If you haven't yet booked there are still some spaces available at both the class and the workshop.

One of the great things about cooking is the sheer variety of foods to discover and enjoy.

When we put together our plans for each new Little Cooks after-school course, one of the most enjoyable tasks is coming up with a mixed set of recipes that are enjoyable and interesting to make, and of course tasty to eat!

It's unfortunate that for many of the schools we run classes in we are not able to offer all the recipes we would really like to, mostly as a result of a lack access to ovens and hobs. However, the other night I saw an advert by Flora who are running a campaign to collect tokens from special packs which can be exchanged for equipment, including hobs and ovens.

I'd love to see our children have as much opportunity to experience the full enjoyment of cooking using a wide range of equipment so please do collect the tokens for you school or, if your school is already well-equipped, please feel free to pass the tokens on to me and I'll make sure they are used where they are needed.

More details about the scheme can be found at www.cookingwithschools.co.uk

Welcome to the Little Cooks blog

It has certainly been an interesting couple of weeks for Little Cooks. Four more schools are now offering Little Cooks Classes to their pupils and the feedback has been really great.

We have also just started offering classes at PlayTrain in High Wycombe. I came across PlayTrain a few weeks back and was really impressed by the facilities on offer there. If you've not seen it yet it's a new activity centre "for children of all ages" and offers a lot more than the usual soft play options. One area that really struck a chord with me was PlayTrain's efforts to offer fresh and healthy food options and so it seemed an obvious step to take up the offer of providing Little Cooks classes there.

If you have young children, do check it out at www.playtrain.biz.