We have been working with the Greenhouse Pantry to provide a pay-what-you-can community feast at the turn of each season for the last couple of years. The third meal of the year was once again held at the White House Kitchen, and it coincided with a celebration of the Pantry’s third birthday. The Pantry offers fresh and long-life food at a reduced price for those in the Craigmillar area. It’s also a food hub that we deliver home-made ready meals to several times a month.
Chef Fergus had led a series of cookery classes on Monday afternoons at the pantry in the six weeks leading up to the meal. This series of classes welcomed a new crowd, so new that some attendees had only just moved to the area. The six sessions included loads of fun different seasonal cooking classes; we made tacos from scratch, tempura’d courgette and blitzed some beets into borscht soup to name a few of the successes.
The classes were fun and informative and integrated new equipment. The Greenhouse Pantry has been the beneficiary of a large air fryer donation and we set about using it to its full potential by roasting root veggies. The group took great pride in making gnocchi from scratch as well as learning how to prepare multiple corn salsas and tomato sauces.
With all these skills in the bank, some of the group were able to come to the kitchen on the day before the meal along with a few other regular kitchen volunteers to help make the meal. The meal was to be a slow braised mutton tagine. For veggie options were we to do the same tagine with delicious veggie sausages and pulled mushrooms. We set about the prep and with many hands making light work we had mountains of prepped veggies in no time at all. Knife skills had been a core part of the lessons and now chopping in the EFS kitchen seemed like it had become second nature.
The rich, smoky, warming smell of the tagine base filled the kitchen, plenty of jokes and laughter also flooded the room while the prep continued. One thing that had not been covered in the classes was the browning of meat, so under the tutelage of chef Andrew seasoned hunks of finely aged mutton took a searing. These hunks were then reintroduced into the stew base and were then cooked for almost 6 hours to ensure the most tender of pulled meats.
It is fair to say that this time of year lends itself to the great pudding fruits and we were lucky enough to have Ruth (class graduate and now volunteer) bring us brambles and a donation of apples from Susan (CAT staff and EFS champion). With these, we had all the fixings for us to put a no-waste spin on a classic. The EFS freezers were filled with croissants and the group proceeded to combine the foraged fruit with these buttery golden pockets to form the bread and butter pudding of dreams. The essential skill of custard-making came to the fore with eggs, sugar and milk warmed and combined to make the yellow ambrosia. We all agreed this was a delightful seasonal dessert.
As the day of the meal dawned the team made efforts to pull all the final parts together. Side salads were assembled and extra custard was whipped up to ensure we wouldn’t run out. Equipment, food and extra bits were collated and ferried up to the White House Kitchen. Volunteers and staff from both organisations set about turning the cafe into the evening dining space. Thanks again to Colin who helped us with the use of his kitchen at The White House.
The minute passed and not long after 6pm the room began to fill with lots of new and familiar faces. We also had an exciting addition to accompany the meal: Katie’s home-brewed Ginger beer (check out Wee Ginger ™). The EFS chefs offered a fun introduction chat that brought smiles to the group and the patrons began to queue in a very orderly fashion. Finally, the fantastic staff served up the food and soft drinks to the waiting audience.
The gentle sounds of enjoyment and good company bounced around the dining room and plenty of smiles and new friendships were made on the night. We are reaching new people each and every time we host a community feast and we hope to continue to grow our reach within Craigmillar. This was a fantastic event with many leaving the evening full of delicious food and good socialising – a celebration appropriate for the Pantry’s birthday. Now, on to the next large meal in the diary at the Whitehouse for December 12th!
