Summer Community Cooking at The Greenhouse Pantry

A return to The Greenhouse Pantry was in order after the success of the Easter meal earlier this year! This time, we offered a six-week series of cookery classes ending with a celebratory community meal. We welcomed new and old faces to the Greenhouse pantry on a Friday afternoon in late spring as the heavens opened, but the wet weather didn’t stop us from having a cracking day in the makeshift pantry kitchen. The aim of these classes was to introduce cooking skills that would allow the group to make the most delicious meals out of what might appear on the pantry shelves. 

 

Our first class brought out an old EFS classic, ever-changing pearl barley risotto. The prospect of adding seasonal asparagus to it meant our band of participants would be eating some of the best veg Scotland can produce at that time of year. With knife skills at the forefront of the class, we began with a variety of vegetables being diced and sliced for the risotto. Within the same session, we also covered fish prep. Thankfully we had Billy in attendance, who had been catching trout his whole life so could prepare a fish no problem! 

 

We also covered the essential brunch skill of poaching eggs, which for many is a final frontier of egg cooking. But with a little trust, a good timer and sharp white wine vinegar we can achieve anything! The plump bouncy white spheres were the perfect way to top off the plate of food each participant put together over the two-hour session. Two different types of risotto (pearl barley/arborio rice) were served with pan-fried sea bass, steamed asparagus and a runny poached egg. If Saturday Kitchen hadn’t already coined the idea, we’d be taking this dish straight to food heaven. 

Week one certainly set a high bar for the rest of the project, with new faces arriving each and every week. This meant we had the challenge of arranging new skills each week whilst making sure new members were still able to catch up. Knife skills remain an integral part of any EFS class and the members of the Greenhouse Pantry developed them well. Weeks two to four rolled through as we made delicious sauces, finely diced vegetables and rolled fresh pasta! 

With the classes open to families we had the return of Alfie and Amelie who, despite being our youngest chefs at a class, boast a wide range of skills. They certainly love their fruit and vegetables; Alfie is a little too eager to eat raw spring onions but we can’t complain about that (unless he then makes us smell his onion breath!).  

The cooking continued at pace but now in the wide open spaces of the EFS kitchen. In the final two weeks, we made ricotta from scratch as well and a wide variety of dips that would wow at any summer BBQ or picnic. The skills of emulsification were covered as we made a sauce gribiche, followed by combining many roast vegetables in pesto and baba ganoush form. 

When participant  Sandra let us know that ‘making cooking low stress is a great thing to have learnt here’, we could see the courses were landing with the group. As in every class, everyone left with tubs filled with snacks and new skills in their back pocket. The staff at the pantry would regularly feedback at this time asking for more printouts of the previous week’s recipes as word was spreading about the delicious meals we were making. 

As the course drew to its conclusion and the group had evolved from the first week,  it was apparent that the basic principles were ingrained in each participant. Knife skills were much improved, kitchen organisation was much better and therefore overall efficiency for each participant has gone through the roof. Confidence is key in a kitchen and we could tell that most of the group now really trusted their own abilities. This was proven in the class where we made pastry for a cherry galette and a number wanted to knead the dough by hand over using a machine, eager to fully learn the process manually. Jane even remarked ‘I am so surprised! I’ve been buying pastry all these years, but now it’s so easy!’; in a testament to how the experiences helped the pantry members grow confidence in their new skills.

 

These skills were showcased in a fantastic community meal, which marked the end of the six weeks of classes, and enabled the participants to share their newfound culinary capabilities with other locals. The summer community feast was hosted at The White House Kitchen and the event was incredibly well attended – we even had to put out extra chairs and tables to seat everyone. Thanks to everyone who came to the classes and meal. We can’t wait for the next one!