Learning to Cook at Leiths school of food and wine

 Cooking in style at Leiths school of food and wine

Imagine being taught to cook properly? well thats just what happened when I had the pleasure of attending a one day course at Leiths school of food and wine .

So picture this, my friend Sarah from Extraordinary Chaos messaged me and said “have you seen this competition on instagram it’s amazing you really must enter but it finishes tonight”

So it was a competition by Circulon to win fabulous set of their pans, a night’s stay in a hotel and a cooking course for two at Leiths cookery school in London. My reply was ” yeh I can do that, I was cooking dinner anyway I’ll knock up a photo and put it on insta”

So the creativeness Insues, a bit of curried maylasian noodles, extract every pot, pan and pretty little dish out of the cupboard and take a picture.

Well I must say the creative process can be rather messy, picture emptying the contents into random receptacles, creative instructions from my 16 year old son, pieces of ingredients spread across the worktop with two dogs running around catching scraps. Whilst poor old hubby sits patiently in the chaos waiting for his tea which can’t be eaten until photographed!

Hence to say it took a long time to clear up, but it was well worth the effort because I won!

I’ve never attended a cookery course before, I would say I’m not a bad cook at least I can make it look pretty. So I was  very interested in what I was going to learn and achieve.

At Lieths We decided on the Healthy and Delicious entertaining course which took place between 9.30 and 2.30 at the Leiths school of food and wine in London.

We started the morning off with a nice cup of coffee in the cafe area whilst chatting with the other people who would be undertaking the course. We were given our menus and donned our aprons all reading for some culinary creativeness.

All of the meal courses were talked through before undertaking them, starting with the apple and pear crumble with goji berries.

A healthier option for a crumble exchanging ground almonds and oats for most of the flour. Full of vitamin C and gluten free as well.

This was set aside for later to be cooked, we made 3 two of which we saved to take home.

Next up we made the the quinoa which was really interesting to me as I have never tried it before so it was really helpfull learning how to cook it properly. Quinoa is a grain and its also known as a superfood, high in protein  and gluten free, it tasted amazing with the sweet apricots in it. You can add anything really to the grain, nuts, peppers, onions, raisins or even feta.

The falafels were my favourite and were the best I have ever tasted. A mixture of chickpeas and carrots with with spices which are then oven baked rather than fried. Just fabulous in a pitta with some tzatziki.

We also made a crunchy green bean salad on the side with orange in. We learnt how to properly Segment an orange to not waste any, which I have yet to master!

A Tahini Yogurt dressing was made to accompany the falafels and the pitta as well, A simple mixture of yogurt, garlic, tahini, lemon and cumin.

The Harissa paste was a work of art, so easy and simple to make yet can jazz up so many dishes. A spicy chilli paste with loads of flavour, I am so glad I learnt how to make it.

It can be used on absolutely anything from chicken to fish or added to sauces. You can add it to hummus for an extra kick, and you can make it as spicy as you wish. It also stores in the fridge for quite some time too making it great to make in batches.

We also had a great tutorial on filleting fish ( something that I think I will still leave for the Professionals to do). Before cooking our mackerel we coated it in the harissa paste and then cooked it under the grill.

Perhaps the best bit was getting to eat what we had made settled down nicely with a glass of louis latour (or two)

All in all a marvellous day, I left having actually learnt something new, and enjoyed making and eating it as well.

After we arrived home my new  Circulon pans had also arrived which I won in the competition, all ready for me to unleash my new found cooking skills on.

They really are fantastic non stick and perfectly fit my induction job. A nice sturdy good quality pan.

Lieths cookery school hold so many different courses there really is something for everyone.

I look forward to attending more in the future and i feel so lucky to have won the competition. Thank you Circulon for picking my photo.

I hope you enjoyed my learning to cook at Leiths school of food and wine, I certainly did.

D x

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