Sunday 20/09/09 at Imperial College

Again, we only had limited kitchen facilities for this session but fear not, the creative, resourceful juice at FoodWorks floweth as ever. Generous quantities of potatoes, corn, plums, various soft herbs (basil and coriander), watercress, curly kale, red and yellow stemmed chard, romaine lettuce, mixed baby leaf salad etc were donated by big-hearted stallholders at Marylebone market. Check out the explosion of colours in the pictures!

Ankoor led the session. We were joined by new FoodWorks co-ordinator, Verity, whose pictures can be seen above. Volunteers present were Sarah et moi :0)

Sarah made baked potato wedges flavoured with cumin seeds. Ankoor made an Indian style potato and cabbage dish which made the best use of all the veg and herbs we had. The cabbage was sautéed with boiled potatoes with spices, then generously seasoned and the contents of a small jar of orange red Peruvian chilli sauce (donated item we had in stock). Then chopped fresh herbs were added and mixed into the dish. The result was truly magnificent, no less a stunning transformation of an otherwise mish mash of ingredients. FoodWorks magic?

Because of limited kitchen facilities, we were unable to cook the plums (might have made a baked flan using puff pastry); so we sorted and cleaned them and delivered them as fresh to the Notre Dame Centre.

Both plums and sweetcorn are in season now. Check them out at your local market!

Sunday 13/09/09 at Imperial College

This was our first session back at Imperial College after the summer break. Ankoor and Donat led the session. We were given generous quantities of curley kale (a leafy green rich in vitamin C), cauliflowers, sweetcorn still in their husks, potatoes and organic pears (not shown). Our normal kitchen at Imperial was not ready for use on the day and so we had to think on our feet and come up with another plan! Alternative facilities were found, although the limited resources available there meant Donat had to revise the cooking plan considerably.

We produced: corn on the cob (boiled and seasoned simply with salt, pepper and some Korean red chilli powder), curley kale sautée with cumin seeds, cauliflower florets stir-fried with sliced onions, cumin seeds, ground cloves and other spices and baked potato wedges with the skin still on which also had a sprinkling of the afore-mentioned Korean chilli powder.