Stories from Forgebank: Gill on cooking for 40

“Yikes!” was my first thought about the prospect of cooking for forty, it is a daunting prospect. But I’ve done it six or seven times now and it’s been one of the most rewarding things I’ve done since moving in last September.

Sharing food and our meals are an important time when both children and adults eat together in the Common House; it’s a great time to talk to and get to know one another. I also love taking the time at the end of a meal to sometimes read or tell stories to some of the children (it lets mums and dads off the hook for just a few minutes too).

I eased my way in to the whole ‘big cooking’ process by being second cook, effectively veg peeler and chopper and wash-up-as-you-go person for the first few meals. The most memorable being a burrito brunch on Boxing Day for neighbours and their family and friends. We’ve had Emma’s burrito brunch about three times now and it’s a firm favourite.

I’ve braved being lead cook four times now - something that includes deciding what to cook (not as scary as you’d first think), acquiring the right quantity of ingredients (work in progress), reassuring your assistant and timing. So far everything has gone according to plan with the exception of buying broccoli far too early in the week, by meal day it had gone a bit yellow... However nobody seemed to notice or they were too polite to say anything (so please don’t tell anyone).

So, ahem, moving on … My repertoire now includes veg crumble, cauliflower cheese/seed, red dragon pie (mung bean shepherd’s pie for the uninitiated) and pasta with a choice of three different sauces. (And a couple of pans of soup and prize winning vegan chocolate brownies – but that’s a different blog post).

One thing I’ve discovered: I’m an okay cook (phew!). The greatest compliments have been when folk came back for seconds (or thirds - but I won’t name names), asked for the recipe, and when the assistant cook said is was stress-free (hurrah!). All leftovers have been quickly polished off the next day for lunch (so making too much has never been an issue) and I’ve forgotten who I loaned the veggie crumble recipe book to (it’ll turn up).

Gill

www.lancastercohousing.org.uk

Easy peasy vegan squeezy

Pete with his giant homegrown pumpkin

One of the things we have started to focus on as a group is how we will eat together in the cohouse once we have moved in. We're aiming for at least three evening meals a week, maybe (ideally) more, maybe some breakfasts, brunches and lunches as well. Thanks to Mark, who has spent time visiting other cohousing communities in Scandinavia and the US, we know quite a bit about what works well and what doesn't. The main lessons from others are that a) food is central to community -- we have to get it right, and b) it's not easy to get it right -- every community is different, and we need to be prepared to learn and adapt as we go along.

There's a long-standing commitment to cooking and eating predominantly vegan food at our communal meals. There are lots of good reasons for this but it's also something that causes many of us some anxiety -- I have to cook food that 40 people will enjoy eating *and* it has to be vegan? How is that ever going to work?

Lucy and Eliza saying 'how much garlic?!'

So last Friday, Mark (who picked up a lot of his vegan cookery skills when he lived in Italy) offered to host a participatory demo afternoon at his house to show some of us how it can be done. I was very keen to go -- I love food, and I love cooking, and I haven't eaten meat since I was a teenager -- but I'm not a vegan: indeed one of my mottos is 'there's no such thing as too much cheese'.

We started with a huge pot of chickpeas, a giant pumpkin from Pete's allotment, and three bulbs (yes, bulbs!) of garlic. Also involved at various stages, were rice, pasta, red peppers, nori, tofu, bouillon, olive and rapeseed oil, peas, potatoes, beans, lentils and chilli... not forgetting those traditional English ingredients: parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. We made six or seven different dishes over the afternoon, and ate them all as we went along. I think we all had different favourites, but my personal favourite was the chickpea and pumpkin stew, which had smoky chilli plus slow cooked *and* deep fried garlic. Delicious. Lucy was looking after baby Eliza so couldn't do much chopping, but that did mean there was someone to write all the recipes down!

The deep-fried garlic gets added to the chickpeas

By the end of the afternoon... well, I believe Mark could cook tasty vegan food for 40 people with no problems at all. As for the rest of us, especially those who are used to relying on meat, fish or cheese for our strong flavours, I think we might need to work on our confidence -- and get used to starting to cook a whole lot earlier in the day than we're used to.

Having said that, Miles and I used some of the leftover pumpkin the next evening and cooked pasta for Pete and Dawn using an adapted recipe of Mark's, adding some toasted sunflower seeds and serving it with some kale with lemon and (yet more) garlic. If I say so myself, it was pretty good. I'm still not a vegan, but in a world where the US Congress will bow to big industry pressure and allow frozen pizza to be classified as a vegetable on school dinner menus, I want to be doing More Of This Kind Of Thing.

jo

www.lancastercohousing.org.uk

Lancaster Cohousing partners with The Centre @ Halton on Lottery Bid

Lancaster Cohousing and The Centre @ Halton are through to the second round of a Local Food Lottery Bid. If successful, the project, to be called 'Food Matters', will include:

• a 'community supported agriculture' scheme working with a local farmer.
• 'grow, cook and eat' events in The Centre @ Halton
• residential weekends for groups from all over the country to experience living and eating in an intentional community
• an education programme for local schools and community groups to get involved with growing, cooking and eating local food.

www.lancastercohousing.org.uk