You’ll have to excuse this post if it’s a bit disjointed as I’m in a food coma as I write it. Lucy and me went on an Introduction to Vegan Cooking Course today at The Edergole Kitchen in Dromahair, Co. Leitrim.
Lucy is a vegetarian and has been for a few years, I eat mostly vegetarian food as I’m not a big fan of meat. This course was something very different for me as the last cooking course I went on showed us how to open a jar of pasta sauce (true story).
Mike Harris and Jo Lewis run The Edergole Kitchen, some years ago they ran an award-winning vegetarian and vegan restaurant in London and now they host plant-based supper clubs, cookery courses and more in their beautiful Leitrim home.
When we arrived there was a gorgeous smell of apple pancakes as Mike was busy making breakfast for us. They tasted as good as they looked. We chatted to our fellow classmates over tea before we got down to work.
The classes are small and there was a great mix of people with some even travelling from Dublin and Athlone. It was very much a hands-on course which was brilliant, we were given recipes and told a bit about the dishes as we went along. Mike was on hand to offer assistance or advice if we needed it.
We made so many things and of course we ate so many things too! Our first dish to tackle was tempeh (I’d never heard of tempeh before today). Lucy made a delicious marinade for our one and it was left for a couple of hours before Mike cooked it.
Our group made a gorgeous egg free tortilla with tofu, aubergine, peppers and onion. Normally I don’t like the texture of tofu but as this was blended up it was lovely. This was a big hit at our table.
Mike showed us how to use polenta, another new thing for me and quite delicious fried.
The groups were split into pairs and some made pestos, another made a tomato sauce and we made satay sauce. I loved all of these, in fact the tomato sauce was the best I’ve ever tasted and I could have eaten the satay sauce by the bucket-load!
Risotto was also on the menu. Our group made a wild mushroom risotto and the other group made leek and orange. There was no faffing about with this risotto. Mike has a ‘chuck it in’ approach to cooking which is as refreshing as the food he cooks.
We also made a variety of salads and Mike showed us how to make pita bread. Everything we were shown was really quite easy to make – and I say this as someone who is usually not very adventurous in the kitchen.
At the end of the day we got to take some of the food home and I must confess I waddled to the car. It was a wonderful day, full of delicious flavours, lots of information and a relaxed atmosphere.
The Edergole Kitchen have lots of cookery courses coming up including Bread for Dummies, Veganuary Course and an Indian Cuisine Course. You can find out more on their website. If you don’t fancy cooking you can go along to their supperclubs which are held once a month.
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Great, just signed up for the bread course. And they’re right here in town!
Enjoy John 🙂
I’m a meat and potatoes girl but all of the vegan dishes you mentioned sound very tasty!
they were fab