Budding young chefs have been cooking up a storm in the kitchen.
Housing association Salix Homes has teamed up with food charity Fareshare to teach tenants and their children how to prepare healthy meals on a budget.
Families have been taking part in a free, six-week cooking course at Summerville Primary School in Duchy, Salford, where they have learnt how to cook a range of low-cost, healthy dishes for the whole family using only fresh ingredients.
Under the watchful eye of Chef Maz, the children and their parents have rustled up some mouth-watering recipes including curry, vegetable burgers, quesadillas and they even had a go at pancake flipping on pancake day.
Matilda Noble, aged seven, has been attending the sessions with her mum Janiene.
Matilda said: “I love the cooking course and my favourite thing is cutting up the mushrooms, but the best bit is when we cook the food and then get to eat it.”
Claire Oates, has been attending the sessions with her two daughters Tianna, five, and Summer, six. She said: “The course has been great and the kids love it. They are also more eager to try new things because I’m using ingredients I’ve never cooked with before.”
Salix Homes, which owns more than 8,300 properties, across central Salford, has been running the cooking courses across all its neighbourhoods in Salford for the past three years and all the sessions are focussed around healthy eating.
Sue Sutton, executive director of operations at Salix Homes, said: “We have been running our cooking courses for tenants for more than three years now and they’ve been really successful with tenants saying they’re eating healthier and have seen their food bills decrease.
“Healthy eating is the key to a healthy lifestyle and it’s great that the whole family can learn together about the benefits of a healthy diet and learn some new recipes that they can then try at home.
“We know how difficult it can be to produce nutritious meals for the family when money is tight, so we want to show our tenants that it is possible to eat healthily while living on a budget.”
Photo: Janiene and Matilda Noble, seven, with Chef Maz, Summer Oates, six, and mum Claire Oates.
