Students from Woodham Academy’s Let’s Get Cooking group recently hosted an evening of fine food and festivities for parents and guests. Let’s Get Cooking is the country’s largest network of healthy cooking clubs for children and their families. When children eat better, they do better. The initiative, set up by Children’s Food trust in 2007, was developed to inspire children to learn to cook and enjoy good food, giving them the confidence and skills they need to get hands-on in the kitchen and make healthier food choices throughout their lives. The group consists of 12 students from a variety of year groups across the school. Each week the students meet after school in the kitchens with School Chef, Mrs Vipond. Mrs Vipond teaches the students how to cook, following a range of recipes and suggestions from the students. Since September the students have a range of handmade meals including; pizzas, burgers and bread buns, soups, cakes and pasta dishes.
The Christmas meal evening was an opportunity for parents and guests to attend to taste the delights cooked by the students. As well as a four course meal, which included; carrot and coriander soup with a fresh bread roll, chicken paupiette and Christmas pudding with vanilla sauce, students also made handmade chocolates. There was even a vegetarian option of mushroom stroganoff and for those that weren’t keen on Christmas pudding; there was strawberry and vanilla cheesecake. Almost 40 people attended on the night with many offering a donation to the group because of the standard of their meal. The group worked extremely hard all evening cooking, presenting the meals, serving the food and also clearing away and attending to their guests.
