RUBY’S KITCHEN COOKERY SCHOOL

"Cooking Is Simple"

Basic cookery course based in Fife, Scotland - One of the things I remember about my Grandmother, Ruby, is she was always there. In fact when I was born, it was to her simple but loving home that I was taken, so my mum could look after my very sick brother. What’s this got to do with a cookery school you ask? Well Ruby’s kitchen was as simple as they come. No frills, no fancy equipment, just basic home cooking, designed to fill you up until the next meal. My mum recalls times when she was young - times when there seemed to be nothing in the cupboards except for a packet of tea with a teaspoon sticking out of it. But feed her family she did. And these are the skills we have lost and which we hope to reinvent and pass on to a new generation. Today’s generation has largely been raised on ready meals and convenience foods. We need to get back to the basics and learn how to gain pleasure from the simple act of preparing something wholesome, nutritious and tasty to eat.

What Can You Expect When You Come To Ruby's Kitchen Cookery School?     Our basic cookery course aims to teach you how to prepare basic, tasty home-cooked food, with the emphasis on simplicity!  Cooking should be fun – when we get a little bit of time to spend in the kitchen we should relish it, not view it as a chore!  You may have noticed how cooking is being portrayed in the media in recent times – we have Hugh – showing us how to grow our own, then make simple dishes such as what he calls “half the garden soup”! We are fortunate enough to be able to grow a few vegetables organically, and follow his lead and the results are delicious and simplicity itself!  Then we have Jamie – reaching out to a new generation with his “pass it on” campaign. The principle being that we should learn to cook something well, then show someone else how to do it, and eventually maybe the whole nation will get cooking!  With this in mind we will show you just how easy it is to achieve all the basic skills you will need. We will do this in the relaxed environment of an ordinary kitchen with basic tools and equipment.

Your Basic Cookery Course Will Start - When you arrive we will have a short informal chat about what you hope to get out of your basic cookery course with us

Then we’ll put some music on, relax and start cooking!

We might start by putting some pizza dough together.

While it rises we might start on something basic like spaghetti bolognaise, we’ll demonstrate how this basic recipe can become 2 or three different things with a little imagination.

The addition of some chili and chickpeas transforms it into chili con carni, add lasagna sheets and learn to make a basic cheese sauce and you have another tasty supper dish – add the rest of the cheese sauce to pasta with a little bacon, and you have a delicious macaroni cheese.

Simple Pizza - Meanwhile the dough will be ready to form into a simple pizza, to which you can add toppings of your choice. We will provide a selection for you to choose from, but feel sure that as your confidence grows you will use your own imagination and ingenuity!

Entertaining - Pizza is a great place to start when you are entertaining your friends – you can prepare the bases and let everyone add their own toppings. This makes for a fun, relaxing evening and everyone can get involved.

Homemade Coleslaw - A simple but tasty accompaniment to this is our famous homemade coleslaw which is a best seller on our baked potato stall, this takes only a few minutes to prepare, and beats the carton variety hands down.

Cook Rice - On our basic cookery course you will be shown the easiest and most failsafe way to cook rice to add to your chilli, and if time permits we can tackle a simple curry.

Baked Potatoes - All of these dishes can be enjoyed with a simple properly cooked baked potato which will look after itself in the oven while we are doing other things.

Cooking is Simple - You may have noticed that we keep repeating the word ”simple”. This is entirely deliberate because cooking is simple. After you leave us you will have acquired a set of skills you can build on for the rest of your life, and hopefully pass on to your friends and we can all get back to the realization that cooking is a worthwhile , fun and interesting activity!

The End of The Day - When you leave us at the end of the day on your basic cookery course, you will be armed with a basic knowledge of how to survive on a student budget without resorting to the ubiquitous beans on toast!