Children and Dad’s cooking in Edinburgh

We often hear how single parents, male and female, struggle to make ends meet since the introduction of the welfare reforms. Here at Edinburgh, the Us Together project decided to run some cooking-on-a-budget classes for fathers and their children, after a discussion with some of the dads we support. One dad, who has recently completed a cookery course, had expressed an interest in running the sessions and the kind people at Craigroyston Community High School let us use their wonderful kitchen facilities.

At one session we made homemade Pizza from scratch. As you can imagine, this went down well with the children: “Pizza, We love Pizza”. The kids enjoyed making the dough, getting their hands dirty and kneading; as one dad said “It’s nice and I find it calming”.

At another session, and to celebrate the 2014 Commonwealth Games, one of our dads, Saihou, from Nigeria showed us how to cook a dish called “Benachin” from his homeland. It consisted of carrots, spices, rice, halal chicken and fennel, garnished with lettuce and tomatoes. Again everyone contributed to the preparation and the cooking of the food, especially Saihou’s girls – they were so proud of their dad. Again a tasty meal that was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

More cooking sessions are planned and we hope to produce a book containing all the recipes.