The Not-So-Perfect Bits… and the Chaos

It feels so nice to be properly cooking again.

After finishing my Leiths Essential Cooking course, I knew I wanted to carry on learning, so this week I started their Plant-Based Cooking course. I really love the Leiths format and style of teaching – having the recipes, techniques and demonstrations to work through at home really suits me. There’s enough guidance to make you feel confident, but you’re still very much left to get stuck in and actually learn by doing.

And, as I discovered again this week, sometimes the doing doesn’t quite go to plan!

Week one was all about brunch, with tofu scramble, smoky beans and carrot ‘bacon’, beetroot fritters with buttery mushrooms, and plant-based blueberry pancakes with sweet and salty pecans and caramelised banana.

I always love the mise en place stage. Everything weighed out, chopped and sitting neatly in little bowls, my Leiths folder open and the kitchen looking beautifully calm and organised.

As you’ll see later, it didn’t stay that way for long!

Tofu scramble, smoky beans & carrot ‘bacon’

The first dish went really well and introduced me to something completely new – liquid smoke.

It gave the carrot ‘bacon’ the most incredible smoky flavour and is definitely something I’ll be using again. I love when a course introduces me to an ingredient or technique that I know will become part of my everyday cooking.

The whole dish surprised me. Between the tofu scramble, rich smoky beans and carrot ‘bacon’, it created a stunning plate. The flavours and textures were fantastic and it felt like a proper indulgent brunch rather than something where anything was missing.

Beetroot fritters & buttery mushrooms

Next came the beetroot fritters with creamy, buttery mushrooms.

The fritters required rather more handiwork than I’d anticipated – particularly squeezing and draining all that moisture out of the beetroot mixture! But they were worth it.

Crispy and deeply savoury against the creamy mushrooms, this was another dish that really surprised me. I’d love to experiment with the fritters again and try incorporating some different flavours.

Blueberry pancakes…and the banana incident

Then came the pancakes.

The plant-based blueberry pancakes themselves went completely to plan, and with the sweet and salty pecans they were fab. Fluffy pancakes, blueberries and crunchy pecans – so far, so good.

And then I met the caramelised banana.

Attempt number one: the caramel started well, but I didn’t manage to move the bananas through it quickly enough.

One big sugary mess.

Attempt number two and the caramel actually went to plan! Unfortunately, by this point the bananas had been sitting around and, once they hit the heat, they browned far more than I’d wanted.

Not exactly the beautiful golden caramelised bananas I’d pictured.

Better luck next time!

But that’s also the bit I love about learning to cook. Not everything works perfectly first time – and sometimes the things that go wrong teach you far more than the things that don’t. I know exactly what I’ll do differently next time.

And then there was the sink…

Of course, there’s the side of cooking that doesn’t normally make it into the pretty food photos.

The aftermath.

How I can make this much mess cooking brunch is honestly beyond me.

The difference between my beautifully organised mise en place at the beginning and the absolute chaos in my sink by the end makes me laugh. Bowls, pans, plates, strainers, utensils – apparently I needed virtually everything I own.

But that’s real cooking.

Three new dishes, new ingredients, new techniques, a caramel disaster, a ridiculous amount of washing up – and lots that I already want to make again.

Most importantly, I’m really happy to be back in the kitchen learning again. I loved the format of my first Leiths course, and already this one feels like it’s going to push me to cook with ingredients in ways I wouldn’t necessarily have thought of myself.

Not a perfect first week.

But definitely a delicious one.