welcome (!)
Firstly welcome to the first ever Stonesoup Virtual Cookery School class! I’m super excited by the response to Solve Your Dinner Dilemma. We’ve got students from all over the world. Of course there’s the usual suspects of Australia, Canada, the US and the UK. But we also have students from India, China, Israel, Denmark and Switzerland.
I’m so excited by the opportunity of us all to learn together and from each other using the powers of modern technology. But as we all know, sometimes technology can let us down. So please, if you have any problems at any stage during the next 4 weeks or if something is not meeting your expectations, PLEASE let me know so we can work on a solution together.
what you’re going to learn
Over the next 4 weeks, your going to learn how to solve your own particular dilemmas when it comes to dinner and cooking.
Specifically, you’ll be learning:
-How to prepare meals in minimal time – faster than it takes to dial a pizza.
-How to stock your pantry.
-10 simple pantry-based recipes so that you’ll always know that dinner is only a few minutes away.
-How to organise your shopping and maximise the shelf life of fresh produce.
-Up to 40 new healthy & delicious recipes – that will inspire and motivate you
-The gentle art of substitution and improvisation
-How to adapt recipes based on what’s in your fridge
-How to customise recipes for your dietary requirements or allergies.
So on a week-by-week basis it will look like this:
Week 1. How to setup a minimalist pantry
Week 2. Mastering the art of shopping & managing fresh ingredients
Week 3. Time tricks – how to cook more efficiently & effectively
Week 4. Adaptation – playing the what’s in the fridge game
[Bonus Week 5. How to stay inspired and motivated]
how it’s going to work
content
Each Sunday I’ll upload the online content for the week. This will include:
-A video and transcript (for those that prefer to read) outlining the topic for the week.
-around 10 recipes each week that each have their own instructional video, written instructions, adaptations for different dietary requirements, a troubleshooting guide and links to any relevant blog posts on stonesoup, for example, the egg fried rice has links to posts I wrote on cooking prefect rice and how to use soy sauce.
Every page has a ‘print friendly’ button on the bottom, click on this and then delete any parts you don’t want to print and then either print away or save as a separate pdf.
-Homework for the week. This is optional but I highly recommend doing as much as you can. We all learn best by doing.
video
Unfortunately I need to use 2 different video providers for the class. My preferred is vimeo and I’m using it for all the recipe videos. They are all password protected and the password is SYDD. Vimeo has a limit to how much video I can upload each week, so sometimes, like today I’ll need to use YouTube. These videos don’t need a password and they are unlisted and unsearchable so only people who have the link or can see the image I embed in the Cookery School website can watch them.
discussion
I’ve setup a flickr group where we can discuss each weeks topic or a particular recipe. You should have received and email invitation to join the group. You’ll need to get a free flickr account if you don’t already have one. Feel free to upload your own photos of your creations, but no pressure. I’d prefer this to be the first place you go to ask a question so everyone can see both the questions and answers and we can get a bit of discussion going. I’ve also uploaded the photos of each recipe into the group, so feel free to make comments on a particular recipe under that particular image.
email support
And I’ll be available to answer questions by email as well if needed. Just shoot them to jules@thestonesoup.com.
webinar
Each week there will be 2 live webinars
The 2 times are:
– Sydney time: Sat 4pm = New York time Sat 1am = London time Sat 6am
– Sydney time: Sun 9am = New York time Sat 6pm = London time Sat 11pm
You can calculate your local time over at world clock: www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/.
I’ll be using Watershed by Ustream for the webinars. You’ll need to signup for your own account and sign in to be able to participate in the chat. You’ll also need to enter the password for the webinar to be able to watch. I’ll email the links every week and they’ll also be posted on the Solve Your Dinner Dilemma Overview page.
Both webinars will be recorded for you to watch in your own time, but do try and attend one or even both if you can. I’ll be on the video but there will also be a chat room where everyone is welcome to comment, discuss and ask questions. I’ll be going through any questions that have arisen during the week on flickr or via email and then we’ll throw it open to questions from the group. Even if you’re a bit shy, please try and get involved, the more interactive the session, the more fun and relevant it will be.
So let’s get into it. Head over to the week 1 content page: How to Setup a Minimalist Pantry.
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