Selby College’s Hospitality and Catering students cooked up a storm at Selby District Council’s Eat Your Heart Out event – demonstrating how to cook low-budget, tasty meals.

The festival, which took place at Selby Abbey on Friday 31^st March, provided a programme of food-themed events, talks, activities and live cooking demonstrations.

The College’s Level 2 Professional Cookery students, alongside Subject Lead for Hospitality & Catering, Adrian Dawes, took to the stage to demonstrate how to make its Broccoli and Cheddar soup.

This was just one of the meals which was on the budget recipe card that the students prepared for the event, helping attendees to try new recipes whilst keeping ingredient costs low.

Other recipes included Apple Pie, Crème Brule, Asian pan-seared Tuna, Dijon Lamp Chops and Chicken Milanese.

In the midst of the cost-of-living crisis, the students really wanted to showcase recipes which were budget-friendly and used simple ingredients which anyone has in their fridge or the cupboard. I’m incredibly proud of their creations and their ability to showcase them to the audience at the event, making home cooking look fun and affordable. We hope that attendees found the demonstration useful and that they enjoy trying their hand at some of these recipes at home!

Chef Consultant, Stephanie Moon, also spoke to Adrian and the students during the demonstration about the Hospitality and Catering department at Selby College and its successes over the years.

This includes when the department was presented with Pearson’s Silver Teaching award from its Further Education Team of the Year category, after being selected from more than 20,000 nominations.

What I’ve learnt on my course and the support from my tutors has given me the confidence as an aspiring chef to try new recipes and methods of cooking. It was great to be able to put this to the test at the Eat Your Heart Out event and to show people that cooking from scratch really doesn’t have to be expensive or complex.

With a passion for creating recipes, Joshua has helped to create set menus for the College’s onsite restaurant. Joshua’s menus explore food through the decades, featuring traditional dishes like scampi and chips, sponge pudding and more.

The restaurant offers a range of delicious meals, using the finest locally-sourced produce, at competitive prices.