Using home made pizza dough, Maria’s passata recipe, and a selection of ingredients such as olives, cheese, ham, sweetcorn and pineapple, our members could create a pizza of their choice.
These creations – labelled with appropriate names on greaseproof paper, were then cooked in the church ovens by our team of talented cooks, and then enjoyed!
We rounded off a culinary evening by celebrating a birthday, with a delicious home made cake!
Once again we had an evening centred around food, but this time it was pancakes. As we normally do, we asked members to bring any favourite toppings, and cooked pancakes in the Wesley Memorial kitchen so people could add their choice of topping and eat.
The evening took on a distinctively Scottish feel, with a Scotland themed quiz, plenty of chat about our own favourite Scottish connections or memories, and a traditional meal of haggis, neeps and tatties. This was washed down with Irn-Bru, Scotland’s other national drink. We did, of course, have the traditional reading of Robert Burns’ “To a Haggis“, although only the first verse. We also sang along to the Auld Lang Syne and The Proclaimers.
For our last meeting before we break for Summer we took advantage of having a talented chef amongst our members. Maria made cookie dough, to which we could add a variety of toppings of our choice.
Maria baked them, assisted by Darren, and they emerged from the oven transformed! (and with a delicious aroma)
… and were eagerly eaten!
It was a great night, and we look forward to resuming in September.
In a return to tradition we celebrated the approach of Shrove Tuesday with delicious pancakes, and a variety of favourite toppings.
Although opinions may differ about the best topping for a pancake, a wide variety were available, lemon, sugar, bananas, whipped cream, chocolate sauces and so on. Several members bring their own contributions to make sure that their own choice will be available, and there was plenty to go round.
Anything involving eating is very popular, and for a chilly autumn evening what could be better than our making and eating cookies.
Maria made authentic American Cookie dough, into which we incorporated our choices from a deliciously unhealthy selection.
These cookies were then passed to our kitchen team for baking.
And the result was delicious cookies for us to enjoy !
As we had heavy rain last year for our Barbecue at Simon and Sarah’s House, and it had rained at the Barbecue the previous year as well, the committee decided to plan for all eventualities this year. We hired Botley W.I. Hall for the evening, which turned out to be a good decision.
Simon still proved his mettle as master of the barbecue, ably assisted by Chris, and wisely lent us one of his two new gazebos in case it was needed – it was!
We erected the gazebo and got the barbecue started before most members arrived, when – luckily – it was not too wet.
By the time hungry members started to arrive it was wet !
Luckily there was plenty of space for people inside – this picture was before most people arrived.
We carried on cooking burgers (meat on the left side of the barbecue), vegetarian kebabs (we kept the right hand side of the barbecue meat free), vegetarian sausages. Inside the W.I. Hall we were cooking Chicken, the non-vegetarian sausages and preparing salads, setting out buns for burgers and rolls for hot dogs, serving drinks etc. There were also a selection of cheesecakes and other deserts.
Unfortunately there are no pictures of this feast, and the next stage was loading the minibus, packing away the gazebo, clearing the kitchen, sweeping floors etc.
So that we could leave the W.I. Hall looking tidy.
Club nights which involve food are always popular, and when we cook it ourselves, that is even better ! A team in the kitchen made pizza dough, and prepared toppings.
Members created their own individual pizzas, which were ready to be eaten a short while later.
The results, fresh out of the oven, were delicious !
We did a survey of our members to see what we should cook, asking everyone to rank the dishes in order out of these choices.
The winners were Noodles and Pizza (though we also cooked burgers for those who did not eat either of the group winners)
Before the start of the club night a small team prepared the ingredients for all the dishes we were going to cook, and made pizza dough.
Members chose their selection of toppings and put them on a pizza base. We had
The preparation team had been busy !
The pizzas were put into the oven in batches.
And were then enjoyed !
We also had mixed salad, and fruit salad for those who wanted to add some healthy extras.
After the pizza round we had a choice of vegetarian noodles, with mushrooms, broccoli and peppers, or a chicken and cashew nuts one – or a bit of both !
Many thanks to Maria who masterminded the event.
A normal club night in the John Wesley room with some games.
We also did a bit of baking !
