Community Health-Works

Community Health-Works

Profile

Cooking Good is a community cooking project, originally based in rural Daventry and South Northants. It was created to focus on helping families to cook simple, tasty and healthy food from scratch.

In the current climate, we are all thinking about cooking on a budget, going out to buy food less often and making our food go further. So whether it's simple, low-cost meals, food storage, making the most of what you have in the cupboard, or how to keep the kids entertained with cooking, whilst everyone is at home, we're here for you. You never know, you may even improve your cooking skills and hopefully have some fun in the process.

Product or Service

Cooking Good is a healthy eating project led by Health-Works. There are a number of partnerships involved with Cooking Good, including Northamptonshire Health and Wellbeing Board, Home Start (Daventry and South Northants), snvb, Northamptonshire Healthcare Foundation Trust and Grand Union Homes.

Together we are funded by Public Health England to deliver home cooking experiences to families in the more rural areas of Daventry and South Northants. The two consultants who founded Cooking Good are Lorraine Hirst and Louisa Gregory.

Today, the team is made up of Katie Swain, Project Manager and Lead for Logisitics and Events, and an army of experienced volunteers who include educators, chefs and nutritionists, as well as home cooks who are passionate about helping others to learn to cook from scratch.

Social or Environmental Mission

The original project aim was to help families cook straight-forward family meals by providing teaching sessions in small groups in accessible venues or in families’ own homes.

However, given the current Coronavirus crisis we had to find alternative ways to reach the families with ideas and tools to help them cook more nutritious meals on a budget.

By providing useful cooking videos and online easy-to-cook recipes, and offering meals in a bag with recipe cards via various agencies providing families with food during the pandemic, we aim to bring families together around the simple activity of cooking and eating good food.