Taste of freedom – learning essential life skills when leaving home

Leaving home is a new experience and if you’re not feeling confident in cooking or managing your bills it can be difficult. Our free course can help you move in the right direction.  

Join our Community Food Team over the course of July and August to learn how to cook amazing food that is not only healthy but also affordable. In our new four-part course Taste of freedom – cook smart, spend smart you are guaranteed to walk away with new skills you can use at home to create your own meals.   

Keith’s story

Here is an example of how being able to confidently cook meals can have a positive impact. Keith works as an Assistant Mechanic at Greener Kirkcaldy. He never learned to cook throughout his younger years before he left home. Now years on from leaving home he has a completely different perspective on cooking.   

“As a 17 year old, I left my parents home in South Queensferry and moved in with a good friend of mine from school who had his own council flat in Bo’ness.  

At that time, neither myself or Kev could do much more than pre-heat the oven or heat up tins of soup beans. We we’re existing on pre-packed ready meals, soup, pot noodles, beans on toast and the occasional takeaway.  

I’ve always enjoyed my food, but have always been a picky, fussy eater, disliking such staple ready meal ingredients like mushrooms and aubergines. I would find myself picking through my Bolognese, lasagne or curry trying to find and discard the pieces of mushroom or aubergine which absolutely destroyed any enjoyment I could take from my food.  

To remedy this, I borrowed a couple of recipe books from Bo’ness library and copied out a few recipes for some of my favourite foods. Over the course of time, with more than a few mishaps, I taught myself how to cook.  

Having a cookery course locally back then would have been a massive advantage for me, helping me learn different cooking techniques and encouraging me to try different things and different flavours. More importantly, it would have massively benefited my confidence, not just in the kitchen, but in life overall”  

About the course

Our Taste of freedom course is a great opportunity for a beginner or someone who is ready to move on in life to college or university and could benefit from being able to cook delicious meals and confidently prepare a nutritious meal on a budget.  

Our kitchen will provide everything for the meals you will be preparing. This includes the planning of the meals and you will be able to take home the recipe of each meal to have and use as a guide.  

This course is free but booking is required, You can choose to purchase a ticket with a donation. Donations help us do more work in our community. 

Book your place on Taste of freedom – cook smart, spend smart

If you want to learn more about the course before booking, email course leader Jackie at jackiea@greenerkirkcaldy.org.uk