Loving the Aga

My lovely Aga, the heart and soul of the kitchen, radiating heat and hot water at all times. She's a two oven, oil fired Aga and we're learning to love her.

Well it's taken a while to get around to it as I missed the last course by a couple of days, but last week I went on a one day Aga course. 'A Day in the Life of an Aga' in the local Aga shop in Thame. I can honestly say it's the best £10 I've ever spent on a course.

The lovely lady demonstrator (Marcia, I think her name was), started with a breakfast of toast and coffee, then added a full English, done in two different styles of pan, she fried eggs and made pancakes directly on the top of the Aga, then put them in the warming oven to keep warm. After that she went on to cook lunch of meatballs in a casserole, she did an alternative lunch of lemon sole, a traybake of nutty shortbread, a traybake of lemon drizzle cake, and she had a tray of meringues secreted at the back of the warming oven.

For dinner she had cooking, a full leg of lamb with rosemary, as a vegetarian alternative she had a head of cauliflower in one pan and cheese sauce to smother it with in another, she had loads of veggies in separate pans, including new potatoes and carrots. On the top of the Aga she did a spring cabbage and garlic stir fry to complete the meal.

And all this was in the Aga AT THE SAME TIME!! 

To say we we're all impressed with it's capacity and her control of timings was an understatement. And one of the best bits of the day........we got to sample everything, it was all served up by the lovely ladies in the shop as a buffet for the by now drooling 13 people sat around the kitchen.

The taste was amazing, I don't even like cauliflower cheese, yet it was gorgeous. The flavours were intense and yummy. To say we were inspired would be an understatement.

After the demonstration we were let loose in the shop to purchase anything we wanted, we were all well aware that this is one of the main reasons behind the day, but the 10% discount was never mentioned and we never felt pushed to buy the utensils and pots she used. But getting some of them made sense, so I did my bit for the local economy and purchased some useful bits and pieces and a good book of basic Aga tips and a gorgeous Portmeirion dish to make yummy crumbles in when our rhubarb grows into the big strong boy he's promising to be.

Just a couple of my purchases.

I have now stocked my cupboards with the ingredients for homemade bread, puddings and cakes and I will experiment away. If the Blog goes quiet for a while we will be recuperating from food poisoning........haha!!

Happy cooking.

Sue xx