Chopping Club

Greg's Eggs

Simple, adaptable store cupboard recipes, including Greg’s favourite one pan eggs

Dandelions

Cooking with dandelions, writing about dandelions, hosted by Niamh Riordan and Gregory Herbert, with contributions from guest artist Rachel Pimm.

Watch the slideshow.

Download the PDF

Flower Fritters Recipe

Handful dandelion flowers per person, trimmed
1 egg
250ml/ 1 cup any milk
125g/1 cup any flour
1tsp baking powder
Plenty of oil for frying
(you can re-use this)

Add in suggestions: If sweet: 2 tsp sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon. If savoury : salt, pepper,  spices or herbs of choice

To serve: If sweet: granulated sugar to roll hot fritters in. If savoury: a dipping sauce – eg soy sauce+ sesame oil + pinch sugar…Or mayo!

Pre-heat around 5cm oil in a saucepan or wok. If oil starts smoking turn it down, it’s too hot. You can check that the temperature is right by test- frying a small blob of batter – you want it to sink down about halfway in the oil and then immediately float up to the top. If it sinks to the bottom your oil is too cold. If it rises to the surface straight away – too hot. 

In a bowl, whisk all ingredients except flowers together, including any add ins (see ingredients list)

Dip the flowers in the batter 4-5 at a time

Fry in batches. Fry flower side down, then flip over – it should only take a minute on each side for them to puff up, crispy and golden.

Drain on kitchen paper or a clean tea towel and, if they are sweet, whilst hot, dip in your coating of choice.

Food Waste with Alison Clare

Alison Clare, one half of FoodSketz joins us to share some of her caravan based experiments with countering household waste

Keep a freezer bag of veg scraps to make stock

– Hold onto veg waste – onion skins, carrot tops etc, and put in a bag in a freezer.

– When you have a bit of time, make a veg stock!

Things to consider/avoid

• Potatoes – these will make the stock really starchy. If you do want to use up some potatoes, roast them first before adding to stock pot.
• Red veg (ie Beetroot) will turn your stock red. Fine to use if you don’t mind!
• Strongly flavoured things eg. fennel will obviously change the character of the stock.

– Grab a few handfuls of veg and either fry them in large stock pot until just starting to colour, or roast with a little oil and a good pinch of salt at 180 for around 20 mins.

– In a large pot, add boiling water to your veg and simmer for an hour, lid on. Strain, and you’ll have a delicious stock. Check for seasoning (but if you’re reducing the stock do this at the end as once reduced the saltiness will intensify).

– At this point you can also keep simmering the stock until the liquid is really reduced and concentrated. Leave to cool, then freeze in ice cube trays, to use whenever you need it.

Household Waste – Zine Download

Flatbread

Download printable recipe

Makes 4 breads

250 g strong bread flour

200 g warm water – NOT hot, just pleasantly lukewarm 

1 level tsp salt (or less to taste, as this makes them fairly salty)

5g fast action yeast – roughly half a packet if you have the sachets or 1 level tsp. 

Mix flour water and yeast and salt in a bowl until shaggy dough forms – it is a really wet dough.  

The moisture in the dough makes a delicious, chewy bread. But it’s very sticky – so when handling it, coat your hands, surface/bowls in oil. It’s also too wet to knead in the normal way so you have 2 options: 

Food processor: The original recipe for this dough uses a food processor to knead it. If you have one – great! Using the dough blade, whizz for about 30 seconds, scrape down the sides and whizz for another 30 secs. Tip into an oiled bowl and leave to prove for 20 mins. Easy! 

By hand: Using a wooden spoon mix vigorously for a couple of minutes. Tip/scrape into a clean oiled bowl. With oiled hands, stretch each side of the dough out and slap it into the middle – this helps build up the gluten. Flip over the ball of dough and leave to rest, covered with a tea towel, for 10 mins. Stretch the dough once more, and leave for a further 10 mins. You can do this once more, or if you’re hungry, get straight to cooking. 

Heat a heavy bottomed pan on the stove – you want it really hot. Turn on your grill to high

Divide dough into four pieces and shape each into a ball. 

On on oiled surface, using oiled hands, flatten a piece of dough, using the palm of your hand. With your fingers tips, poke at the dough, stretching and prodding it into a around a 15-20cm circle.

Transfer to the pan and cook for a couple of minutes until it gets lightly browned on the bottom

Stick the pan under the grill until the bread puffs and browns on top

Repeat with remaining balls of dough. Dough keeps really well in the fridge overnight. 

Blackberrying

There are hundreds of microspecies of bramble in the UK, all of them differing slightly in flavour. Where are Bootle’s best brambles, and do they have their own unique taste?

Download Recipes Here

Navi Kaur: online talk

Image: I need the onions before it rains, Navi Kaur, 2019

For September’s Chopping Club you are invited to join us for an online talk and discussion with Birmingham based artist and educator Navi Kaur. 

Navi will join us to introduce her work and talk about the work she is making with At the Library, followed by the opportunity to ask questions in an informal, friendly and supportive group. This event will take place on Zoom ( a link will be emailed to attendees). It is free but booking is essential.

Everyone who comes along will also receive a free, limited edition recipe card made by Navi in collaboration with Liverpool based artist Sumuyya Khader. These can be picked up from Bootle or Crosby Libraries,  or posted to you if you are further away. 

Inspired by the lives of her paternal grandparents, Surinder (‘Budimom’) and Karamjit (‘Baba Ji’), Navi’s work intimately and playfully documents themes of domestic, cultural, and spiritual significance. She traces conversations and daily activities through digital photography, film, and installation, demonstrating the abounding resilience of first-generation immigrants, the wonders of the everyday, and the compelling expressions of the Sikh Dharam.  Navi’s artistic process doubles as a method of self-enquiry, a way to investigate the physical and intangible dimensions of her cultural heritage.

Pickling Party

For October’s Chopping Club, artists Niamh Riordan and Greg Herbert hosted a pickling party over Zoom. Guests were invited to chop along with us to produce a jar or two of pickles for their fridge, or simply come along to watch and have a chat. We provided the pickle recipes in advance, and a jar of ingredients was available for Bootle and Crosby residents to pick up from their local library to make during the event.

You can find the recipes that we made together here, as well some other favourite pickle recipes suggested by party guests

Pizza Nite

Niamh and Greg delivered printed pizza boxes full of all the raw ingredients needed to make homemade pizzas to November’s Chopping Club. We gathered on zoom to make dough, discuss favourite toppings and the best ways to cook pizza at home, and to eat the finished product together. Sticky dough caused much hilarity but everyone ended up with delicious if misshapen results.

Gingerbread House Cook-along

A gingerbread house cook-along and Christmas party. Participants made a gingerbread beehive designed by Greg Herbert, and drank hot mulled Sea Buckthorn before a Christmas local history quiz with Laura.

Luiza Prado de O.Martins: online talk

An online talk and discussion with artist and researcher Luiza Prado de O. Martins. 

Last February, we were lucky enough to welcome Luiza to Bootle library to cook her recipe for Feijoada, a Brazilian black bean stew, for a community lunch in the library. This year, she joined us online to share her recipe, and to delve into the complex histories of this dish, as well as of stews more generally, followed by the opportunity to ask questions in an informal, friendly and supportive group. 

Luiza is a Berlin-based artist whose practice focuses on the power of collectively preparing and sharing a meal. As part of her practice, Luiza invites guests to meals consisting of traditional Brazilian dishes made with plant-based ingredients, seeing the preparation and sharing of a meal as a form of collective performance. The meals act as a center point to open up a conversation about the environment, overpopulation, the climate emergency and imagine the sharing of radical care and future-making together. 

Sick Day Banquet: a tea time screening

To mark the launch of Soft Sanctuary Season, we invited guests to a relaxed online film screening, accompanied by some warming ramen.

The Sick Day Banquet is a short film made as a collaboration between our Chopping Club’s Greg Herbert and Niamh Riordan, and artists Kyla Harris and Bella Milroy, as part of the Sick Day Banquet series: a collection of recipes designed by disabled artists, celebrating their ideal sick day foods: comforting, accessible meals which prioritise joy. 

Since the beginning of the year, Bella and Kyla have been recording a conversation over Voice Notes, about sick day foods, cooking, care, and their experiences of hiring and living with Personal Assistants (PAs). Sick Day Banquets weaves together this conversation with footage of a virtual cook along, in which Niamh and Kyla cook Kyla’s recipe for ‘Comfort Ramen’ together over Zoom – Kyla directing Niamh through every detail of the recipe. 

Budimom’s Chole with Navi Kaur

A cook-a-long and film screening with guest artist Navi Kaur.

We cooked a recipe which comes directly from Navi’s grandmother, Budimom’s Chole, before sitting down to watch Navi’s film Mērā Ghar, which has been co-commissioned with Birmingham-based Grand Union Gallery.

Directly translated into English from Punjabi as ‘my home’, Mērā Ghar, presents intimate footage of family, faith, and food shot during meal times and prayer times affording the viewer an insight into Navi’s grandparents’ selfless and modest lives. The work explores the sacred and interconnected nature of spaces such as the home, the land and the Gurdwara for Sikh communities, revealing daily rituals, and drawing parallels between the care, love, and discipline employed when cooking, gardening, and reciting prayers.

Spring wild food mapping picnic

For our first in person meeting in a while, Niamh and Greg led a walk along the Leeds- Liverpool canal to discover some of the wild edible plants growing 5 minutes from Crosby. We found wild horseradish, wild carrots, , nettles, burdock, hawthorn blossom amongst many other things. We stopped for a picnic of flatbreads, falafel and pickles.

Map and recipes

Fizzy Pop Chop

This month, we’ll be experimenting with making our own soft drinks and fizzy pops — from Dandelion & Burdock to Ginger Beer and Kombucha. We’ll talked a bit about the history of soft drinks: from herbalists’ cordial waters and elixirs to Vimto, Coca Cola and Tizer. Bootle even has its own history of soft drinks production, which we delved into deeper during the session.

Recipes:

Blackberry Forage & Jam Doughnuts 🍩

For August’s Chopping Club we foraged for blackberries along the Leeds-Liverpool canal, before heading back to the library to use the fruits to create a delicious filling for homemade jam doughnuts.

Condiments Chop

In September we made a big batch of sauces and condiments — think homemade ketchups, mustards, chilli oils and relishes — to pep up our library lunches over the next few months. Everyone also took a jar or bottle of something home. You can find the recipes we used here

Sweet Chestnut Forage

For mid-autumn, we took a seasonal walk and forage with local forager and traditional crafter Wil Goodwin.

Sweet chestnuts, sloes and rose hips — Wil will guided us on a walk to discover some of the wild edibles growing on our doorstep.

Festive Chop

Our Chopping Club prepared festive treats including homemade mince pies, mulled apple juice and roasted chestnuts for an outdoor gathering in Bootle Library Garden where we gathered to thank you for all your support, warmth and involvement during 2021. Everyone received a little gift of Chopping Club aubergine pickle and a recipe-Christmas-hat to take home.

All our workshops are free, but for Christmas we asked participants to donate to Sefton Community Pantry. The Community Pantry is currently based in St Matthew’s church hall, Thornton Rd, Bootle and they provide food and hygiene hampers 24/7 to vulnerable families across Sefton. 

chopping club with bootle bread

A special 2 day Chopping Club with guest cook Camila Nelson AKA Bootle Bread, in which we learnt how to make our own sourdough loaves. 

DAY 1: We learnt earn how to make your own sourdough starter to take home and nurture, as well as sourdough pancakes which can be made with the ‘discard’ from your starter – making use of a byproduct of the process. 

DAY 2: We learnt a simple and effective way of making our own sourdough loaves and took our dough home in a proofing basket to bake at home. 

Lunch recipes can be found here – we ate roasted cauliflower soup (with bread of course) and drank mulled apple juice

First Signs of Spring

For February’s Chopping Club we created a delicious meal together using some of the first wild greens to appear in spring. We learnt how to make fresh pasta, which we stuffed with nettles and tri-corned leek and cooked s in a spring broth, served with wild garlic pesto. You can find the recipes here.

Asparagus Trail

For April’s Chopping Club, you’re invited to join us on a field trip to explore the fascinating history of Formby asparagus, grown only a few miles from us.

We will follow the National Trust’s asparagus trail, looking out for wild asparagus, thinking about how this crop has shaped the Formby landscape, and how certain foods can be at risk of being forgotten. We may even stop into a farm to pick up some bunches to cook at the Bootle Library’s Garden BBQ the next day if the season is underway.

You can see details of the route here.

social pickle X chopping club

For this month’s Chopping Club, we’re joined by Sheffield-based fermentation and preservation project, Social Pickle

They’ll be showing us how to make our own vegan sausages. Join us to test out making and eating your own sausage! Chopping Club will be at Bootle Library from 11:00 pm – 2:00 pm on Friday 27th May.

This event is now fully booked. Please note, if you have booked places are limited so please let us know if you can’t make it so we can offer your place to someone else.

About Social Pickle

Chopping Club x Library Smokery

For June’s Chopping Club, we’re moving to Crosby Library for two days of exploring how to flavour and preserve food with smoke, with this month’s guest cook: librarian Lizzie Todd.

Lizzie has been smoking her own food at home for years – her fellow librarians have been lucky enough to try her home-smoked salmon amongst other treats . Now, she and the team at Crosby Library have created a way to share this technique in the library. The team have designed and built a hot smoker and a cold smoker from surplus library furniture, which will allow us to smoke ingredients in the library!

Chopping Club x tea by post

A herbal picnic and planting.

It’s July, and we’re taking Chopping Club to Netherton Library this month for a summery time outside.

Come along for a herbal picnic at Netherton Library featuring a whole range fresh and wild herbs, before helping to plant a selection of useful herbs in the raised beds at Netherton Library as part of our Tea By Post project.

New season cook up

As we come into the Autumn season, we’re going back to the roots of Chopping Club with a one pot.

Meet us at Bootle Library on Friday 30th September to chop, prepare and eat a warming autumnal one pot meal and to cook up plans together for Chopping Clubs of 2023. We’ll make a big pot of barley and butternut squash risotto whilst we share recipes and ideas for the next year of cooking and eating together. 

Book on Eventbrite here, to let us know if you would like to come.

If you have any questions, contact a librarian, email hello@atthelibrary.co.uk, or message/text/WhatsApp: 07751240427. Please contact us to discuss your access needs and how we can make this project accessible to you.

Fermentation with Basia Lesniak

For this month’s Chopping Club we will be joined by special guest Basia Lesniak, one of our talented At The Library volunteers, who will share her knowledge of fermentation with us.

Fermentation is an age old way of preserving surplus food for later months. It’s a technique which is both good for your budget and has many health benefits 

Come and join us for a beginners workshop to learn the art of lactofermention. Discover how to make sauerkraut, beetroot kvass and a variety of delicious and easy ferments. Once you’ve learnt the basics of this method you can unleash your creativity! 

11am-2pm at Crosby Library (in the small hall). We’ll also prepare a tasty lunch based on fermented foods together. 

If you have any access needs, any questions about access or general enquires, please email: hello@atthelibrary.co.uk or text/whatsapp: 07751240427 and our part time team will respond to you as quickly as possible.

Chopping Club x Jubeda Khatun

Join us for a special Chopping Club with guest artist Jubeda Khatun, who will share food and tastes from Bangali culture alongside spoken word poetry.

Beat your winter blues as we make various raw fruit chutneys including her special signature authentic ancestral zam raw fruit chutney. Zam/Jaam is more commonly known as black plum or Indian Jamun and is rich in many minerals and vitamins.

If that was not enough, we will be making a fresh take on Bombay mix too! Jubeda will finish with some poems as we tuck into our creations and hear about her history and roots. She will share work which was featured in the 2018 Heritage arts exhibition with Art in Liverpool, ‘The Forgotten War of 1971.’

Both street foods could make great gifts for loved ones or additions to your Christmas snacks – they’re guilt-free deliciousness! The raw fruit chutney is tasty and nutritious and Bombay mix can be an alternative to popcorn, ’tis the season for amazing movies after all…Book your free spot via eventbrite here

Christmas Sandwich Bar

You are invited to our annual festive gathering at Bootle Library!

Come along and build your perfect Christmas sandwich at our Christmas Sandwich Bar! Enjoy music, warm festive drinks, great company and more! We will be kicking off celebrations at 12:00 pm till 3:00pm.

Everyone is welcome, no booking required. 

If you would like to volunteer to help us set up, cook and decorate from 10.30am, please get in touch by emailing us: hello@atthelibrary.co.uk

Many Hands Making Marmalade

Join us for January’s Chopping Club, which will fill Bootle library with the smell of simmering oranges as we cook up a big batch of golden marmalade together  – we will need the help of many hands to chop a lot of orange peel.

January is the month to make this citrusy treat, whilst bitter Seville oranges are in season. Everyone will take a jar home to enjoy on toast (or gift to someone else if it’s not to your taste!), and we’ll keep some for future library lunches.  Hot drinks and a marmalade-y cake will also be served. Booking essential! 

Listen to the rhubarb

February’s Chopping Club will celebrate the bright pink stalks of early rhubarb which are now in season in Britain! Rhubarb was valued as a medicinal plant for centuries before it was ever used in cooking. How did rhubarb make its way to the UK, and how did we come to enjoy eating this semi-poisonous vegetable? We’ll explore these questions whilst we cook up rhubarb recipes both sweet and savoury: a delicious savoury beetroot and rhubarb soup, as well as that familiar, comforting classic: rhubarb crumble.

We’ll even listen to a rhubarb soundtrack: the strange sounds which can be heard as rhubarb grows in the dark.

Free tickets available here

Wild tastes of spring

The first signs of spring are finally here, and spring greens, both wild and cultivated, are beginning to be abundant right now.

Can we preserve some of the tastes of these first days of spring for use throughout the year?

Join us for our March Chopping Club, where we’ll be making a wild spring herb mix, cordials and herb infused vinegars to try and capture the flavours of early spring for our Chopping Club larder. We’ll also cook up a spring lunch of wild garlic gnocchi (potato dumplings) to enjoy together around the Chopping Club table.

Remedies for Resistance Launch

Join us to celebrate the launch of Remedies for Resistance, a new publication by artist Raju Rage, which shares remedies from residents of Bootle and beyond, gathered as part of conversations and community workshops which took place in 2020-21. 

Raju will host a relaxed remedy making workshop using wild spring green infusions in vinegar, whilst we talk about remedies and hear from some of the contributors to the publication. 

Everyone who attends will receive a free copy of the publication

Children's Chop - Pretzel Party

Join us for a special Chopping Club for children and their grown ups, led by Basia Lesniak, creator of new food business ‘Abundance and Plenty’.  

For this session, we’ll be cooking up our own pretzels! Come along to get involved in mixing, shaping and boiling the dough, cooking our pretzels on the barbecue and, of course, tasting our creations with a variety of library-made dips. 

Booking is essential. Suitable for children aged 5 and up. Children must be accompanied by an adult. Please book a place for each child as well as each accompanying adult.

Please book here!

Asparagus Walk

This month, you’re invited to join us on our annual Chopping Club field trip to explore the fascinating history of Formby asparagus: now in season and grown only a few miles from us. 

We will follow the National Trust’s asparagus trail, looking out for wild asparagus, thinking about how this crop has shaped the Formby landscape, and how certain foods can be at risk of being forgotten.

 You can see details of the route here.

The walk is approximately 3 miles and will take around 2 hours including a stop for a picnic lunch. For those coming from Bootle, we’ll meet at Bootle Library at 10.15 am and catch the 10:44 train to Freshfields. Alternatively, you can meet us at Freshfields station at 11.15 am. 

We’ll provide train tickets for those meeting us at Bootle, and a packed lunch (you’re also welcome to bring your own food).

The Library Smokery X Chopping Club

For June’s Chopping Club, we’ll be re-lighting our Crosby Library smokers for a summer session exploring how to flavour and preserve food with smoke, with guest cook: librarian Lizzie Todd.

Lizzie has been smoking her own food at home for years. Last year, she and the team at Crosby Library designed and built a hot smoker and a cold smoker from surplus library furniture: creating our very own library smokery! 

For this session Lizzie has developed a menu centred around smoked beetroot. Join us to fill the smoker with beetroot, as well as herbs, spices and salt which we can store for later use in our Chopping Club larder. We’ll then prepare a summer salad  from the smoked items to enjoy together round the Chopping Club table. 

What do bees forage

Join us for a special Chopping Club looking closely at Bees and what they forage, led by Andrea Ku, creator of B4 Biodiversity.

For this session, we will be learning about the honey bees which live in Bootle Library’s garden. Walking alongside Bootle canal we will identify what species of plants the bees are foraging locally and taste how this changes the honey. When we get back to the library, we will use an observation hive to learn about what bees get up to back in the hive.

No Chop, Chop

Squash, squeeze, mash, press, pour, roll, crumble, sprinkle, shape, mould, mound.

This August, we are going chop free – using processes and tools which are easily manageable for everyone, particularly people who may have additional strength and dexterity needs.

Artists Greg Herbert and Linny Venables will guide us in exploring some exciting and creative methods of preparing and cooking dishes. We will prepare some delicious pasta dishes which we will then enjoy together around the Chopping Club table.

If you have any questions, you can contact a librarian, email hello@atthelibrary.co.uk, or message/text/WhatsApp: 07751240427. Please contact us to discuss your access needs and how we can make this project meet your needs.

Bookings can be made here.

Fermenting on the Year

Fermenting on the year is Chopping Club collaboration between Basia Lesniak and the bacteria which live around us.

Join us to look at how seasonal lactoferments can be used as glazes, stewing liquids and accompaniment to add flavour to your meals all year round. Expect fermented blueberries, cauliflower and kombucha. These ingredients will form the basis of a tasty lunch that we’ll all share.

See the amazing work the Basia does @abundancenplenty

11.30am – 2.30pm at Crosby Library

Places are free but limited, please book if you would like to come. Book your place on Eventbrite here.

If you have any questions, you can contact a librarian, email hello@atthelibrary.co.uk, or message/text/WhatsApp: 07751240427. Please contact us to discuss your access needs and how we can make this project meet your needs.

Fungal Field Trip

This month, you’re invited to join us on a Chopping Club Fungal field trip to explore how mushrooms are grown at a local mushroom farm in Ormskirk. 

We will learn how the mushroom holds many interesting secrets and delve deeper into a fungal world. Can mushrooms also become an inspiration to how we live?

We will provide train and bus tickets for those joining us, along with a small snack and a punnet of mushrooms.

We will be setting off from Bootle Library at 2pm. Smithys is a working mushroom farm and the tour will be taking place from 5.30pm-6.30pm with an approximate return time to Bootle of 8pm. 

Book on Eventbrite here.

Jam Factory

Join us for November’s Chopping Club, where we will be delving deeper into Bootle’s history of making jam with Ali Horton, co-founder of the Gateway Collective.

Aliyah Hussain: Kitchen Table Cabinet launch

A celebration to launch Bootle Library’s new ceramic display cabinet designed by Aliyah and Khes Hussain for our Kitchen Table Collective ceramics.

Aliyah has designed a menu based on her own zero waste approach to ceramics-making.

Fungal research with Professor Katie J. Fields

In February, we welcome Professor Katie.J.Field, Professor of Plant-Soil Processes at Sheffield University’s School of Biosciences as our Chopping Club guest.

Following on from our recent visit to Smithys Mushroom Farm, we are going to expand our fungal research and learn more about Professor Katie.J.Field’s research into soil-dwelling fungi and their applications in sustainable agriculture. Together we will explore the fascinating collaboration between plant and fungus.

A warm mushroom broth will be served alongside the talk.

Please email hello@atthelibrary.co.uk if you have any questions about this event or would like to let us know about your access needs so we can make the event more accessible for you.