Calendar of once-off events
View calendars for specific types of event:
All events All once-off events (Cooking, Everything else, Free) Community gardens Food swaps Free meals Markets Farmers’ markets Garden clubs
What you will learn:
- The importance of compost for soil health.
- How to fix common composting problems.
- Setting up and looking after a worm farm.
Presented by Diana Cotter. Learn how to make great compost, the essential ingredient for a thriving and healthy garden. Look at worm farms and Bokashi as other options. They will also show you how to make a DIY worm farm using recycled products.
Learn how to create healthy, practical, everyday vegan dishes that look as good as they taste. It will include such dishes as plant-based milks, creamy lemon dream porridge, waffles, pancakes, scrambled tofu, chia puddings and smoothie bowls.
For families with children aged 2-4.
Learn about the life of plants, animals, and their interactions with the environment, cultivating wonder and wisdom from nature play. The activities will vary with the seasons, incorporating sensory play with seeds, leaves, crafts and music, as well as the micro world of mini beasts and soil. Led by Sofia Sabbagh.
Pay at the event.
Learn about nutrition and how you can get the most out of every day, plus receive free Maggie Beer Foundation recipes. Facilitated by Bolton Clarke and sponsored by Hearing Australia, who will provide free hearing checks after the session.
For children aged 5-13.
Learn about the life of plants, animals, and their interactions with the environment, cultivating wonder and wisdom from nature play. The activities will vary with the seasons, incorporating seed saving, planting, weeding, transplanting, herbal remedies, paint making, puppet making, finding grubs, climbing trees, making shelters, tying knots, spotlighting, bird watching, sensory play, singing and fire-side story telling. Led by Sofia Sabbagh.
Pay at the event.
Gain practical experience in espresso coffee making on their commercial barista machine. Suitable for anyone looking to find work is hospitality.
Book by phone (9386 7128) or email (admin@rsnh.org.au).
Anthony Nania has picked some of the greatest value wines from each region of France and will help give you an appreciation of not only the personality and quality of each of these wines but will also help demystify the labelling conundrum that is normally associated with French wines.
Tutor: Holly from Holly’s Backyard Bees. Learn how to use beeswax to make your own food wraps and candles. Holly will teach you the skills to be able to make these items at home in any shape or size you like. You will take home a beeswax wrap and a beeswax candle.
Book by phone (9722 1944) or email (wpcc@bigpond.com.au).
Enjoy 3 tasting size courses cooked by chef Bek McMillan, from Gourmet Living, who will demonstrate step by step. All recipes are included.
Menu: chilli sesame chicken; smokey bourbon pork; and pineapple, coconut & rum tart.
Imagine if you could find out once and for all what your perfect diet entails. You could then eat more of the foods that help you thrive and avoid ones that cause inflammation and leave you feeling lethargic. Each one of us has an individual biochemical makeup due to genetics, time in utero and environmental conditioning. So, we all have a unique list of foods that are easy for our body to convert to energy and easy to eliminate. We also have a unique list of foods that our body finds difficult to convert to energy and struggles to eliminate causing us excess toxicity. For this reason, not all foods are created equal and what is a nutrient for you will not be for others. So go along and identify the foods that help you heal vs the foods that hold you back.
Learn the art of successful home composting and worm farming and learn how to turn your food scraps into a nutrient rich soil supplement.
Bookings essential by phone (9401 0509) or email.
A behind-the-scenes tour of the 10 step chocolate making process at Ratio Cocoa Roasters. Followed by a guided chocolate tasting.
Tasting plate can be adapted to non dairy / vegan, please advise on arrival.
Menu: chicken vindaloo.
Cook Indian by the creek came into existence with the idea of breaking the myth that Indian cooking is complex and difficult to nail. In each session, they will share their traditional recipes and go through the step by step cooking process. The classes are held in a private kitchen.
Enjoy 3 tasting size courses cooked by chef Bek McMillan, from Gourmet Living, who will demonstrate step by step. All recipes are included.
Menu: chilli sesame chicken; smokey bourbon pork; and pineapple, coconut & rum tart.
What you will learn:
- Which produce plants are suitable to grow in small areas.
- Coping with shade and sun for produce growing.
- How to make the most of any available space for growing produce.
Presented by Angelo Eliades. Do you only have a small garden or no garden at all? Would you still like to grow your own food? This class will inspire you to get started. Topics will include fruit, vegetables and berries for small spaces, growing produce in pots and containers, maximising productivity in any size space and plant selection.
Every Saturday for 9 weeks. Book by phone (9433 3744).
This 9-week hands-on course is ideal for people considering a career in horticulture. No prior experience is necessary.
Working as a team with fellow participants, you will gain a broad overview and practical, hands-on experience such topics as:
- Introduction to plant recognition.
- Propagation.
- Planting.
- Soil properties.
- Environmentally sustainable work practices.
- Career pathways/further study in the horticulture industry.
You will spend a lot of time outdoors (getting your hands dirty!), along with some time in the classroom learning basic theory and exploring study pathways.
The course will be run by Justin Calverley, a horticultural expert with twenty years’ experience. Inter alia, Justin is a lead trainer in adult education at CERES.
Fermenting basics will focus on the fundamentals of successfully fermenting at home covering kombucha, sauerkraut, kvass and kefir.
What you will learn:
- Improve your gardening skills.
- How to produce new plants from seeds, cuttings and division.
- Seasonal timing for growth.
Presenter: Therese Scales. Learn the basics of how to produce new plants from seed, cuttings and division in organic growing conditions in this hands-on workshop. Learns about seasonal timing for growth, heirloom and hybrid seeds, and propagation media using practical examples inside the CERES hothouses.
They will show you food preservation, canning, and brine making. Save on food costs while adding new layers of flavour to your dishes with tips and tricks from this workshop.
This walk will take place twice on the day, at 11am and at 2pm.
What if many of the weeds in our garden were just as edible as the vegetables we tend beside them? What if some of these free, all-too-easy-to-grow uninvited guests were so nutritionally dense that they are just about the healthiest things you could possibly eat? What if many of them also had medical traditions dating back centuries?
Well it’s all true! And if you know what to choose, they also taste great. Join Adam Grubb, co-author of The Weed Forager’s Handbook, for a fascinating walk on the wild side, foraging for edible weeds.
Learn the fundamental canning techniques you need to master to make homemade jams, pastes, and jellies you can enjoy year-round.
A behind-the-scenes tour of the 10 step chocolate making process at Ratio Cocoa Roasters. Followed by a guided chocolate tasting.
Tasting plate can be adapted to non dairy / vegan, please advise on arrival.
This walk will take place twice on the day, at 11am and at 2pm.
What if many of the weeds in our garden were just as edible as the vegetables we tend beside them? What if some of these free, all-too-easy-to-grow uninvited guests were so nutritionally dense that they are just about the healthiest things you could possibly eat? What if many of them also had medical traditions dating back centuries?
Well it’s all true! And if you know what to choose, they also taste great. Join Adam Grubb, co-author of The Weed Forager’s Handbook, for a fascinating walk on the wild side, foraging for edible weeds.
Tutor: Holly from Holly’s Backyard Bees. You will learn all about beeswax, how honeybees make it, its antibacterial properties, and how we can use it to reduce our footprint on the planet. Each participant will make their own beeswax food wrap to take home along with a 100% pure beeswax candle. Demonstration of various candle making techniques with be demonstrated and discussed.
Book by phone (9728 3587).
A worm farm can be one of the best ways to dispose of food scraps and, at the same time, produce vermi-juice (worm tea) and vermicast (worm castings) for use on the garden. Learn how to set up a worm farm and the easiest methods to manage and care for these most hard-working of creatures.
This workshop will cover both the theory and practice of worm farming in a household setting. It will be useful for those wishing to recycle household food waste in order to produce worm products for use in the improvement of soil in gardens and pot plants.
Discounted worm farms will be available for sale on the day.
This tour is happening three times on Monday 12th August at 10-11.15am, Monday 19th August at 4-5.15pm and Sunday 1st September at 10-11.15am.
Presenter: Joel Feren, who is an Accredited Practising Dietitian and Nutritionist with a background in biomedical sciences.
Joel will provide you with the skills to read and interpret complex nutritional labels and identify how you can prepare quick and nourishing meals that will allow you to work smarter not harder in the kitchen.
Learn to use homemade cheese to create a combination of mozzarella stuffed with creamy mascarpone as well as other delectable cheesy delights. Take home your own Mad Millie Italian cheese making kit valued at $40.
Tutor: Jill Bowen Hess. Join Jill as she demonstrates how to cook up some great easy savoury and sweet egg dishes accompanied with seasonal vegetables.
On the enrolment form, enter class/workshop code ‘MK’.
For families with children aged 2-4.
Learn about the life of plants, animals, and their interactions with the environment, cultivating wonder and wisdom from nature play. The activities will vary with the seasons, incorporating sensory play with seeds, leaves, crafts and music, as well as the micro world of mini beasts and soil. Led by Sofia Sabbagh.
Pay at the event.
Go along and help choose a new recipe for each class. Teach or be taught how to cook the food you’ve always wanted to know how to cook.
Call to confirm attendance (9462 4611).
For children aged 5-13.
Learn about the life of plants, animals, and their interactions with the environment, cultivating wonder and wisdom from nature play. The activities will vary with the seasons, incorporating seed saving, planting, weeding, transplanting, herbal remedies, paint making, puppet making, finding grubs, climbing trees, making shelters, tying knots, spotlighting, bird watching, sensory play, singing and fire-side story telling. Led by Sofia Sabbagh.
Pay at the event.
This event is for people from schools or early learning centres in Manningham, Maroondah, Whitehorse or Yarra Ranges.
See chook keeping in action and hear from Chooktopia about the best ways to keep chickens in an educational setting. You will also have the opportunity to hear from Oxley Christian College on their Chooks4Charity program that students set up as part of their Student Leadership Program.
Learn how to make delicious desserts in your thermomix. You will get to taste all the recipes that they cook on the night.
The food trucks offering vegan food who sometimes attend include: Bomba Wood Fired Pizza; Curry Up Now; Lady Rawsome; Paper Plains Food Truck; Pierogi Pierogi; Super Taco;Taitas Falafels; The Real Jerk Food Truck; Vegilicious; Von’s Vegan Bake House; Woking Amazing; and YAY foods. See their Facebook page for the specific list of trucks on a particular day.
Tutor: Jill Bowen Hess. Join Jill as she demonstrates some easy to cook savoury and sweet egg dishes matched up with seasonal veggies. Japanese pancakes just might be on the menu too.
On the enrolment form, enter class/workshop code ‘CJ’.
Learn how to make an assortment of Asian finger foods. Qualified chef Oddie will teach you all the tricks and techniques needed to make cooking these dishes easy and fun. The best part is getting to taste the end results!
Book by phone (9720 0877).
Enjoy 3 tasting size courses cooked by chef Bek McMillan, from Gourmet Living, who will demonstrate step by step. All recipes are included.
Menu: smoked chicken caesar; Mediterranean lamb salad; and strawberry ice cream tart.
A behind-the-scenes tour of the 10 step chocolate making process at Ratio Cocoa Roasters. Followed by a guided chocolate tasting.
Tasting plate can be adapted to non dairy / vegan, please advise on arrival.
Learn to develop Spanish paella using traditional ingredients and equipment straight from the experts at this workshop. Get to know the history of Spain’s most iconic dish and its place in Spanish culture while you indulge your senses in its flavours and aroma.
Italian, German, Polish, Hungarian – so many European cuisines have their own take on the humble sausage. Discover the secrets behind making the best-tasting gourmet sausages with the right ingredient ratio, casing and flavour combos.
Menu (vegan): street food (chaat) plus gulaab jamun (doughnuts).
Cook Indian by the creek came into existence with the idea of breaking the myth that Indian cooking is complex and difficult to nail. In each session, they will share their traditional recipes and go through the step by step cooking process. The classes are held in a private kitchen.