So far so good!  I have had 4 cooking classes in my home and I have had a lot of fun sharing how I cook with others.  My first class was a trial run to see if I could have that many cooks in the kitchen, you know how that saying goes “Too many cooks in the kitchen…” I feel that 4 students plus me and my sous chef, I will come back to the sucks part… it is a term of endearment; trust me.  3 students worked well and since this initial class was with my friend that urged; more like made me start pursuing this adventure, we talked a lot about what we could do, shouldn’t do and fine tuning the class for moving forward.  I have only put the word out via Facebook I am not entirely sure how or if I should branch out into other media.  I have had good luck so far, yes I know it is still early but I am going to stick with this for a bit.

Buzz on the street is this is a great idea, some wish they lived closer to attend, another friend wants me to take it on the road; she lives several states away.  I had a girlfriend stop over yesterday morning and thinks “I have something here”.  The people who have attended have so far have really enjoyed what I have shown them and loved the food we make together and that we all sit down in the dining room and eat together.  I have had several return customers, which I think is one of the biggest compliments I can get.

What has amazed me is some of the simplest things that I have been cooking for years; some people have never tried.  The first class was Chicken with Honey Beer Sauce, Smashed Potatoes, and roasted Asparagus and then we took it over the top and made Crème Brulee.  The food was all excellent; the class did exactly as I had shown them.  The surprising part to me is they love asparagus but never buy it because they didn’t know how to cook it properly. I hadn’t even typed up the “recipe” for roasted asparagus; I take it for granted that everyone does this.  I think the BEST part of this first class was making the Crème Brulee and 2 students while making it were thinking to themselves, I am NOT eating that.  I  practiced my voila moment; I pre-made the recipe so they could brulee and try it”  My punch line was ruined by my sous chef LOL I wanted to say “and with the magic of television” and bring out the already made dessert  blah blah blah!  The joke was spoiled almost within the first hour of class.  We all had a good laugh though.

My second class was One Pot Pasta; I think everyone needs this simple delicious recipe in their back pocket.  It comes together quick and you can pretty much use up what you have in your fridge/pantry.  We first threw it together while hanging out on the patio, Abbi (my daughter) came in and threw everything into the pot and we cooked it on the side burner of our grill.  PERFECT!!!

Mexican was my third class, this I felt was more chopping than actual cooking; I felt a little bad about that afterwards. This is all new to me so I hope the ‘students’ give me another chance. While what we made was excellent, we chopped a lot!!!  We made fresh garden salsa, avocado mango salsa, guacamole, black bean tostada and churros.  If you have never made churros at home – YOU HAVE TO!  They are just plain yummy – that is only if you like warm Mexican doughnuts covered with cinnamon and sugar…

Churros Recipe:

1 Cup water

2 TBS brown sugar

½ tsp Salt

1/3 Cup unsalted butter

1 Cup flour

2 Eggs

¼ Cup white sugar

1 tsp Cinnamon

Preheat about 2 inches of vegetable oil in a frying pan.  In a paper bag mix white sugar and cinnamon and put aside.

In a 3 quart sauce pan add water, brown sugar, salt and butter heat to a boil. Remove from heat and add the flour. Mix until well blended.  In a separate bowl mix the eggs and vanilla together and add to the flour mixture. Stir well blended and completely mixed in.  Fill a pastry bag already fitted with #1 large star tip.  Add dough to the bag  you will want to test your oil by squeezing a little dough in, if it doesn’t bubble up immediately, wait until your oil gets a little hotter.  Once hot enough; squeeze about a 4 inch doughnut into the oil.  Depending on what pan you are using; you should be able to get about 3-5 donuts into the pan.  Cook for about 2 minutes or so per side.  They should be brown on all sides and cooked through but just until cooked, let them drain on a rack for a bit  before adding them to the sugar, cinnamon mixture.  Enjoy!!!

My last class, just this last Thursday night was homemade pasta, bolognese, alfredo and ravioli.  First off I had 5 people for this class.  A very good male friend of mine put up a stink that the class was full before he knew about it, he is not on FB so I let him in; why not try to see if I could handle more cooks in the kitchen.  Plus he had been to 2 of the 3 classes I had previously.  Side bar – He enjoys cooking and is a good cook, so when our families were hanging out one night, I mentioned to him I was starting a cooking class; he was very interested.  When he said he was coming to my second ever class – I was very nervous for him to come, I mean he knows how to cook and well, what could I possibly “teach” him.  Apparently something; as he had signed up for the next 2 classes.

While I was really excited for this class, there is nothing like homemade pasta.  We made a wheat pasta dough and a white pasta dough.  Everyone was skeptical of the wheat; only because they have tried several of the ones on the market; never overly impressed.  They loved this one; so much so that I received an email from an attendee around 8:45 am the next morning that she had bought the roller and pasta cutter set for her Kitchen Aid that she has never used.  I love it!!! Then I received a message on my class FB page that one of the ladies not only purchased the roller/cutter set, she purchased a Kitchen Aid stand mixer, I think Kitchen Aid should give me a little kick back for having this class.  I think I was a little over ambitious taking on so much in the allotted 3 hour class I set up.  The star of the show, I feel did not get its just dessert.  The Ravioli Al’ Uovo was saved for last and there was so much going on and my house was full and oh my messy; picture flour EVERYWHERE; I missed an important step by boiling the ravioli before putting it in the sauce, don’t fret I just ended up cooking it in the sauce, but that meant that it did not get the sauce poured over it at the time of serving.  SO I will definitely do a homemade pasta class again, and soon, I will have to break it up though. I will make sure that the ravioli gets its own class and we will make a couple of different fillings.

Raviolo Al’Uovo Recipe: this is Ann Burrell’s recipe from her cookbook

2 Cups Ricotta Cheese

1 Cup freshly grated  Parmigiano Reggiano cheese plus more for garnish

¼ Cup fresh Italian Parsley

2 Large eggs plus 8 egg yolks

Kosher Salt

Flour as needed

Your favorite pasta dough recipe – if you don’t have one I can post mine

8 Tbs unsalted butter

2 Cups chicken stock

¼ Cup fresh sage leaves – Chopped

Crumpled Prosciutto – optional / not really

In a bowl combine Ricotta, Parm, Parsley and 2 whole eggs, mix well and season and salt.

On a clean floured work surface, lay out two sheets of pasta about 12 inches long, Brush lightly with water.

Equally space 4 dollops of the ricotta mixture; using a spoon make a nest or small hole in the center of each dollop.

Carefully separate the remaining eggs and put a yolk in each nest.  If you break one scoop it out with a spoon.  You want to be careful not to break the yolk.

Cover the ricotta nests and egg yolk with another sheet of pasta.  Use your index fingers to press around each ricotta nest to seal the edges, then use a large cookie cutter or fluted ring cutter or if you can, use a roller cutter, I am not that good.   Repeat – placing the completed raviolis on a well-floured cookie sheet.

Bring a large pot of well salted water to a boil.  In a large saute pan, melt half the butter and add half the chicken stock. Season with salt and toss half the Sage in.

Add 4 of the ravioli into the boiling water and cook for 3 minutes.  Using a slotted spoon, carefully transfer the ravioli from the water to the chicken stock pan and cook for 2 to 3 minutes.

Transfer to serving plates and spoon a little extra of the sauce on each and garnish with crumbled prosciutto if desired.

Now for my Sous Chef Sucks comment!  She totally doesn’t!  She is one of my dearest friends and we always have a great time when we get together, which is fairly often and I love it!  She stopped over one night; we were going to go out and grab something to eat locally.  Had a glass of wine – too many so we stayed in.  Now we needed to eat something so I looked around the house to see what I could throw together.  We decided to make roasted butternut squash risotto.  That might sound a little ambitious being pretty late by now and a couple of glasses of wine later but that is how my house rolls!  We do crazy meals at a whim at times.  KP as some of you following this will know; was cutting up the butternut squash and me being me, her cuts were not very consistent LOL. Yes sometimes I am a little neurotic about my cuts.  Not that I have had any formal training I just know that the more consistent your pieces are they will cook at the same time and be the same throughout.  So I proclaimed that my sous chef sucks – jokingly.  Try saying that 3 times fast.  Then add some wine – Not an easy thing to do!  We laughed SO hard and have been laughing about it ever since.  This was before I started my blog and my classes.  We really wanted to use it somewhere, but when Abbi googled it – a lot of unpleasant things came up and she thought it best that we not be affiliated with the like.  I am still laughing about it now!

BTW – KP told me I was too wordy last post – let’s see how she likes this one!

Thanks for all the support – I am having a blast!