Cooking Class

Hubby is out of town so I did what any mom on her own with three kidlets would do on a Tuesday night...hire a babysitter and attend a cooking class. The class was called "Healthful Cooking: The Quick Vegetarian" cooking. Somewhat of an oxymoron since I think in most cases unless you're cooking everything in a stick of butter that vegetarian=healthy.

The instructor had been trained at a well-known cooking school and worked in several of the higher end NY restaurants. She had some good stories about what it was like, including one time where she had to skin (not shell) peas because they were going into a "delicate" dish.

I took the class to get some ideas for Friday meals during Lent. Pizza, enchiladas and baked Ziti get old after awhile.

We learned how to make five dishes. My favorites were the Pumpkin polenta with cranberry/blueberry chutney and roasted root veggies and this new pasta dish they came up with last Saturday night. It's so new they haven't named it yet, but it has rice noodles, toasted bread crumbs, spinach, pine nuts, currants and some other yummy stuff in it. I can't wait to try it.

The thing I really enjoyed about the class was learning how a dash of paprika could deepen the flavoring in the chick pea-roasted tomato soup and a dash of line really balanced out the other seasonings. Adding some lemon zest to the two pasta dishes she made really added to the flavors. I realized I need to experiment more when I'm cooking and not just follow the recipe verbatim.

I really enjoyed the night out and can't wait to try another class. Have you ever taken any cooking classes? Would you like to?

Link for the day: This is where I took my class.