Amuse Bouche

Ideas in Food at Craigie on Main: Activa

I've been following Alex and Aki at Ideas in Food for several years now and I managed to somehow miss the class they did at Stir so when it popped up in my twitter stream from @tmaws that they would be doing several classes this week as a lead up to their already sold out James Beard House dinner I decided to find a way to go.  My pal Ali from here and here is home from the UK for the summer so emails were dispatched and agreements were reached and we booked in for the Activa class on Tuesday.

While Ali and I were driving over he said "How much would you like to bet I will be the only person under 18 in the room?"  I knew we would get some looks, but if anyone heard him talk about food they would change any preconceived notions immediately.  I've known Ali for about 4 or 5 years now when he started taking classes with us at Create a Cook.  He has gone from mildly interested to sincerely passionate about food in that time. He is my first choice to call for any foodie field trip.  He takes classes at Stir and spends so much time there and at No9 Park that Barbara Lynch invited him to the soft opening at Menton.  How's that for 14 years old?  He's toured her kitchens, lamented missing the pigs head with me at the Craigie on Main pig night, and  his parents just built him his own experimental kitchen in the basement.  He is currently obsessed with getting a Pacojet and an anti-griddle and this class did nothing to dampen his enthusiasm for the Pacojet.Quite simply he wants to be the next Heston Blumenthal or Ferran Adria.  I'm just along for the ride to feed his brain with ideas and maybe someday get a good table.

Activa, for the uninitiated, is simply an enzyme that allows proteins to bond together.  There are versions that work with dairy, versions that work well with soy and two that work well with meats. Alex ran us through all 4 versions with a demonstration of the application.  The photo at the top is his shrimp salumi.  Basically chopped shrimp, seasoned with cayenne, smoked paprika, garlic powder and salt and then bound with Activa RM, pressed into a ring mold and then put under vacuum and left to chill.  Texturally it felt a bit like a firm jelly, cooked it would have the nice snap of the shrimp in the mouth. Sliced thin and wrapped around a scallop and seared or layered between beef for a spin on a surf and turf.  A dish I could never understand the appeal of, but obviously widely loved by the number of times you see it on menus.

The coolest demo though was for mozzarella noodles.  Yup.  Noodles made from cheese. Spin that around for awhile my fellow cheese hounds.  They took mozzarella and ricotta some salt and the Activa Y-G and spun it a few times in the Pacojet. Using an offset spatula Alex spread it thinly on some acetate sheets and then you let it set up in the fridge for 18-24 hours.  It peels off the acetate in a thin sheet and then just cut it into fettucine or tagliatelle with a knife. They passed them around both raw and cooked in a bit of butter.  I loved the texture raw, but wasn't as enamoured when it was cooked.  But just imagine it raw tossed with a fresh tomato salsa. Caprese fettucine?

Ali's favourite dish was the bread pudding that tasted like a ramped up version of French Toast. I loved the hangar steak, folded in half, glued, wrapped with thin slices of bacon, compressed and then...Deep fried. HELLO. It was almost impossible to see where the halves were attached when sliced.  Really amazing. Alex is incredibly knowledgeable about the various products and their uses, but I wish we had more demo.  It was really fascinating to see the products transform in front of you. Our heads were spinning with ideas as we left Craigie. Ali was remembering an episode he saw where they had to make a turducken in 30 minutes.  He was already thinking of taking a breast of each, pounding them thin and then pasting them together and compressing them.

Is this something the average cook is going to use everyday? No. Will it gradually trickle down and find some home applications? Absolutely.

Eventually we wound up over at Formaggio on Huron, Ali had only ever been to the one in the south end and I felt that he should go to the mothership.  He was, for lack of a better word, gobsmacked. Every nook and cranny was investigated. I lead him room to room and then said " And now we are entering the room of happiness", and I waved my arm at the cheese wall. "Cheese" we both sighed. Like rats we both picked up a bit of this and a bit of that and grabbed two sandwiches for lunch.  We hopped back in the truck and we decided we needed to find a place to eat our spoils.  We headed over to the most beautiful place I could think of on short notice, the Mt. Auburn cemetery, and had a drive around and ate our spoils in the midst of the eternally quiet.  I'm taking bets on which one of us will order some Activa to play with first.  The circulator awaits.

Homemade Sausage: Chorizo, Brats and Chipolata

Those of you who follow me on twitter (joamuse) have heard me mention my 12-year 13-year old foodie friend who I take along with me on field trips.  He started out as a student at Create a cook with some of the other instructors and they all kept telling me you have to meet him. After 1 conversation Alasdair and I became fast food friends.

Let me introduce you to him by saying one of his goals is to get his parents to take him to a 3 Michelin starred restaurant.  At home he has his own personal kitchen set-up in the corner with his Cuisinart standing mixer a portable induction burner and more tools than most home kitchens. He and I can discuss any cooking technique, and cookbook, chef, etc., at length. He's eaten in far more restaurants than I ever have, in fact he's my 'date' for a friend's birthday dinner at Craigie on Main for Whole Hog night next Tuesday. He dined at Stir recently and Barbara Lynch was the chef that night. He schmoozed her up and told her he wanted a pacojet and a thermal immersion circulator so he can start trying out sous vide cooking but that he was having a tough time convincing his parents, Chef Lynch not only came to his defense saying of course they should get it for him, she also told him he was welcome to come spend a day with her at no 9 Park. Jealous! The boy is food mad.

A few years ago we started out by making a traditional Christmas Pudding at his house.  We hit farmer's markets, we went to Baza when they opened to ogle all the unfamiliar ingredients, we went to Kam Man a few weeks ago where I introduced him to banh mi with head cheese and pate and we wandered up and down every aisle investigating while he helped me pick up ingredients for some upcoming Vietnamese, Korean and Thai classes. There were two things he wanted us to make, brawn or head cheese and sausages.  I figured we could start with the easier of the two since finding a pig's head may require a trip to Maine to visit Heritage Hill Farm in October (more about my visit there later!) so sausages were the first choice.  

Through Kinnealey I picked up some fat back, pork butt and hog casings and then a perusal through Ruhlman and Polcyn's Charcuterie to make the final decisions.

I chose Mexican chorizo, Bratwurst and the 3rd recipe would possible be Italian sausage, but in a nod to Alasdair being British, not to mention husband, we went with the chipolata from the book Alasdair brought me as a gift Professional Charcuterie by John Kinsela.  He chose the book because he loved that all the recipes were charts.  I need to get him a copy of Ratio stat!

I knew it was going to be around 85 - 90F in my kitchen and about an equal percentage of humidity so I bought loads of ice, chilled down all the equipment in the fridge, left the fat in the freezer until the last minute and cut all the meat partially frozen. 

Alasdair acted as official Spice mix master.

We ground the meat into the bowl over another bowl of ice to try and keep it nice and cold.

Even with all these precautions to keep everything ultra cold we still had to pause occasionally and let things rest in the fridge before resuming the next step we sat down at the table with 1 fan aimed at us and 1 fan aimed right at the poor Kitchen-aid to try and cool the poor thing down.  You could fry an egg on the motor housing. Since he has been reading Eric Ripert's new book On The Line we were discussing the various stations in the kitchen and he was telling me how long it takes to progress down the line at Le Bernadin, today of course we were working the Garde Manger station.  I told him about Ms. Glaze's Pommes d'Amour and told him he really needs to look her up for a first hand account.

After it rested in the fridge and we gulped down more liquid, the meat and spices would go back under the mixer with the paddle attachment to add some liquid, in the case of chorizo it was ice cold tequila and red wine vinegar!

After we made all three sausage mixes, cooked off little patties of each to test for seasoning and chilled everything down it was time for the stuffing.  Alasdair referred to the hog casings I been soaking in water all morning as 'granny stockings'.

The first batch, the chorizo, took us over 30 minutes to stuff, by the time we got to the chipolata we were down to 10 minutes.  Sure, we overstuffed here and there, there were a few 'blow outs', but we just squished it back in the bowl and started again.

Alasdair took charge of the link twisting.

We started at 10:30 and finished the last of the sausages by 5:30.  We were both dripping and exhausted but it was a great day.   I sent home half with Alasdair and we kept half here to freeze later.  Even though the sausages were twisted when we cut them to cook them I tied each end off to prevent the sausage from oozing out the ends as it cooked.  Husband and I sautéed some onion and peppers from the farm stand we stopped by in Ipswich on Friday and grilled some of the Brats and I made some of the Cooks Illustrated recommended Yukon gold fries that you start in cold oil (novel, but it worked!) and all was well in the world.  I'm not going to give you the recipe here Charcuterie is well worth the investment. Stay tuned for head cheese. YIKES!

Herbed Turkey Roulade

Sunday I am teaching a class at Williams-Sonoma in the Burlington Mall.  The theme this time is Quick and Easy Thanksgiving Dinner.  The menu is a nice one, Creamed Butternut Squash and Apple Soup flavoured with a bit of saffron and cream, Chestnut and Sausage Dressing, Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Ginger Cake with Warm Caramel Sauce and of course, the ubiquitous turkey (All recipes easily found on their website). 
Since the store only has 1 oven in the demo area and both the sausage and chestnut dressing and the ginger cake will be in the oven I am going to make the turkey here and we will try to gently warm it up tomorrow.
The original recipe calls for two 2-1/2 pound breasts to be seasoned and tied together and then roasted.
I could only find a 5 pound half breast so I have decided to butterfly it, make a nice compound butter to smear all over the inside and then I will tie it up in a nice roulade or sausage roll and roast it.
I thought it might be nice to put some links up here so anyone who attends the class can see how I put it all together.

The first part is making a compound butter, or simply some grass fed unsalted butter like Kerrigold to which you have added some flavour. Fresh herbs, dried spices or herbs, zest of lemons or limes or oranges, maybe some liqueur or sea salt, truffles, powdered dried porcini, the possibilities are endless.  I never roast a chicken without making my house version which is usually some rosemary, thyme, sea salt, fresh black pepper, lemon zest and garlic confit (follow this link if you want to see how easy it is to make nectar of garlic heaven).

Next, take the full breast, boned, or a half breast-boned and lay it skin side down on the board.  Look at the shape of it and figure out how you can slice it once or twice so that it opens up to an even thickness.  I sliced from the front to the back of the breast once and then sliced that piece one more time again, front to back so it lay out in one long piece.  You could, if you wish, pound it thinner at this point.

Season with salt and pepper and smear on the compound butter.

Tie the roulade at 1 - 2 inch intervals, tight, but not so tight that it looks like the lines of a woman's corset when you take the strings off.

Season the outside with salt and pepper.  Take some of the oil from the garlic confit (I steeped some rosemary the confit when I made it) and mix it with some of the same fresh herbs from the compound butter and smear this all over the turkey.

It went into the oven at 350F.

Almost two hours later it was at 165F, the perfect temp for poultry to kill any instance of salmonella, I pulled it, let it cool and it's in the fridge resting for class tomorrow along with all those golden pan drippings.

To be continued...

How to get a job in food in a declining economy

At create a cook we have been advertising for people with a cooking and teaching background for part time work.
Sometimes they pay attention to the craigslist ad and forward their resume off to the appropriate mailbox, and sometimes they get creative.

Unknown to me, this gentleman has come in twice to try and catch me to apply for the position.  He's been told to just forward his info off to the email address and he's gone on his way.
Today he came in again and as I exited one of the kitchens I heard 'I' say, 'Here is Jo'.

I'm sure at first they are expecting some burly guy name Jo, not some crazy chick with wild hair...but i digress...

Standing on the other side of the counter was a man in his chef's whites.  He handed me his resume AND a bag with a lunch he had MADE for me of Slowly Braised Pork with Carrots and Mushrooms  and some serious Mashies.

Ah HELLO!  Way to stand out dude!

He said in a tough economy you do what you need to do in order to stand out, and he sure had it in spades.
We chatted about the job for awhile and he had to head off to work.  'R' and I eagerly heated it up and had a taste.  Mmmmmm, mmmmm good.  Who doesn't love a gorgeous braise on a cold rainy day?

Especially one that was made just for you.

Gennaro, way to go.  You will certainly be remembered.

New! Adult Cooking Classes in Newton

Starting this fall at create a cook we are launching our new series of adult classes.  Ever since we opened our doors people have asked about adult classes or about using our kitchens for other purposes like food photography or corporate team building events. We realized there were times our kitchens were available during the day and in the evening when we could schedule some adult classes and finally this fall we are ready to launch!

We have two different series, adult classes and adult parties. 

The adult classes will run 3 times a week: Monday morning, Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning. Each class is a four part series based around a theme.

Monday mornings starting on September 15th, Betsy will launch a 4 part baking series; Scones/Quick Breads, Artisan Breads, Cake Basics and French Pastries.

Tuesday evenings starting September 16th our newest instructor, nutritionist and personal chef Sam, will be launching the first of her Healthy Home Cooking series with a four part class on Vegetarian, Heart Healthy, Low Carb/Good Carb and Simply Organic.

Wednesday mornings starting September 17th I will kick off my latest 4 part series called Kitchen Basics.  You'll learn how to prepare and properly season fish, meats, pasta and vegetables with an emphasis on technique and knife skills.  Oh, and don't worry, there will be a few desserts sprinkled in!

All of these classes are hands on and interactive and the best part? You get to take home everything you make!  Stroll in,  we shop for you, clean up after you, and all you have to do is cook your heart out and swan out the door with dinner.

The adult parties run on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night with possible bookings available during the day on weekends.  We supply the chef, the menu, the ingredients, the kitchen, a set table and all the clean up.  You just gather up 4, 6 or 8 of your friends, choose your theme, bring some wine if you like and come and cook for a night!  Some of the themes are French Bistro, Fresh Pasta & Italian, Vegetarian, All American or Asian.

We have loads of free parking, a great staff and an easily accessible location right around the corner from the Green line.

Why don't you come and cook with us?

Repeat after me, it's not hot, it's not hot, it's...

I bring you flowers from my garden today instead of food as the very thought of cooking anything right now makes me break out into a sweat.  Okay, maybe that's the 90 degree heat and 85% humidity in my non-air-conditioned kitchen that's making me sweat.

Like my old Italian grandmother I do any cooking required in the relative cool of the early morning, my Mom's macaroni salad, sautéed zucchini in vinaigrette, husband's favourite trifle, watermelon and feta salad, and for the rest of the day I sit with shades drawn and work on my summer recipes for create a cook and dusting off my keyboard every 30 minutes from the pollen that is sifting its way in through the skylights and the screens.

Summer means 5 days a week with the 11-13 year olds, cooking from 9:30 PM to 3:30 PM with a 1 hour break for lunch and a stroll outside.  Right now I'm working on week 2: Weeknight Meals and on Thursday they will take a field trip to Test Kitchen to look around and then likely test a recipe in the kitchens.

So far we will be making:

·    Chili Con Carne w/ Chili Cheddar Shortbreads
·    Watermelon Salsa
·    Carrot Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting
·    Texas Quesadilla
·    Sautéed Chicken Breasts with Tarragon-Mustard Pan Sauce
·    Individual Cheesecakes with Strawberry Glaze
·    Yeasted Dinner Rolls
·    Green Beans and Fennel with Tarragon Mustard Cream Dressing
·    Roasted Red Pepper Pesto Palmiers
·    Chicken wrapped in Phylo with Southwestern Pesto and a Garlic Cream Sauce
·    Roasted Corn, Jicama and Mango salad with Citrus Dressing
·    Spanish Style Rice
·    Tres Leches Cake
·    Pan Seared Steak with Chimichurri Sauce
·    Oven Roasted Chips
·    Farfalle with Chicken, Tomatoes, Caramelized Onions and Goat Cheese

But Friday is still up in the air, I need some other recipes to go with the farfalle and I need a green vegetable dish to round out the steak and chips on Thursday afternoon.

It is rather hard to look at recipes and think, "ooooo, I'd love that!", when all you want to do is sit in a large cool puddle of water with a frosty beverage.

Right I'm off to make a nice iced coffee.....

Citrio

One of the added benefits to teaching in a culinary school is the fact that many of those you teach will one day head out to the wild blue yonder and work in various kitchens.  This means you get to swan in and visit them, try the food and have a little insider moment.
Last month I went to visit a friend of mine from CSCA at his new venture Citrio Catering & Provisions Co.
We all used to tease Mark when he was going through the program as he came in every day with his whites starched and pressed (with creases!) and after cooking all day and doing boatloads of dishes he went home looking EXACTLY as neat and clean as when he came in the door.  I mean come on, look at the cuffs on his chefs coat.  The man is neat. The other thing we miss about Mark was his ability to 'hold court' every morning before class spinning us stories of his neighbors or a charity event he had been to recently.  The man has a way with a tale. Now, he has a way with jalapeño jam, but we'll get to that later.

Mark has partnered up with well known chef, Jeff Fournier, owner of 51 Lincoln, which is located right across the street from Citrio , as well as Eric Bogardus of Vox Populi, Loche Ober ,Pignoli and also a former contender to be White House chef, to open up a sweet little bistro/cafe/catering operation right in Newton Highlands.  Both Jeff, and Eric, I might add, have previously worked under Lydia Shire, my personal cooking goddess, that fact alone makes them okay in my book.

I swung by about 2 weeks after they opened to meet some friends and catch up with Mark.  In his usual style he drew me right in telling me about the space.

The space they occupy was the site of the very first Brigham's store in the 1920's.  In later years it became Ice Cream Works and now that they have taken over the space, in a nod to its illustrious past, they have kept on making ice cream.  In fact, they have this amazing machine that can crank out 40 gallons of ice cream in an hour! The machine gives them the ability to make ice cream wholesale and sell it to local restaurants and you should see the size of the walk in freezer! They also use this spacious site to make all the breads for both Citrio and 51 Lincoln. 

The food at Citrio is Modern American with flavours culled from other global cuisines.  The day I visited I had a pulled pork sandwich on a house made roll accompanied by sweet potato chips that they make in-house.

Nice tender pulled pork in a sweet style sauce (Sorry, I started eating before I even thought about taking a picture...so good!). They have a great selection of soups including Sancocho, a Columbian style chicken and lime soup, various salads, hot and cold sandwiches, a killer Bolognaise made in traditional slow cooked style.  All of these dishes were available in March when I was there and I am guessing that they will slowly change the menu a bit to get seasonal for spring and summer.

When you walk in the door there is a deli case full of platters loaded with things like Citrio's House Smoked Chicken in a Pomegranate Marinade, Toasted Cous Cous Salad with Ginger and Grilled Plums and Peruvian Potato Salad with House Smoked Salt and Fresh Horseradish.  All of this is available to buy by the pound to take home. Right around the corner there is a case of frozen take home selections as well as the item that had me buying 10 on the spot, veal stock. 

Yes, I said house made veal stock all ready to take home and use in perfect little containers.  I was in love.  But the house made item that made my heart sing was the jalapeño jam, just one of several home made jams they sell. 

The jalapeño jam is a thick, rich jewel coloured jam packed with slices of garlic and multi coloured peppers.  It plays perfectly on the sweet/hot/tart line that I love.  Slather some on a spice rubbed pork tenderloin and grill it.  Spread a little over your cream cheese on a bagel.  I promise, you'll become as addicted as I have. I have threatened physical harm if the recipe changes.

Melissa, who also worked with us for a time at create a cook,  bakes some mean desserts for both 51 Lincoln and Citrio. Chocolate bread pudding, killer Super Charged Brownies and house made marshmallows that melt on your tongue.

On the other side they have about 20 seats in a sun lit yellow room and the day we were there a constant stream of customers came in and out as well as a few people who chose to  linger over their lunch with a book or the paper.  It's a great little neighborhood place to drop by.  Right now they have started their outdoor seating area as well and this is a rare thing here in Newton.  You can sit under the trees in a sunny brick lined courtyard and linger over your lunch.  But they don't want to stop there, Citrio also caters and this is where things get really interesting.  Rather than choosing from the usual list of catering options in tick box fashion, Citro will customize the menu for your event.  Tell them the foods you like, the cuisines you love, the theme of your event and they will custom tailor the menu for you. 

Stop by sometime, say hello to Mark and tell him jo sent you.

Citrio Catering and Provisions Co.
2 Hartford Street
Newton, Highlands
617-969-1234
Mon - Sat 11-6:30 PM
Closed Sunday

New adult classes - Starting Monday

Starting Monday April 7th at create a cook in Newton we are kicking off our introductory adult classes.
The four week culinary tour series will be on Mondays from 9AM - 12.
This coming Monday we begin our trip in Spain, Week 2 will find us in France, Week 3 Italy and in week 4 we take a brief hop over to Asia. No luggage, no plane tickets, no tough reservations to make.
I'd love to see you come along.  There are still 2 openings.

On Wednesdays, Betsy, a Johnson and Wales graduate and a 10 year veteran baker, begins a basic baking series. 
Betsy's class will meet every Wednesday for 4 weeks from 9:00 AM - 12.
Week one scones and quick breads - raisin scones, chocolate loaf breads, and crepes are featured.
Week two artisan breads - participants will learn to prepare boule, eggplant tartine, and brioche cinnamon
rolls.
Week three is all about cake. We will make Celebration Cakes - two layers of yellow cake
filled with ganache and covered with butter cream frosting. The basics of cake decorating will finish the
product.
Week four is the grand finale- French pastries. Students will prepare pate a choux, pastry
crème, chocolate French glaze and create French éclairs; and lastly individual fresh fruit tartlets.

Not only will you learn some great new recipes and techniques in our classes, but the added bonus?

You get to take home every dish you make!

More from the mouths of babes

As I was explaining last nights recipes to the class a hand shot up and asked why we never cook any fish.
I explained that two of the students in the 11-13 age group went into anaphylaxis if they ate fish so it was not possible to do any fish dishes while they were students.

And now I bring you the commentary that accompanied this revelation;

Student 1 asked whether or not these people ever went swimming in the ocean.  I told them I wasn't sure, why?  They then asked how they could swim in the ocean if they could die from eating or touching fish.  It isn't often that I am stymied and can't come up with a retort.  But that comment had me for a loop.  What would happen if a fish passed by their lips, or they swallowed sea water in an area heavy with fish.  Who knows?

Student 2, my resident local princess, informed me that it was good that we would not be making any fishes dishes as the only fish she deemed fit to consume was ahi tuna, very lightly seared.  She's 11.  Where do we go from here?

Would you order one?

This week I decided to execute class with my 11-13 year olds in a different way.  They already knew that this session I had developed a quiz for them to take at the end of 7 weeks, but they were not expecting what they got this week.
The class was laid out as usual, all the equipment at their stations, a recipe packet at hand.  Most weeks parents drop off the kids and come in to read the recipes to find out what is for dinner that night, they too were in for a surprise.  Each packet had two written recipes, a lima bean puree and a gratin of braised leeks with horseradish. 

But page 1 was different.
Page 1 simply said:

Title:
Recipe by:
Ingredients:
Technique:

Step1:
Step2:

On the counter once they all gathered I explained that tonight they were all going to create and write their own recipes.  I pointed to a bowl and told them each one of them was getting an 8 ounce sirloin strip steak.
Then I pointed to the counter and explained that after they seasoned and seared their steak to the desired doneness they would build a pan sauce with any of the ingredients they wanted to choose.

I explained deglazing with the cognac.
I described how demi-glace is made and showed them the container I had and how it was reconstituted.
We talked about high notes and low notes in food.  We talked about brightening dishes with lemon juice, seasoning to taste, evening flavours with cream, etc.
I explained the reduced porcini liquid, minced shallots, whole grain mustard, sauteed mushrooms, butter, etc.
I explained how to write the steps by walking them through the seasoning of the steak and the pan to use, the heat it would be cooking at, etc.
And then I told them to take a few minutes to decide what they wanted to make and begin to write their recipes.
The buzz in the room was intense.  The questions surprised even me.  They were asking if they had a high note and a low note, would these two things work together, how would they know when to flip the steak, what would the crust look like?

I was so proud of those peeps and what they came up with, and I was so excited that they really seemed to 'get it', they understood that the ingredients they chose would affect the taste.  They went with the demi-glace even though none of them had ever tasted it.  Would your 11 year old know what a porcini reduction was if you asked them?  It was too cool.

I told them to leave me their recipes and that I would type them all up and include them with the cookbook I would give them at the end of the 7 week session.  The second class even asked that everyone's recipe be included in all the cookbooks instead of them just receiving their own.  This weekend I will have husband help me scan them in instead of typing them, because really, you need to see these in their own words.  But I though I might just highlight a few of them.

DM titled his dish: Ak-Van Shnouser - Put congiac in the pan with leftover stake residue then mix. 

BH title his: Steak w/ Mushroom Sauce (and lemon!)  cook steak until  nice crust has formed, pull out steak and add conac, scrape bottom, then add shallots.  Add porcini and put n a splash of demi-glace.  Stir and add cream, the stir and add lemon.  Poor over steak and enjoy.

Good old N called his: Cheesy Fried then Baked Potato Wings!!!! (Don't ask)

NP called hers: Worm Krundies

One of my faves BL titled his creation No-Name Steak.  Salt and pepper steak on 1 side. Turn on pan to medium high heat & add oil.  Make sure seasoned side of the steak is facing the bottom of the pan and place steak in the pan.  Now season the other side of the steak.  Flip the steak when there is a crust on the bottom.  When the steak looks medium-rare take it out and place it in a separate plate.  Add cognac and scrape off the fond at the bottom of the pan.  When all the fond is scraped, add heavy cream.  Wait for the mixture to bubble and add mustard, demi-glace and lemon.  Season the sauce to your liking with salt 7 pepper.  Pour sauce over steak and enjoy. Do you want to adopt him yet?  I know I do, I tell his mother all the time I'm taking him home with me.

LS my crazy loud little minx titled hers: To be Announced Steak.  Salt + pepper one side of steak.  Heat oil in saute in pan over medium high heat.  Put seasoned side down and season other side that facing up.  Flip when a crust has formed + it naturally releases from pan.  When its done take it off and add cognac and scrape all the shmooy stuff off pan.  After all skraped off add all ingredients.  Season to taste.

There could be more of this fun in future classes.  It was too cool.  And I learned that if you make it fun, they actually listen.