cooking class

3 Comments


tonight I started a six week ‘gourmet’ cooking class put on by Winter Park Tech with my friend Karin (pictured at right). I don’t really know what Winter Park Tech is but when you look it up online it comes up under OCPS (Orange County Public Schools) and is really glorified adult education. It is a funny class and not really what I would label gourmet and I don’t really think it will exactly stretch my skills to their limit but I do think it will be pretty fun. We broke up into small groups and each took a course and at the end we got to try each one. I am hoping for some good takeaway recipes. I think there was one so far.

On the menu tonight

  • App – Cheese & Bacon Puffs (Puffy Cheese & Bacon )
  • Soup Course – Mushroom & Leek Soup with Parsley Dumplings (This was impressive with morels someone had picked in WA -I would make this recipe.)
  • Sandwich – Open Face Sausage & Veg Melt (meh)
  • Salad Course- Spinach ambrosia salad w/ garlic orange dressing (I made this course. Weird but ok.)
  • Dessert – Chocolate Raspberry Truffle Brownies (It has to be a special brownie for me to like it. Not quite this one.)

oaxacan burger

Leave a comment

>
the day kind of started out as a disappointment. We had planned to head to Gasparilla (aka pirate fest) in Tampa for the mardi-gras style parade and dinner with my mom and dad at Columbia’s, which is housed in Ybor City and serves up some rockin’ spanish inspired Cuban but I have been sick all week and decided I needed to stay in today and recuperate. But, we had started one of the toppings for this burger last night and decided it was ready to eat so we figured we could make the burger at least.
Last night after work I made pickled red onions. They are a gorgeous pinkly tinted jalapeno pickled addition to this burger. The burger is our usual ground turkey on a buttered heated kaiser bun but this one had the most complicated sauce so far, a mole. Mole is an unctuous concoction filled with almonds, honey, chocolate and many other things in a tomato based sauce that is cooked down to a thick paste. Topping the mole were super creamy avocado slices and queso fresco along with the onions. We served it with a few jalapeno slices and oven baked onion rings.
The whole thing was both tart and creamy with many tastes mingling together and was a really different and interesting combination. The day definitely came together even if it wasn’t how I planned.

2 from Haiti

Leave a comment

For more than a few years I have heard my friend Linda speak of Haiti. Going to Haiti. Her Haitian would-be brother, Olivier. Her mom cooking masses of food at the orphanage. Holding the kids. Even using my suitcase to fill with old clothes to leave behind. It seemed out of reach to ever have him here. Now, in the midst of the time when most of the world seems to be falling apart at the seams there is also hope. 54 hours after the earthquake rocked Haiti – her brothers are home – the system that had been holding things back tore open. I heard another story like this today at work during devotions, a young girl, on the ground in the states. These stories give hope and reassurance. They are God’s promises in action – never leaving, never forsaking.

For more on this story click here

dirty water

1 Comment

>
I have long been a fan of the .50 cent hot dog that translates into a $2.50 cent lunch – 2 dogs, chips and a soft drink – at Ikea. Well, for better or worse this icon of the flat packed and toweringly stacked blue and yellow box that is Ikea has changed. First of all, it changed from $2.50 down to $2. That isn’t necessarily a good or bad thing in itself but the here’s the rub. The dogs are now heated by the dirty water method. They are no longer rolled on the rolly heating element that heated the bit of fat to crisp the outside of the dogs but immersed in a water that becomes tinted with grey and holds a slick of oil topside. While some are fans of the dirty water dog, I felt a disappointment keen enough that would probably drive me upstairs for meatballs and lingonberries.