Sweet River Studios

What feels like a hundred years ago, which in reality was 2016, I took a 30 week French cooking class at The Seasoned Farmhouse in Columbus. I met a lot of people all different ages and backgrounds but what we all had in common was we liked to cook, wanted to learn different things in the kitchen and of course eat. During those weeks, our Chef Tricia, threw in a day of cooking cajun recipes, which I certainly didn't have a lot of exposure to living in Ohio.  We cooked a Chicken & Andouille Smoked Sausage Gumbo from the book of Paul Preudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen. We also made a cajun meatloaf and a shrimp etouffe but I enjoyed the gumbo the most and I decided to dust off the recipe we made and make it again in 2023. I admit I didn't stick closely to the recipe, which most southerners who know how to make gumbo would know doubt have something to say about that and I know. I'm not trying to be them. I'm just trying to make a tasty soup.  To make this tasty gumbo y...

Well, its a new year and apparently winter is for meat because that's the focus for next 6 weeks or so  and first up is chicken. We made several dishes such as Hunter style chicken, Grandmother style and chicken in beer. All of the chicken dishes were very good but we did wind up putting all the chicken in the oven to finish cooking after searing in the pan. In the grandmother style chicken, all the vegetables are prepared separately then placed around the finished chicken which seemed pretty labor intensive to me and I was glad I didn't have to do that one. I got to work on beer chicken. The beer chicken recipe is from the Alsace region which is close to Germany and beer is used instead of wine. The chicken is browned in the pan then the aromatics and beer are added. The chicken continues to cook, however we finished our chicken off in the oven since we were hungry. The sauce is then strained and finished with egg yolks and cream. And we served some egg noodles on the ...

I can't believe I actually signed up for a 30 week cooking class! What was I thinking?! Okay enough whining. I signed up for the 30 week French cooking series offered by The Seasoned Farmhouse in Columbus and our first class was October 3 and should go through mid-May with a couple weeks off for holidays. I've never been the Seasoned Farmhouse but I knew about their cooking classes but believe me when they're announced they fill almost immediately so it's really hard to get in. When I saw this 30 week French cooking series I gave it a brief thought and discarded it. Signing up for a 30 week class isn't something to do on a whim and the cost was considerable for the class so I decided to watch it and if the class looked like it would fill then I'd sign up. One class was offered on Monday nights and one on Tuesday during the day. So I watched and waited. When I saw the Monday night class fill within a few weeks I didn't think the Tuesday class would but it s...