Our next two cooking classes features recipes from Amanda Cohen and are all vegetarian.
All of these recipes were labor fairly labor intensive. For example, our instructor, worked on drying out some zucchini for over 24 hours to prep one dish for the class as well as some others. So needless to say, we wouldn't have been able to get everything done in one 3 hour class session if we had to do all the work.
We made several dishes as usual which included parsnip gnocchi with sour red cabbage and carrot crumbs, portabello mousse with pear and fennel compote, smoked sweet potato nicoise salad with chickpea dressing, butternut squash soup with butternut dumplings, Knishes, zucchini ginger cake with zucchini cream and zucchini candy with cinnamon caramel and cream cheese ice cream and the cocktail of the class was Kentucky Lemonade.
This menu was really good but fairly difficult unless done in stages or unless you have 1/2 a day free to cook. For example, the parsnips needed 2 hours of roasting with some other veggies for the gnocchi and the butternut dumplings needed butternut "leather" made first. Which means you need to roast and dehydrate some butternut squash which doesn't happen without time.
The parsnip gnocchi dish was light with a bit of cinnamon taste from the carrot crumbles. Think a thick cinnamon batter with carrots that's cooked, crumbled and dried and put on top of the gnocchi.
The nicoise salad was also very good but this time we also smoked some sweet potatoes to add to the salad and dressing was very tasty even if it had some seaweed in it.
All of these recipes were labor fairly labor intensive. For example, our instructor, worked on drying out some zucchini for over 24 hours to prep one dish for the class as well as some others. So needless to say, we wouldn't have been able to get everything done in one 3 hour class session if we had to do all the work.
We made several dishes as usual which included parsnip gnocchi with sour red cabbage and carrot crumbs, portabello mousse with pear and fennel compote, smoked sweet potato nicoise salad with chickpea dressing, butternut squash soup with butternut dumplings, Knishes, zucchini ginger cake with zucchini cream and zucchini candy with cinnamon caramel and cream cheese ice cream and the cocktail of the class was Kentucky Lemonade.
This menu was really good but fairly difficult unless done in stages or unless you have 1/2 a day free to cook. For example, the parsnips needed 2 hours of roasting with some other veggies for the gnocchi and the butternut dumplings needed butternut "leather" made first. Which means you need to roast and dehydrate some butternut squash which doesn't happen without time.
The parsnip gnocchi dish was light with a bit of cinnamon taste from the carrot crumbles. Think a thick cinnamon batter with carrots that's cooked, crumbled and dried and put on top of the gnocchi.
The nicoise salad was also very good but this time we also smoked some sweet potatoes to add to the salad and dressing was very tasty even if it had some seaweed in it.
We also made Knishes, which is a basic dough stuffed with cooked onion and potatoes. I've never heard of them before and they were pretty good. We also made a mushroom mousse with portobello mushrooms. It was definitely a unique form of pate and very tasty. I think everyone in the class really enjoyed the mousse and the soup the best for this class.
I seemed to have missed taken a picture of something on every class so far and this class was no different. I forgot a picture of the soup but that's okay. The soup was also labor intensive and not only do you make a soup but you make a packet of vegetables using the butternut squash leather to add to the bottom of the cup. Then the hot soup melts the leather and leaves a puddle of goodness in the bottom.
We also had an interesting dessert. Zucchini ginger cake with zucchini cream and zucchini candy with cinnamon caramel and cream cheese ice cream. Yeah, it's a mouthful to say and eat. As you can probably tell it doesn't look like a lot of zucchini went into the this dessert and you would be right. The recipe calls for zucchini "candy" meaning you dehydrate some zucchini until crunchy to put in the whipped cream. Our instructor had the zucchini pieces in the oven for 24 hours and they never achieved a crunchy like state. They were lightly sweet squishy gummy type pieces. We also made cream cheese ice cream to go with the cake which cut through the sweetness of the cake and caramel but it seemed too tart for me. The caramel had a hint of cinnamon in it and with the cake it was really, really good.
Our second class of recipes by Cohen turned out really well. We had a roasted potato soup with crispy vinegar potatoes and tomato pearls, fennel salad with candied grapefruit pops and grilled cheese croutons, stuffed fried olives, jalapeno hush puppies with maple butter, carrot risotto with carrot dumplings and ribbons, bagels, popcorn pudding with caramel popcorn and for a cocktail we had a radish gibson.
Our starters were the fried olives and hush puppies. Everyone thought they were really good and they were fairly easy to make, although frying is a pain. But if you're doing a small batch try the fried olives.
Next, we had a roasted potato soup with tomato pearls. The tomato pearls was simply ketchup mixed with calcium gluconate that's dropped using a little dropper or syringe into sodium alginate. The kitchup mixture will sit on top for a second then it will slowly sink into the alginate and become a little ball and sink to the bottom and there's your little tomato pearl. The pearls were put on top along with the fried vinegar potatoes. It definitely not something I'll bother with but it was fun to make.
Our main dish was a carrot risotto and fennel salad. The risotto was really good but it was light on flavor and the salad was different with it's bright grapefruit and cheesey croutons but very tasty. We also made some bagels. This was a good recipe to have and I can see making these at home. It's not hard just time consuming but easily made on a weekend.
And for dessert we made popcorn pudding with caramel popcorn. I know. Sounds weird and it was but surprisingly good. We soaked popcorn and corn in milk, cooked it and then let it set up. Then we topped it with caramel popcorn. It was sweet and had a little smokey flavor to it and the caramel popcorn gave it that extra texture. A little of this went a long way and felt pretty rich. This would be a good and surprising dessert to serve to guests.
A lot of the recipes we've made have been labor intensive and probably not something your going to be making at home on a weekly basis but more like the long weekend you've got coming up and want to cook something different. All in all, we cooked some really interesting recipes and all using vegetables.
Our starters were the fried olives and hush puppies. Everyone thought they were really good and they were fairly easy to make, although frying is a pain. But if you're doing a small batch try the fried olives.
Next, we had a roasted potato soup with tomato pearls. The tomato pearls was simply ketchup mixed with calcium gluconate that's dropped using a little dropper or syringe into sodium alginate. The kitchup mixture will sit on top for a second then it will slowly sink into the alginate and become a little ball and sink to the bottom and there's your little tomato pearl. The pearls were put on top along with the fried vinegar potatoes. It definitely not something I'll bother with but it was fun to make.
Our main dish was a carrot risotto and fennel salad. The risotto was really good but it was light on flavor and the salad was different with it's bright grapefruit and cheesey croutons but very tasty. We also made some bagels. This was a good recipe to have and I can see making these at home. It's not hard just time consuming but easily made on a weekend.
And for dessert we made popcorn pudding with caramel popcorn. I know. Sounds weird and it was but surprisingly good. We soaked popcorn and corn in milk, cooked it and then let it set up. Then we topped it with caramel popcorn. It was sweet and had a little smokey flavor to it and the caramel popcorn gave it that extra texture. A little of this went a long way and felt pretty rich. This would be a good and surprising dessert to serve to guests.
A lot of the recipes we've made have been labor intensive and probably not something your going to be making at home on a weekly basis but more like the long weekend you've got coming up and want to cook something different. All in all, we cooked some really interesting recipes and all using vegetables.
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