Enjoy a fabulous meal of scallops, risotto, and chocolate truffles that YOU made!
Enjoy a romantic evening discovering wine’s many culinary uses. Experience using wine in different ways while preparing a 3-course romantic dinner by searing scallops and creating a creamy wine sauce for them. Next, pair dry white wine and pecorino for a wine-infused risotto. For dessert, make dark chocolate truffles with wine, of course!
Finally sit down as a group and enjoy your delicious meal, complete with a complimentary glass of wine.
Each ticket is for 2 people making enough for 2 meals.
It is possible there will be other couples in the class, however tickets are limited to 3 couples. One person can book a couple’s meal and take the 2nd meal home.
Recharge, Seasonings, and Ratatouille. Here is the recharge part: Art of Cookery is taking a break. John and I are going to close our respective businesses (his is Gotta Go Tours) for a few weeks to recharge, deep clean, and organize.
We will be closed from February 12 to March 8.
You can expect a fresh menu the following week. I will list below the classes in March.
At the bottom, you’ll discover a recipe that is great year round for different reasons, Ratatouille.
Next up, Seasonings. Here is a little tutorial for you regarding spices and herbs:
Spice Up Your Cooking
Proper seasoning is the difference between an average meal and a restaurant-quality feast. As a home chef, learning what spices to add will elevate your cooking and impress family and friends alike!
The Fundamentals
If you want to up your culinary game, start with the basics. Some good go-to spices include:
black pepper
cumin
crushed red pepper flakes
turmeric
bay leaves
garlic powder
onion powder
cinnamon
smoked paprika
oregano
ground mustard
With these basics, you can make thousands of combinations, adding the finishing touch to your delicious meal. If your food starts tasting flat, take a look at your herbs! Ground spices, such as paprika, lose their freshness after about 6 months. Take a quick whiff; if they’ve lost their scent, it’s time to go. Whole spices, like cloves, last up to 5 years.
Tips and Tricks
When sauteing vegetables, add a bit of salt. Adding salt at the beginning of the cooking process allows time for it to penetrate the veggies, seasoning them throughout.
Spice up your dishes with white pepper! Black pepper is made from dried, unripened berries, and white pepper is made from ripe fruit. This means black pepper has a hotter, more pungent taste, while white pepper is earthy and complex.
For a kick of spice and pine, pick up some juniper berries. They can be crushed and added to marinades and sauces, or in a rub for meat.
Practice, Practice, Practice
Seasonings are the spice of life. To get to the top of your cooking game, sign up for a cooking class with Art of Cookery! There, you learn how to use spices to amp up your meals. If you’re looking to cook at home, pick up one of our meal kits. With detailed instructions and fully prepped ingredients, our kits will give you the home-cooked meal in just minutes feel without the hassle.
No time to cook at all? Order from our menu of prepared retail meals.
Just remember, there will be no classes, meal kits, or menu items until mid-March as per the first statement in this blog. We are recharging and coming back to the Art of Cookery kitchen renewed and excited!
Classes
Sweet Pickled Beets (how to make them and how to safely can them) 3/10/22 @ 12 noon $38
There's a lot of different ways to make and serve this quintessential dish. Here's my take on it.
Prep Time30mins
Cook Time10mins
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: French
Keyword: eggplant, pasta, zucchini
Servings: 4
Author: vkhanson
Equipment
1 Skillet large
1 Turner or wooden spoon to stir the sauté
1 Cutting board
1 Knife
Measuring cups and spoons
1 Saucepan to cook pasta
1 Colander to drain pasta
Ingredients
Pasta
1cupDry Pasta of choice(macaroni, noodles, medium penne)
6cupHot waterto cook pasta
1/2tbspSaltto cook pasta
Ratatouille
3tbspFat(olive oil, butter, bacon drippings)
1smallEggplantsmall diced
2pinchesSaltdivided
1smallZucchinismall diced
1Onionhalved and sliced
1Bell pepperlarge dice
3clovesGarlicminced
3/4cupDry white wine(using a sweet wine will work, but will result in a slightly sweeter dish, use what you drink) or, substitute broth and add 1 T lemon juice
1 1/2cupChopped tomato
1/4tspGround coriander
1/4tspGround fennel seed(You can grind it in a coffee mill, mortar and pestle, or just use 1/3 tsp fennel seed)
3/4tspSalt
1/4tspBlack pepper
1tspMustard powder
2tspSugar
1tspFresh oregano(or 1/3 tsp dried)
1tspFresh thyme(or 1/3 tsp dried)
1/4cFresh basilchiffonade
12cherry tomatoeshalved
1lemoncut into wedges
1sprigthymeyou want the leaves for garnish
Instructions
In saucepan place water and salt to cook pasta according to package directions.
In skillet, heat fat over medium-high heat. Sauté eggplant and 1 pinch of salt for 1 minute.
Add Zucchini and another pinch of salt. Sauté for 1 minute, stirring often.
Add onion and bell pepper. Sauté 2 minutes more.
Stir in garlic. Wait 30 seconds and add wine, stirring to loosen any browned bits on the bottom of the skillet.
Add tomato, coriander, and fennel. Stir and bring to a simmer.
Once simmering, stir in salt, pepper, mustard, sugar, oregano, and thyme. Simmer 1 minute.
Stir in fresh basil.
The pasta should be done now, or soon. When it is cooked to your liking, reserve 1/2 c pasta water and drain the rest in the colander.
If the ratatouille is quite thick, thin with some or all of the reserved pasta water. Taste for seasoning and adjust salt and pepper as desired.
SERVE! Place pasta on plates (or one serving bowl) top with ratatouille. Sprinkle with grated parmesan cheese and fresh thyme leaves. Add halved cherry tomatoes and lemon wedges.
Notes
This is a great summer garden dish. Use what you have. No zucchini (is that even possible?), substitute yellow squash. No bell peppers? Substitute any kind you have, like poblano, mild Hungarian, banana pepper. The eggplant kind of makes the dish but if you don't have any use a couple portabella mushrooms or okra (yes okra).It also makes a great cold weather comfort food. You just have to go to the store for your produce and not the garden.
Although quiche is now a classic dish of French cuisine, quiche actually originated in Germany, in the medieval kingdom of Lothringen, under German rule, and which the French later renamed Lorraine. The word ‘quiche’ is from the German ‘Kuchen’, meaning cake. – Wikipedia
Learn tips and techniques for this quintessential brunch/breakfast dish.
Chef Valerie has developed what she believes is the BEST quiche. Join this class and learn what it takes to deliver a perfect quiche to the table. Discover ways to adjust but still keep the quality and texture at its peak. See how to tell when it is done. Learn how to treat the crust so it doesn’t become soggy.
Discover the differences between quiche varieties like lorraine, au fromage, aux champignons, florentine ,and provençale.
Hollandaise is the most tricky of all five French Mother Sauces. Many things can go wrong when making this sauce; whether your emulsification breaks, the eggs start to curdle, etc. Don’t allow this sauce to frighten and intimidate you. Let Chef Valerie help you understand the basic principles of hollandaise, and discover it really isn’t that scary. Learn this sauce two ways, traditional and short-cut.
Be sure to attend all five of the mother sauce series with Chef Valerie! They are Béchamel, Espagnole, Tomato, Veloute, and Hollandaise.
It is one of the five Mother sauces, but, what is sauce veloute? It begins with a roux and stock. Once created, you put your own spin on it and create many other dishes like Sauce Vin Blanc, Sauce Allemande and Sauce Supreme, to name a few.
Be sure to attend all five of the mother sauce series with Chef Valerie! They are Béchamel, Espagnole, Tomato, Veloute, and Hollandaise.
Great over chicken and also in pastas, and dating to the 1790’s, this mother tomato sauce can be French or Italian. French style typically uses little garlic and no oregano or basil. While the Italian style does.
Mother tomato sauce usually isn’t vegetarian, but it is easy to make it so!
Come to this session with Chef Valerie and discover this versatile foundation sauce used in so many dishes. It will become one of your favorites!
Espagnole (pronounced as the Spanish: español) is a brown sauce and one of the five mother sauces of classical cuisine. It can become a flavorful sauce called demi-glace, which is traditionally served with red meats, among other delicious dishes.
Espagnole is made with brown stock and includes additional ingredients such as tomato and diced veggies. These create a LOT of flavor and aroma in the sauce.
Join Chef Valerie and explore this mother sauce and see just what culinary wonders it can go on to become.
Some legends attribute béchamel to Louis de Béchamel, a financier who was chief steward to King Louis XIV of France. Others claim that arrived in France from Italy in 1533. The first named béchamel sauce appears in The Modern Cook written in 1733.
Any way you look at it, béchamel is truly a mother of sauces. Once you master it, the door to great dishes opens. From it, make cream soups, macaroni and cheese, alfredo, sausage gravy…the list is nearly endless.
Join Chef Valerie in mastering this mother sauce and how it can easily become so much more.
wine’s many culinary uses. Experience using wine in different ways while preparing a 3-course romantic dinner by searing scallops and creating a creamy wine sauce for them. Next, pair dry white wine and pecorino for a wine-infused risotto. For dessert, make dark chocolate truffles with wine, of course!
