I took a cooking class today…What a great time!
Vegetables are a must on a diet. I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread, and pumpkin pie. ~Jim Davis
My try something new adventure for April was a cooking class. Cooking for one is much different than cooking for a family of 4 in the cornfields. I am terrible about eating junk because cooking for myself just seems to be more of a bother than anything. The idea was that we would learn to cook and have enough to take home for two meals. So far so good.
It was an overcast day in Texas, the perfect day to be inside. The cooking class was held in the kitchen of a local recreation center. I got there about 15 minutes early and the kitchen was set up and organized with a myriad of utensils and cutting boards.
….and there it all was on the table staring back at me….
GREEN STUFF!!!!
Anyone that has remotely crossed my path knows that I don’t eat green stuff. Some green beans, some salad, but not much beyond that. I kinda figured there would be green stuff to cook. I made up my mind that I was going to try anything that I cooked today. Today I didn’t cook a single thing that I had ever cooked before. It was a jump way outside of my culinary comfort zone. On the menu today:
- Lemon Dijon Salmon
- Quick Lentil Salad
- Sauteed Broccoli and Spinach
- Lemon Lovers Asparagus
Note here, everything but the salmon was or had green stuff.
First up, preparing the dijon sauce for the salmon. It was made with fresh lemons, olive oil and dijon mustard. Really quite simple to whip together. We then covered the salmon with the sauce and stuck it in the oven to bake for 10 minutes. The kitchen was starting to smell quite yummy.
Next up, the asparagus. Honestly how does one live this long in life and not have a clue how to prepare asparagus? The cooking instructor really gave me an asparagus lesson and once again a very simple recipe. We roasted the asparagus in the oven.
Next up broccoli 101. The only way I have ever had broccoli was steamed…blech not a fan. But today I learned how to cut up broccoli, and we sauteed it in a pan with some garlic and olive oil and tossed in some fresh spinach and cooked it down a bit. The scent of garlic was filling the kitchen and most of the rec center by that point. People were stopping by, poking their heads in to see what we were up to.
The last dish of the day was the lentil salad. I’ve had lentils before, I’m not a big fan. I’m still not a big fan, but I at least tried them, and will try them again. The salmon did add some flavor, it’s supposed to be a cold salad, I’ll try them tomorrow just one more time.
All in all it was a good day of cooking. We were there for about 90 minutes, and I came home with a GREEN folder with the recipes, a shopping list and some other great cooking tips. I felt that it was $40 well spent, and I have a few new recipes that I am sure I will make again. I’ll probably try the sauce on another type of fish, and add some red onions to the broccoli and spinach dish.
Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all. ~Harriet van Horne
Donna was great today…she converted a non-green stuff lover like me to healthy cooking.
http://www.healthyonthego.com/
