I’ve always wanted to take a professional cooking class. I get jealous when I read food blogs and people my age know how to make elaborate dinners! I do not consider myself a good cook and do not even know the proper way to chop a vegetable! I like to make quick and easy meals that are healthy. I am used to just throwing together a salad or making some pasta with red sauce. I never use recipes since I usually don’t understand a lot of the directions or I don’t have the necessary kitchen tools! Last week, an opportunity arose to finally take a cooking class at a reasonable price and for a good cause!
My friend Dori held an amazing auction in support of breast cancer. She needed to raise $1000 so that she could run her first 1/2 marathon on her birthday! One of her items up for bid was a professional cooking class. I immediately knew that was the one I wanted to win! I bid high enough (sorry Melanie!) and won!
I happened to meet my cooking teacher a few days before my class at Core Fusion! Dori and I took a class with her before work so it was nice to be able to meet her before she actually came over to teach me. Her name is Mercedes and she is one of the pastry chefs at the Ritz Carlton. She met Justin Timberlake. I wanted to cry when she told me this. It is my lifelong dream. Any connections….send them my way!
Okay enough fantasizing. Mercedes and I emailed back and forth so that we could create a menu and come up with a shopping list. I decided on an Italian dinner and asked that it be somewhat healthy! We came up with this:
Appetizer:
Italian and Mushroom Bruschetta
Entree:
Whole Wheat Pasta with Artichokes, Chickpeas, and Spinach
Dessert:
Chocolate Molten Cake
She emailed me a shopping list that looked a little something like this:
Kosher Salt/ Pepper
Olive Oil
Tomatoes
Fresh Mozzarella
Basil
Mushrooms
Red Wine
Cannelli Beans
Baguette
Whole Wheat Pasta
Red and Yellow Bell Peppers
Chickpeas
Artichoke Hearts
Parmigiano Reggiano
Spinach or Kale
Valhrona Chocolate( I will bring)
1 pound of Butter
Flour
Eggs
Sugar
Anglaise( i will bring)
Fresh Berries
Strainer, saute pan, cutting board , knives , microplane , whisk , bowls
I had many questions for her about this list. This proves how much of an inexperienced cook I am!
What is a microplane?? (She brought one of her own).
Is it okay to use normal table salt instead of kosher salt? (She brought her own sea salt instead).
Should I get cooking wineor regular drinking wine? (Regular wine; Cooking wine is awful).
Should the artichokes and chickpeas be canned or fresh? (Try to get them fresh but if you cannot find them, canned will be fine).
May I use Stevia instead of sugar? (Yes).
May I use Smart Balance spread instead of butter? (Yes).
I also had to do a little google search to see what Parmigiano Reggiano and Anglaise was! Mercedes was extremely helpful and enjoyed my questions!
I spent my Sunday going to 3 different supermarkets to find everything. The hardest thing to find was the baguette. Finally I found one at store number 4! I was all ready to go!
Mercedes arrived Sunday night at 6:00pm and we got started! She brought a saute pan and sharp knives since I don’t own this stuff. I really want to buy good knives now after my experience!
We poured ourselves some wine before getting started!
We used this wine to cook with as well.
We started off by making the Italian and Mushroom Brushetta. We sliced the baguette on a bias with a serrated knife.
We sprayed a pan with EVOO and sprayed some on the bread as well. I used my handy dandy Misto.
We rubbed some fresh garlic on the bread too. We then put it in the oven for about 10 minutes at 350 degreesto toast. We used mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, and mozzarella cheese for the brushetta topping. Mercedes taught me the proper way to cut an onion and mushroom!
I also learned that you are not supposed to wet mushrooms to wash them. You are supposed to wipe them off with a paper towel. I’ve been doing it all wrong…
We mixed them in a bowl, sprayed the saute pan with EVOO, and then let them cook.
I loved when Mercedes said, “Pour the red wine all over the veggies.” Okay!!
Next I learned how to slice a tomato…cut it in half, cut out the white part, and then cut it into long, thin slices.
We chopped up the mozzarella the same way and added EVOO, salt, and basil. I only had the basil in a shaker but she said fresh basil is better for next time.
Once the toast was cooked, we topped it with the mushrooms and tomatoes.
They were both delicious! The wine on the mushrooms gave them so much flavor!! They really tasted like they were from a nice Italian restaurant!
Get ready for my favorite part of the night (besides the chocolate cake)…..
How to roast a pepper!!
This seriously amazed me. So easy yet something I never ever knew!
All we did was turn on the flames and place the peppers on the stove top!
So cool! I always thought you could just roast peppers in the oven the same way I usually roast broccoli! We left the peppers there until they turned a little black.
We wrapped them in aluminum foil and let them cool down. That’s it!
After about 10 or 15 minutes, the peppers were soft and smelled great! I am going to be roasting peppers all the time now!
Next we poured about half of the box of pasta into a pot. We added a little olive oil and salt to the water.
I could not find fresh artichokes or chickpeas during my supermarket sweep so I used canned ones. We rinsed them for a while under water to get rid of those BPA’s and salt!
I was able to find fresh spinach. We chopped off all of the stems.
We cooked the spinach on a pan with EVOO, salt and pepper.
We added the chickpeas and artichokes once the spinach was nice and cooked.
We added the wonderful roasted red and yellow peppers also.
Then we transferred as much pasta as we could from the big pot to the pot with the vegetables and stirred everything together.
Next it was time to shred the Parmigiano Reggiano. I’ve never bought this cheese before but it was delicious!
We grated the cheese over the pasta and vegetables using Mercedes’ microplane.
Heaven!
My plate…
A 2nd bottle of wine was opened.
This was so delicious and flavorful! It was probably the best pasta dish I’ve ever had! I love that it is something I can recreate myself!
The artichokes gave everything so much flavor. The grated cheese was so fresh and a perfect topping for this dish. I could not stop raving about it!
Last but not least, dessert!! I was very excited for Chocolate Molten Cake!!
We decided to make just 1/2 of her recipe since I did not want too much extra cake tempting me in the apartment every day! The following recipe made 5 cakes:
1 cup chocolate
1 cup butter (or Smart Balance)
2 yolks and 4 eggs
3 oz. sugar (or Stevia)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 ounce flour (1/4 cup)
Luckily Mercedes brought over some Valhrona Chocolate for the dessert. I measured 1 cup and poured it in a bowl.
I added the butter to the bowl with the chocolate and melted them both in the microwave. We did 20 seconds at a time to make sure not to overcook anything. I think we stuck them in for about a minute total until they were melted.
In another bowl we added the eggs, vanilla, and sugar. We whipped it until it turned as white as possible. Next time I would use my hand blender because this took a long time! Next we poured the melted chocolate into the egg mixture and added the flour. We poured the chocolate mix into aluminum cups (sprayed with Pam).
It reminded me of the chocolate river from Willie Wonka!
We cooked them in the oven at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes. They are suppposed to be soft in the middle and the chocolate is supposed to “erupt” out of the molten cake!
I chose blackberries so Mercedes instructed me to get a white plate. If I would have chose cherries, a black plate would have been fine. Now I really wish I did not buy a black plate set from Target! White looks so much prettier in pictures.
We spread the anglaise on the plate. Anglaise is basically an ice cream base (cream, sugar..all the good stuff). We spread it in a circular motion and then to the right of the plate.
I added some berries next to the chocolate cake and a beautiful dessert was created!
With some more red wine of course!
The cake was amazing! It was warm, soft and perfect. I loved the combination of the cake with the berries and anglaise! I think we left the cakes in for about 2 minutes too long since the chocolate was not exploding in the inside. It was still much softer than it was on the outside. It was such a decadent treat! My roommate approved as well!
Mercedes and I were chatting about some other desserts I love. I asked for some recommendations on fruit desserts. She explained how to make fondue and caramelized fruit! I also said I am a huge fan of pudding! She told me pudding is super easy and that she would show me before she left! Luckily we had all of the ingredients on hand!
Chocolate Pudding
2 cups of skim milk (or whatever milk you prefer)
1/2 cup sugar or Stevia
1/2 cup chocolate (cocoa powder works too)
1 tbsp corn starch
I first mixed the milk and chocolate in a bowl.
I added the sugar and corn starch and stirred everything in a pot over high heat on the stove. I mixed until it thickened.
Once it thickened, I poured the pudding in a bowl and let it cool. Mercedes said a film could form on top but that it is fine to just pull it off. Then she said to refrigerate it and it would be ready in no time! So easy!
I had an audience 
This was an amazing experience! I learned so much and Mercedes was super friendly and helpful. I am definitely motivated to try out some new recipes in the future. Thanks Mercedes!
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All of that food looks sooo good! I am especially loving the dessert.
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lucky duck! i’ve always wanted to take cooking classes. every dish looks amazing <3
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I LOVE that you did this, how cool and fun, now you have a menu under your belt and can use all you learned to make more!! I love roasting peppers that way too, it makes your house smell so good!!
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Wow! All that food looks incredible!!!
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I can’t believe how professional the dessert looks, I’m impressed!
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How fun! I would love for someone to come over and teach me to cook.
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wow how fun!!! I would love to do a cooking class!! The dessert looked yummy and it was simple ingredients, I love that!!!
Oh Justin Timberlake rocks, such a hottie!!
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Oh my God, everything looks to die for. Seriously, I wish I could eat all of that.
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what a great experience!!!! i love that you were able to cook things that tasted gourmet but are still relatively easy to prepare/recreate. and so cool that she came and you could cook in your own kitchen!!
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duuude this looked SO AWESOME!! i’m officially super jealous. first of all i had NO idea that you weren’t supposed to wet mushrooms! i’m really glad that this is the case because washing and wetting mushrooms is a bitch! and i wonder if you can roast a red pepper on a electric oven like that? hmmmm
so much fun! i definitely wanna take a cooking class someday!
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I’m definitely going to have to make that pasta. I’m getting hungry just looking at it!
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What a fun experience! I’m glad you got your cooking feet wet! Do you think you’ll experiment more now?
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this is sooo cool! that dessert looks WONDERFUL
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That sounds absolutely wonderful. I’m a bit jealous. Glad you enjoyed it!
I need to do some fancy cooking like that more often!
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sounds like such a wonderful experience! I would love to have a one on one class like that. If you have a Williams Sonoma near you, you should check there for a schedule of classes. the one near me has classes on monday nights every so often, and it has helped me so much! I recently learned a bunch of different ways to cook tough cuts of meat
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Oh my word, everything looks amazing. Seriously! Well done!! I’m very impressed with all of your creations
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so i just decided that you are gonna have me over for dinner and will make this exact menu…. no you cant say anything about it because I already decided, k?
looks soooo good! especially that molten lava cake!
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That looks like so much fun sweetie! You totally rocked it in the kitchen. I love cooking classes. Its fun to learn something new and update the skills! Fabulous job!
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That’s really cool that you got to do that.
I have no idea what a microplane is either.
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yay for cooking up a storm!! I saw peppers roasted that way recently and it is really SO easy!! i need to get on that andtry it for myself. You are the same way about ocoking as I feel about baking. I need to learn so much! I love cookng and throwing things together to make a delish recipe, but baking? I get so antsy and just want to dump a lil of this and that, but that is not hhow it works!! everything needs to be more precise (I learned this the hard way)!!
anyone this meal looks FABULOUS! I am so glad you had a good time and learned alot!!
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WOw!! What a great night!!
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All I can say is WOW and YUM!
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I certainly learned a lot from this post! That pasta recipe looks glorious and I have all the ingredients in my pantry as of now so definitely thinking of trying it
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Wow!! I am so so so happy the class turned out so great!!!! Mercedes is awesome.
I have NO idea how to cook. I learned so much just from this post. I never knew not to wet mushroom and omg roasting a pepper! You sure I won’t start a fire??
Also can’t believe how easy the molten cake is. Wowwwww!!!! I need to make pasta like that too. I never knew to put olive oil in the pot!
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What an awesome experience! Love EVERYTHING!
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Wow that looks like so much fun and the food looks so incredibly good!!! Thanks for sharing the recipes and tips you learned! I never would have thought to roast a pepper that way.. I am so trying that sometime soon!
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omgoodness! That food looks amazing…it looks like it’s from a fancy restaurant! A cooking class seems like so much fun. And I agree – as I food blogger, I feel like I should be a *much* better cook than I am, haha.
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Oh my gosh! Missy, this is absolutely amazing. What a fantastic experience. You are just like me, you prefer something that is easy to make, and healthy. I was lucky enough to get a little practice with some basic kitchen skills from my mother growing up, but overall I’m pretty weak in the kitchen. That’s for sharing you experienced, I actually learned quite a lot! I use Smart Balance and Stevia too
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Wow….what a neat experience! I’m jealous you learned so many things, but more jealous you got some of that cake.
And really with the pepper?! Crazy!
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What a great experience! I would love to take a cooking class too, especially with the pastry chef at the Ritz. Yow-za! I love baking and would love to learn how to make healthier sweet treats. I will definitely try the home-made pudding recipe!
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wooo!!! great job, everything looks fantastic! I wish I was invited
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[...] « Professional Cooking Class! [...]
I’ve invited the whole family round this xmas for a big dinner, so obviously the roast is pretty central to that.. I found a bunch of recipes at this roast recipe site, but cant decide on one in particular – there’s so many to choose from! It is fun planning such a big xmas meal though!
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