Summer 2014 Cooking Classes

I have several new classes on the Kitchen Conservatory summer schedule, including a burger class (July 6), Girls' Night Out tropical seafood feast (July 11), Girls' Night Out vegetarian (August 23), boozy desserts (August 24), and Girls' Night Out pizza & pasta (September 6).

Below is my schedule through September. To register, call Kitchen Conservatory at 314-862-2665 or register online.

DATE NIGHT FOR COUPLES: SUSHI U FOR TWO - June 29 @ 5:00-7:30  OR August 8 @ 6:00-8:30 (hands-on)

• This menu includes tempura-fried shrimp rolls, sesame tuna hand rolls, smoked eel rolls, spicy scallop rolls, hot-smoked salmon rolls with mango and jalapeño, plus ginger-peach green tea ice cream - all served with cold beer.

BURGER U - July 6 @ 1:00-3:30 (hands-on)

• Cuban-style beef burgers, Carolina barbecue pork burgers, tuna burgers with roasted garlic-tomato aïoli, perfect French fries, beer-battered onion rings with blue cheese dipping sauce, and roasted pineapple-rum milkshakes.

GIRLS' NIGHT OUT: SOMETHING TO BEACH ABOUT - July 11 @ 6:00-8:30 (demonstration)

• I'll create a tropical feast perfect for a hot summer night, starting with cod fish fritters with spicy cilantro sauce. Sip on a rum runner cocktail and enjoy hearts of palm and mango salad with avocado dressing, smoked jerk-rubbed shrimp with yogurt-lime sauce, cumin-spiced black beans and rice, plus coconut sorbet with macadamia sablé cookies.

DATE NIGHT FOR COUPLES: READY TO RUM-BLE - July 19 @ 6:00-8:30 (hands-on)

• Learn to prepare coconut bisque with rum flambé, macadamia-crusted scallops with rum beurre blanc, jerk pork tenderloin with spiced rum glaze, Caribbean rice, mini-hot buttered rum cheesecakes with caramel sauce, plus a piña-limonada cocktail.

HEIR AND A PARENT: WIZARDS IN THE KITCHEN - July 27 @ 1:00-3:30 (hands-on)

• Attention all Muggles! Experience the world of Harry Potter and make magic in the kitchen as I help you prepare delightful dishes described throughout the J.K. Rowling series, including The Three Broomsticks' butterbeer, ham-and-cheese pasties from the Hogwarts house-elves, and Mrs. Weasley's potatoes with béchamel sauce. Before you apparate home, you'll make Aunt Petunia's individual berry-pudding trifles. This class is designed for children, at least 7 years of age, plus a parent.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

ANOTHER pie? 

That's right.

This one was made by request (You're welcome, Joni) for an outing to see Shakespeare's Henry V in Forest Park with a couple of my school pals last Saturday.

While I've made a few strawberry desserts and rhubarb desserts over the years (see the list after the recipe), this was my first strawberry-rhubarb concoction. 

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

recipe slightly adapted from The Kitchn

Made with love & ready for the oven

Apple Custard Pie with Brandied Raisins & Almonds

I keep a journal in which I jot down favorite quotes and whatnot from books as I'm reading. Often, I find myself making lists of food described in the books as well.

One such description, from Neil Gaiman's novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane, has stuck with me since early last fall:

Dinner was wonderful. There was a joint of beef, with roast potatoes, golden-crisp on the outside and soft and white inside, buttered greens I did not recognize, although I think now that they might have been nettles, roasted carrots all blackened and sweet […]. For dessert there was the pie, stuffed with apples and with swollen raisins and crushed nuts, all topped with a thick yellow custard, creamier and richer than anything I had ever tasted at school or at home.

That pie. I haven't been able to get that pie out of my head.

So, I made it.

Honey-Oat Muffins

Each year, I try to bring breakfast for my juniors on the morning of the ACT test…something healthier (like fruit, homemade granola or power bars, peanut butter-oatmeal energy bites, whole-wheat bagels & cream cheese) than what I think they'd usually eat (sugary cereal, pop tarts, fast food, chips from the vending machine or nothing at all).

This year, I made a recipe I'd saved on Pinterest. These muffins were very easy to mix together (two bowls, 1 spoon) and baked for only 15 minutes. I like that they contain oatmeal & whole-wheat and honey instead of sugar. Be warned: These aren't sweet muffins. They taste "healthy."

Disclaimer: Muffins are always best warmed and smeared with butter.

Did I say "healthy"? ;-)

Beer-Steamed Mussels with Chorizo

I spent last week on the beach in Englewood, Florida, visiting my Aunt Nancy. My plan was to spend some time near the water, eat a bunch of seafood, and RELAX. Mission accomplished.

Corey and I explored the tiny island of Manasota Key, eating and drinking at a few local beach bars. We ate lobster rolls, steamed clams & shrimp, conch fritters, fried lobster bites, and grilled grouper. For a couple dinners, we made freshly-caught mackerel (that I prepared blackened & sautéed) & stone crab claws at Nancy's house.

On Thursday, drove about an hour to Peace River Seafood & Crab Shack in Punta Gorda to eat blue crabs, but they didn't have any that day. I had been looking forward to that meal for a month and was so disappointed. We ordered other seafoods for lunch, and it was still tasty.

But since I had blue crab on the brain, I decided to buy some at Seafood City in St. Louis (the only place in town that usually has live crabs) and cook them today. Alas, there was no blue crabs to be found there either.

I am determined to hunt down the elusive blue crab very soon and create an authentic crab boil in my own kitchen. For now, though, here's one of my favorite seafood recipes to make at home.

Beer-Steamed Mussels with Chorizo