Gourmet Girl and 3 Cooks in the Kitchen

My second cooking class last week left me covered in cheese and licking caramel sauce off my fingers.

(That very well could have been the best sentence I have ever written.)

My amazing friend Sheryl, with whom I traveled to Senegal and Morocco a few years ago, works with college interns every summer. She asked me if I would come to her house and teach a few of them a couple of new recipes. Since there is nothing I love more than to teach others how to make food less complicated and more delicious, I quickly agreed.

Besides, my Friday night plans up to that point had been a bag of chocolate chips and Netflix. Don't be jealous.

So, on the menu:
Homemade pizza with caramelized onions, mushrooms, pesto, garlic and cheese
Vanilla bean ice cream with salted caramel sauce
Raspberry and dark chocolate banana bread (for breakfast, of course!)

Sheryl, Kelsey and Holly: the cooking dream team.

The girls, Kelsey and Holly, jumped right in! We talked about the scariness of yeast and its potential to take over your kitchen. We learned how to speed up the caramelizing process of onions by adding a little butter and brown sugar. We discussed the finer points of pesto and the beauty of a pastry brush. All the while, Sheryl created a fabulous salad so we could at least pretend to be healthy.

 

By the time we sat down to dinner, we had an amazing pizza, fresh salad, and salted caramel sauce bubbling on the stove. Before dessert, we mixed up our banana bread and baked them in small loaf pans, perfect for interns to eat for breakfast or lunch or in the middle of the night when all good cravings hit.

 

 

 

 

The girls entertained me with their stories about family, life in college and their summer in Colorado. I almost started talking about my time in college and then I remembered that I am not nearly as cool as I think I am because they were six years old my freshman year.

 

(That could have been the most depressing sentence I have ever written.)

 

Overall, the evening was fantastic! I love teaching people about food and the joy it can bring to any gathering. And I love feeling like I am one more fall away from a broken hip and a walker with tennis balls on the feet.

 

God bless the young.

 

If you would like to sign up for a cooking class, feel free to visit the Gourmet Girl to Go website! You can also LIKE me on Facebook where I post my latest culinary successes and disasters.

 

And if you want, we can even talk about the glory days of college where Chandler Bing was a household name.