Baby It's Cold Out There!

A while back, I was gifted a gourmet gift - a gift certificate to a place downtown that offers cooking classes, and I thought "What a fun idea!" immediately followed by, "I wonder if My Hubby would be interested ....."

I pitched the idea to him, and I must've done a good job, because he agreed pretty readily. So, I set about getting us signed up. However, as it turned out, getting into the classes took more fore-planning than I expected! So, between the full classes and all the craziness around here this fall, it actually took a few months to get ourselves into the classroom.

It wasn't until late November that I found a class - held in late December, that seemed promising AND had an enough openings to fit us in: Baby It's Cold Outside. The menu was: Spinach and Artichoke dip, Scalloped Potatoes, Smothered Pork Chops with Caramelized Onion and Cherry Relish, and Gingerbread Pear Cobbler. Sounded tasty to me! And I signed us up.

Then we waited.

Finally, after the few weeks passed, it was time for us to go cook! By this time, My Hubby had had a little more time to contemplate what he'd gotten himself into and, the closer we got, the more filled with trepidation he became. The night of, he was convinced that he was going to poison himself and declared that if he "finished the night without going to the hospital", the evening would be a success.

But anyway, since we'd come this far, he figured he'd go along with it and try to survive the 2.5hr class... and, before very long, he was assembling the dishes like a pro!

And, as we were putting the first dish into the oven, he admitted that this was pretty fun!

And, by the end, we both agreed that this was a really fun thing and were glad we came. And since we enjoyed it so much, we've decided that we'll definitely be keeping our eyes peeled for an opening in another class. Next time, we're thinking that perhaps we'll do one with a seafood theme. That should be exciting!

So, at the end of the night, the 2.5hrs were just barely enough time to get everything complete and it went by so fast I was surprised when the Head Chef announced that we were supposed to have the Pork Chops done by 8:30pm and we all only had 20mins to do that in! That certainly got everybody moving quickly.

Our group wasn't as fast as some of the others, but we only needed a couple extra minutes to get our dinners done. Then we all sat down at communal tables and enjoyed the fruits of our labors together.

Everything was SO YUMMY! Several people were expressing some doubts about liking some of the ingredients we threw into the dishes (myself included), but in the end I think that everyone concluded that we couldn't leave without snagging a copy of the recipes to take home!

Oh yes. I'd totally do that again!