Grazing in the Saddle Again

Finally, we are back to cooking. Our current class is The Principals of European Cuisine. Monday we cooked Scandanavian and Russian, Tuesday we tackled Germany and devoured it and today we invaded Spain and Portugal leaving just the bones behind! Yum. Every day gets better tasting. Monday was not a favorite by the way.

I love the buffet style dining we get to do after we're all done. We break up in teams and each team is assigned different dishes to prepare so we get to taste it all. Today my dish was an Ensalata Mista. Basically a mixed salad. It was almost like a Nicoise Salad but without the tuna fish. Boiled eggs, cooked red potatoes, blanched asparagus, fresh artichoke hearts boiled in lemon water and chilled in an ice bath, tomatoes blanched and peeled and cut in 8ths, all tossed with a Sherry Vinigarette with minced garlic and a touch of lemon juice then garnished with anchovies and lemon wedges served over Romaine and Butter Lettuce. It was really tasty.

A nice summer salad that is quite filling. I was glad I got a chance to learn how to fix the artichokes. I have been wanting some instruction on cutting them up and preparing them differently than I always do (which is just steaming or boiling them whole). I learned something today and I ate a lot of interesting foods. We had white bean and linguica sausage soups, a Red Bean and Ham Hocks soup, a Caldo Verde soup, a couple of fish dishes, some gazpacho, and a sweet dessert with strawberries and raspberries and a Sangria drink. We also stuff our plastic containers with more to bring home on the sly. Hey, we gotta eat.

I brought home some more of my salad and some dessert. I gotta get me more plastic wear!