Cooking Class

Carrie and I took two cooking classes together at the Williams Sonoma store in our mall last year. This was a great way to learn something new and spend some fun time together. We looked over their class offerings for the coming month (available at the cash register if that store offers classes; many do), picked ones we wanted, and told our husbands to get us that for Christmas. The first class we took covered souffles and was very helpful. We have each made souffles a few times since! Seeing the instructor make them in front of us was very educational. Since we both took the class, we've been able to help trouble shoot for each other with those same recipes. The other class we took featured weeknight meals using chicken. Now, I have to admit that most of those recipes were not exactly weeknight fare for someone with young children at home, but I have made one recipe a lot: Chipotle Cheddar Chicken Cakes with Honey Pear Salsa (believe it or not, it's quite child friendly and fairly simple to make!). We came away from these classes armed with some great recipes we got to see made and tried when they were done; we also have some fun memories. If you enjoy cooking and/or have a friend/spouse/relative who also enjoys it, consider taking a cooking class together or giving a cooking class to someone.

Our souffle cooking instructor, Kevin Weeks, has a blog with most of his recipes on it. The recipes we tried were the Cheese Souffle (very kid-friendly; recipe minus his commentary is at our recipe blog, Full Tummies), the Souffle Provencal (also very kid-friendly), the Low Country Souffle, Make Ahead Mocha Souffles (recipe coming soon on Full Tummies; to die for!!), and a very tasty Frozen Citrus Souffle (called Key Lime Mousse on his blog).

Two of the chicken recipes can be found on the Williams Sonoma website. The Chicken and Basil Roulades with Mustard Sauce are yummy--good company fare since it's a great presentation. The Oven-Crisped Chicken is good family weeknight fare.