Cooking Class #2 with Recipes

I taught my second cooking class Tuesday night, with two new students joining the original group. I try to get people who aren't so familiar with cooking involved in things, so it's a lot of me saying "You add in the spices" and "You mash and then pass to someone else" and "You come and stuff this manicotti, even if you just got a manicure". Everyone seems to enjoy being involved, and it's great to be able to eat something we've made together.

Recipes from this last class are below, along with some great photos taken by photographer-extraordinare (and student) Ashley Conlon. You can see more of her photos here.


Squash, Sage, and Ricotta Cannelloni
Adapted from Everyday Food

Prep Time: 35 minutes
Total Time: 1 ¼ hour

Serves 4, but doubles easily.

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp olive oil, plus more for baking dish and sheet
Coarse salt and ground pepper
2 packages of manicotti
½ butternut squash (about 1 pound), peeled, seeded, and cut into 1-inch chunks
2 shallots, chopped
¼ cup plus 2 Tbsp milk
1 tsp finely chopped fresh sage leaves, plus 8 to 10 whole leaves
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
2 cups ricotta (15 ounces)
¾ cup grated Parmesan

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350. Lightly oil a 2-quart or 8-inch square baking dish. In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta until al dente. Using tongs, transfer pasta to a lightly oiled rimmed baking sheet.

Add squash to boiling water and cook until tender, about 10 minutes. Drain squash and transfer to a bowl.

In a small skillet, heat 1 tablespoon oil over medium. Add shallots, season with salt and pepper and cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Transfer to bowl with squash and add 2 tablespoons milk, chopped sage, and nutmeg; season with salt and pepper. Mash with a fork until a rough purée forms.

Stuff manicotti with squash mixture and place in baking dish. In a bowl, combine ricotta, ½ cup Parmesan, and ¼ cup milk and season with salt and pepper. Spread ricotta mixture over cannelloni and top with ¼ cup Parmesan. Bake until warmed through, about 25 minutes. Broil until top is browned, 2-3 minutes.


Meanwhile, in a small skillet, heat 2 tablespoons oil over medium-high. Fry whole sage leaves until crispy, 15-20 seconds. Drain on paper towels. Serve cannelloni topped with fried sage.

Note:
The original recipe called for wide lasagna noodles (the ones without the ridges on the edges), but I always have trouble finding these, and find that manicotti works well (you're rolling the lasagna noodles into tubes anyway - why not use something tubular to start with?). If you want to try lasagna noodles, you'd just place about 1/4 cup of the mixture into the middle of the noodle and then roll up and place into the baking dish seam side down. A friend (and advanced student) suggested that jumbo shells might also work.

Tarte Tatin
Adapted from a class I took by the baker at Gourmandise Desserts

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:

3 lbs Granny Smith or Pippin apples
2 Tbsp water
1/3 cup sugar
2 Tbsp butter
One sheet puff pastry

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375.

Rinse the apples and slice into 8-10 pieces each, keeping the skins on. Sprinkle with lemon juice, if desired.

Place the sugar and water into a heavy metal 10x4 round cake pan and place it on the stove, with the heat on low. You are making a caramel, so you MUST NOT STIR while the sugar and water come together (otherwise, the sugar will begin to form into large clumps, and it will turn into a big lump of hot sugar). You’ll see the sugar start to melt and turn gold, which is what you want. If any sugar crystals attach themselves to the sides of the pan, wipe it down with a wet pastry brush.

Bring the mixture to a golden caramel color. All of the sugar should be integrated at this point. Add the butter and stir. Remove from the heat.

Arrange the apples over the caramel in a tight spiral. Return the cake pan to the stove and continue cooking over low heat, until a darker caramel color appears and the apples soften (about 5 minutes).

Take the puff pastry and cut out an 11-inch circle (you can use the cake pan to do this before you put it over the heat). Place over the apples, tucking the dough in on the sides.

Bake for 30 minutes until the dough is golden. Turn the tart over onto a plate, and enjoy. This is definitely best served directly out of the oven, so don’t wait too long!

Variations:

1. You can swap out the apples for any hearty fruit. Try pears, stone fruit (peaches, plums, etc), or even persimmons.
2. Try adding black pepper to the apples when you’re cooking them in the caramel. It adds a little unexpected punch.

Dénouement

I've been MIA the past couple of weeks, feeling very unsure about what to write. If my life was a series of mini-novels, my resignation would have been the climax of this particular novella. From Wikipedia:

The third act is that of the climax, or turning point, which marks a change, for the better or the worse, in the protagonist’s affairs. If the story is a comedy, things will have gone badly for the protagonist up to this point; now, the tide, so to speak, will turn, and things will begin to go well for him or her. If the story is a tragedy, the opposite state of affairs will ensue, with things going from good to bad for the protagonist.

After the climax, you have the falling action and then, the dénouement which

comprises events between the falling action and the actual end of the drama or narrative and thus serves as the conclusion of the story. Conflicts are resolved, creating normality for the characters and a sense of catharsis, or release of tension and anxiety, for the reader.

A good writer doesn't spend a lot of time on a dénouement - at that point, the story is pretty much over. And that's exactly how I felt after my resignation went live. For a few days after, I felt exhausted and slept a lot more than usual. I visited my chiropractor, who was astounded at how bad my back was, and attributed my imbalance to the stress of the previous few weeks, before trying to massage it away. I baked for a few parties, started to plan my pies for a pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving party we're throwing in early November, and put together the lesson plan for my second cooking class.

I very much feel as though I'm returning to normal, but normal feels a little weird! At some point, all of the frustration, anger, and stress began to feel like normal. Now that it's all disappearing, I don't really want to talk about it anymore, especially not with the passion and fervor that I had before. Now, it's just something that happened and it's moving-on time. This particular story is over.

On to the next! I'll get my appointment to register for classes in a couple of weeks, and will be looking forward to that. I also have a series of professional baking classes in mid-November that I'm very excited about. Tomorrow, I'll be teaching that cooking class, and I'll post some recipes from that later this week. I imagine this blog will be shifting to focus more on food, school, and future buisness opportunities, and much less on PubCo, as my focus begins to shift in real life.

Is there anything in particular you'd like to see recipe-wise? Any parties you're obligated to bring food to and need some suggestions? I hope you feel free to send a note or a question any time you think of it!

New Adventures

Some big things have happened in the past couple of weeks. Mountain Man got a job that will keep us in the area (and is better-paying). I had a couple of important conversations with my boss that have lead to me writing a letter of resignation.

It wasn't a bad situation - she asked me if I was any happier doing my job and I said no, I wasn't but I was going to continue doing my job until I found out whether I got in to culinary school. She was very supportive and said that baking was a perfect fit for my personality and for what I find to be important in life (not just baked goods, but also getting people together and making them happy). So that was encouraging. I went away to Arizona (see here), didn't have a great time, and came home to an invitation from my boss to have coffee and talk about "my situation" (to which I replied "it sounds like I'm knocked up in the 1800s).

During coffee, she said she had been thinking about what we had discussed, and she said she kept getting stuck on one question - "If she doesn't get into culinary school, would she want to remain at PubCo?" And that was the question she posed to me. It was a question I'd not truly asked myself, and she suggested I take some time to think about it - but that if my answer was "no" that her suggestion (as a friend) would be to come up with a Plan B and go ahead and resign now. And this wasn't done to push me out, I know that - but to get me to think about my options if I had to wait to attend culinary school. Stay at PubCo (bleh) or do something else (horray).

I took the weekend to discuss with Mountain Man, my parents, my sister, and my best friend. They all thought me resigning from PubCo would be just fine. With MM's new job and raise, we would be able to get by. I could freelance or work for my dad or get a part-time retail job. Or, the Plan B I landed on and am most excited about - I could figure out how to sell baked goods (pies, really) at farmer's markets and do that a few days a week. Doesn't that sound exciting?

So this past Tuesday, during my one-on-one with my boss, I told her that she was right. That the responsible thing for me to do for myself and for PubCo (since I didn't keep my mouth shut in the first place) would be to go ahead and resign. She said "I knew you were going to say that, but I was hoping you weren't" and was visibly saddened by my decision. She said she remains supportive, but I'm sure there's a little part of her that could have figured out how to make me stay. I wrote my letter on Wednesday, giving PubCo two months to find my replacement - my last day (still awaiting approval) will be December 17.

I'm so relieved. After sending the letter, I immediately felt exhausted - as if all the stress and frustration and anger was keeping me going, and now I had none of that to keep me moving. After a few days of needing some extra sleep, I'm doing much better. Even though I'm sad to be leaving my friends and the wonderful people I work with, I feel so much lighter having made this decision.

So I'm definitely doing this. Either culinary school or selling pies at farmer's markets - or something else entirely! I'm open to ideas (especially what to call a pie stand at a farmer's market) or suggestions or business opportunities (i.e. I'll make pies for your wedding or next event). Send them along!

Your Favorite Spot

The CEO of PubCo likes to tell this story about how he one day went to a university campus for some meetings and saw some "signs" that universities are alive and well. He thought that construction sites on campus were a sign that the university had money and were growing. Seeing tours and kids going through orientation was a sign that, yes, kids are still going to college. And melting bikes (that is, those bikes that are left behind during spring vacation and sort of "melt" into the asphalt) are a sign of...hmm. I don't remember. Even though I've heard this story twice, I still don't get the melting bikes thing.

Well, today, sadly, I'm visiting a university campus. As I'm still trying to do my best at PubCo until the judgment is handed down on culinary school, I'm spending the next three days visiting professors, asking what they're teaching and researching, and whether they might be interested in writing a book. It's one of the most important parts of my job since it involves prospecting, but it's also my least favorite. Especially now, when I know (I hope) I'll be leaving in a matter of months. But I'm doing my best.

For lunch, I've parked myself on a couch at the Starbucks located in the business school building, and I've been watching the students in and out of the cafe. Every single kid is doing at least one of the following: talking on a cell phone, using a laptop, listening to an iPod. I can write about the technology takeover (I don't see anyone reading a print book), but that's not what's interesting to me.

This Starbucks seems to be a favorite haunt for some people, in the same way every other Starbucks is for others. There's a girl behind me tutoring another girl on her computer, and she was tutoring someone else a few minutes ago. Two guys just walked in and went immediately to the free water station and left without ordering coffee. One girl has been here long enough to warrant going to the register a second time (I missed the first time, but she's been here longer than me). The kids behind the register (and they really are kids) are loud and laugh a lot when the line has been dealt with.

Even though it's in a different state and on a university campus, it still feels familiar to me. It's the same green aprons, the same not great, but consistently good enough coffee, the same drink names being yelled out. You can go to a Starbucks in Paris and you would find the same thing (although, why would you?). It makes me think of home, in a weird little way.

This is not to say that my future bakery is going to become a global brand with homogenous locations all over the world. But it is to say that Starbucks has done a pretty good job of becoming a comfortable and safe spot and that's something to admire.

It begs the question: What's your favorite home-away-from-home restaurant or cafe? Why? Is it the ambience? The people you meet? The fact that they allow dogs? And if you don't have a favorite spot, why not? What would make you commit?

So that's what I got from my campus trip today. And I didn't see any melting bikes.

The Application Is In!

Just a little update on culinary school...after checking the site and refreshing my page every couple of hours from 6:15am on, the application for a Spring 2011 start to the culinary school of my choice opened up. And I've submitted my application! It was a breeze - due to the first-come-first-served nature of the program, it was a really basic application without any essays or proof of culinary skills or anything like that. I sent it off and it feels great.

Now we wait. In about 2 months, I'll be able to register for classes, and as long as I'm one of the first 60 students to enroll in Sanitation and Culinary Lab 1, I'm officially in! So keep your fingers crossed!