Adventures in Cooking

After a year of holding onto the cooking class gift certificate I gave Haws for his birthday... we decided to "cash it in" and take our Cooking Class at PREP in Long Beach. I love this store! It is right next to one of the Pilates studios I work at and I often find myself hanging around in there while I am on my break (or Trader Joes and Golden Spoon :) I have come to know the owners and they are great! A couple who decided to ditch their LA corporate jobs and escape into the world of business owners... their dream kitchen store that also holds cooking classes. If you are ever in the Long Beach Marketplace shopping center... you will have to wander in there and take a gander for yourself (or come visit me at work)! Here are some of the photos from our adventure...













Making the Lemon Tart Shell. It is harder than it looks!


















Haws with Julie... our wonderful cooking class chef. He had to stir that lemon tart filling for 15-20 min. over a low boil... he is a patient man... he did marry me after all!



The food was great and the group told us that our Lemon Tart was the best dish of all!!!

Now that we felt like we were expert chefs... we decided to entertain some people from our "young marrieds" clan at church and family members. Since we were watching my parents house and actually had room to put people, we ended up with a pretty good sized group. Over 20 people! Thanks to my friend Katherine and the barefoot contessa... the meal was delicious! I made homemade guacamole, Lemon Chicken and rolls. Haws made Lemon Bars and our guests brought wonderful side dishes and dessert.. Thanks for all of your help and for the good time!! If you want to try some of the recipes... Check out the links to Katherine's blog where more wonderful recipes are posted. http://pizzaandrootbeer.blogspot.com/

Guacamole

4 large avocados2 garlic cloves, minced, the juice of one or two lemons8 dashes tabasco sauce, red onion, small-diced to taste1 small tomato, small-diced1 tsp kosher salt pepper to taste

This is the recipe for the chicken.. super easy!!

For the Grilled Lemon Chicken, I marinate 4 chicken breasts in equal parts lemon juice and olive oil (1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of each), 1 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1 tsp dried thyme. Marinade at least 2 days- 3 days is better. This chicken is amazing! (Grill or BBQ)

Great food... even better company! Some of the group enjoying the meal. It was such a nice day, it wasn't too cold to be outside... at least that's what they told me :)

Lemon Bars with homemade Strawberry Jam.... yummy!

The End!