Casual Cuisine: Summer Pasta Carbonara & Red Velvet Cake

Instructor: Chef Judy

Participation: This is a hands on class that allows students to prep the ingredients and try their hand at cooking with the chef. Very instructional.

I love a good pasta dish, but I find some dishes have been ‘Americanized’ to be heavy and full of calories.  This carbonara you will make still offers up good flavor and has all the elements of carbonara with the ‘heavy’,  its perfect for summer….when it gets here.  I was having a conversation with a guest about food coloring and how toxic they are which got me thinking about this cake. Its incredibly popular but the coloring has nothing to do with the flavor, the original recipe was made with beets, it was only when food coloring became popular the recipe got changed.  I’m bringing it back to its roots but there is a trick to keeping it delicious without the earthly flavor of beets, join me to see how its made.

Menu:

• Pasta Carbonara with Pancetta, fresh peas, lemon zest, asparagus, parmesan cheese
• Arugula with Maple Glazed Carrot Salad w/dried cherries & goat Cheese
• Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting (NO Red food coloring in this cake)

What you will learn:

• Create a carbonara that isn’t heavy and ladened with cream.
• Using beets to color our cake….but what keeps it from tasting like beets…..whats that secret ingredient?
• A new way of cutting carrots, no more circles.
• “Platting” pasta properly to look restaurant style
• Garnishes
• Always tricks of the trade, cooking tips, and “how too’s”

Dinner will be served with a glass of wind and a charcuterie board. Coffee and Tea are complimentary

10% off all in store merchandise for attending class

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Casual Cuisine is a new class I’ll be teaching twice a month on Tuesday nights.  The menu will focus on easy weeknight meals that are full of flavor yet not take hours to prepare.  Each class you will learn some basic knife skills, cooking techniques, and tricks of trade to make cooking fun and easy.  Most classes will be full participation yet there might be come exceptions due to time constraints.   I hope you will join me for a fun night out with friends and leave class with new ones.