Anniversary- Cooking Class

For our four year anniversary in November, we decided to take a cooking class at the Kitchen Conservatory in St. Louis.  They have all kinds of classes you can take....whether its a girls night, date night, dessert class, or specific food from a different culture.  We went to a friend's wedding on Saturday night, spent the night in a hotel, and then took the class on Sunday afternoon.  We chose to take Souper Bowl, where we made four different soups and a french bread.  There were three other people taking the class and then one instructor and one dishwasher.

We started with the baguette and it was so easy to make...and tasted so good!  It only takes about an hour to rise and bake using instant yeast.  The instructor also showed us how to make chicken stock using a pressure cooker.  She used chicken wings and vegetables for her stock, which is much more appealing to me than using the remains of a whole chicken.  I don't know how to pull apart a whole chicken and I really don't have any desire to learn.

Eric making French Bread

We then worked all together to make four different soups.  We worked simultaneously to chop, mix, cook, and prepare all of the soups.  Eric and I did most of the work on the Andouille and Corn Chowder.  It was also probably my favorite soup of the day!  Eric said it was his favorite too..."and the bread. Mmmm, the bread was so good!"

Chopped and now waiting for instruction

Andouille Sausage

We also had Egg Drop Soup, which was probably the quickest and easiest soup to make.

The Lamb Minestrone was really tasty.  I haven't had lamb very much, but it smelled incredible while it was cooking.  It was probably the one that I was most excited to try just because of how it smelled--and because it had so many different flavors in it (garlic, sage, rosemary, thyme, carrots, celery, onion, bay leaf, tomatoes, lemon, etc)

My least favorite soup was probably the Butternut Squash and Ginger soup.  I don't know that I love pureed butternut squash (which is basically what the soup was).

 

We had a fun afternoon in our cooking class.  I don't know that we learned a bunch of new skills or anything, but we did make some things that we haven't cooked before.  And seriously, THAT BREAD!  Here is one last picture of Eric and our fellow classmates.  Notice the pre-teenaged boy (maybe 11 years old?)--he was there with his aunt, who is next to Eric, and this is what he chose to do for his birthday.  They took a class last year that was all marshmallows!!  They decided to do something a little less sweet this year ;)  What a fun thing to do for a birthday gift!  Memories that he will probably always remember!  I know I'll remember our fourth anniversary cooking experience too.