Fun with Food!

It was a great weekend. It began with a hot date with my wife and Tanya Tandoc....you say, what the ----? That's right. We attended a fantastic food filled night making fresh pasta with local celeb chef, Tanya Tandoc (Tanya's Soup Kitchen-yay! Soon to be re-opened!)  She was teaching a great class on handmade pasta, and my lovely wife was so sincere to get 2 tickets...one for me and one for my mom (Cooking at Bonnie's Place).

That's me in the background...hangin' w/Tanya

But alas, mom had plans to be in KC with dad, so by default, Katie was my hot date.  Completely out of her element, she was forced into getting her hands dirty and having some fun learning the trade of pasta making.

Katie rolling pasta and having fun!

I learned a few new techniques which will come in handy later in life. The fun of cooking this sort of food for family is that it is fun, and the kids can get involved. It's also good to know where you food comes from, and when pasta is made from flour, salt and eggs, you get only the best food.

Our group

Making Fettuccine w/Tanya and Jo

We prepared ravioli and fettuccine, and got the luxury of eating a fantastic butternut squash salad and olive oil lemony cake! 

Roasted Butternut Squash Salad w/Parmesan

Ravioli w/Chard and Ricotta, with Sage Brown Butter Sauce

it was...Fettuccine w/Aged Cheddar, Bacon and Hazelnuts

Olive Oil Cake w/Lemon

But the best part was spending time with my wife doing something new, and getting to know Tanya a little better.  Please go visit her new restaurant when it opens!

I'm thinking that this experience will keep me enthused about cooking at home. I love to go out to eat, but that is not a good thing for us in the long run. There is too many good things to make at home.  Sure, there are a lot of good things to eat at restaurants.  But fresh pasta, for example, was generally easy, and fun to make. Using fresh tomatoes or sage from the garden will be the key to making fresh food from the garden. Maybe incorporating fresh herbs or flavors from the garden into the pasta would be a good thing to try. Lemon and herbs mixed in the pasta dough will be fantastic.  Look for that someday in the future.

Until then, I'll need to get my indoor seed garden going. I have about a week until the seeds need to be in their temporary homes. That will be my project of this week.