Summer Cooking School

I am teaching a Summer Cooking School series beginning tomorrow night. The idea began when a friend of mine asked me to show her some more simple recipes. I had cooked with her one night and she subsequently has made that same recipe several times for her family and wanted to learn some more easy recipes. I thought back to how I first learned to cook. It was in college, when I was sick of eating out and frozen food. I called mamma and asked her, over the phone, "How do you make Pasta e Fagioli?" And she described the process to me while I took notes. I was used to following a recipe but she didn't give actual measurements.  [Pour a little olive oil in a pan... But mom, how MUCH olive oil? Not too much, just a little...] and so I learned, by trial and error, and began sharing my creations with my roommates, and eventually my (now, but future to me then) husband.

So when I began to hatch my plan, I thought I would invite a few friends and share some of my easy, go-to, cheap, healthy Italian favorites. I then thought I would extend it to my whole church and use our church's wonderful kitchen. I had envisioned younger gals, maybe college-age or even later high school, to young adults, maybe newly- married, or newly-mommied. I was surprised at who started registering for the class: younger, yes - but also older, and even some men! In fact I was standing in the produce section of Publix a few days ago, talking to a friend I had run into. She asked me a few questions about the class, what sorts of things we'd be cooking, etc. and I was describing some of the recipes to her. A man overheard us and asked if I was teaching a cooking class and if it was open to anyone. My husband handed him his business card and told him to email him for directions. How funny is that??

Pasta alla Puttanesca

My plan it to teach one recipe and then explain similar ones so everyone can go home and try making even more easy recipes. Since I am visual and I learn by doing, everyone will have a chance to watch how it's done, then do it themselves. Kinda like med school, right? See one, do one, teach one. We will work in groups and it should be pretty fun.

This week the theme is Quick Red Sauces, the kind of homemade sauce that you can make in the time it takes the pasta to boil (like the picture above.) When the pasta is done, so is the sauce. We will be making Spaghetti all'Amatriciana. Some variations include Penne alla Puttanesca, Penne all'Arrabbiata, Pasta Sciue' Sciue', and Aglio Olio e Peperoncino. Of course we'll get to sample what we make. Interested? Make sure you tell me you're coming! At this point I'm planning on about 20 people.

Keeping Your Brain Sharp

I blogged about MY way of doing this over on my other blog. Check it out!

My garden grows!

If you follow me on Facebook then you know that my garden was in pretty bad shape.

See? Basically a weed patch. But then, even though it was late in the season, and multiple people (who shall remain nameless) discouraged me, I got to work. In one day it went from BAD to THIS:

Yes, I was sore for a week, but it was worth it! I listened to a lot of Andy Stanley podcasts while I worked. It was the ultimate multi-tasking! (In case you're wondering, I did not forget that stuff in the back. That's fennel going to seed.)

After getting all the weeds pulled and ground leveled I went to Trad's Garden Center to buy some plants. Boy that place is dangerous! I had to be VERY disciplined NOT to buy more than my little plots can handle.

The plants in the above picture are now taller than the cages (about 5 weeks later). Here's what's growing. 

Cherry tomatoes:

Grape tomatoes:

San Marzano tomatoes:

And my other little plot contains eggplant and peppers. 

It won't be long before I'll be grilling eggplants!

Yes, I got a late start (end of April) and yes, these last few years my garden has ... errr ... struggled. But thank goodness we get second (and third and fourth) chances! I think this is going to be my year! Can't wait to be eating bruschetta from my own garden. 

Local Fare Farm Bag

A couple of months ago I learned about Local Fare Farm Bag from my mother-in-law and sister-in-law. I had heard about CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) from a friend and had read an article about it in Country Gardens but the cost of joining one discouraged us from doing it. So when I learned about Local Fare (and no up front cost) I was hooked! Also hearing about my mother-in-law's and sister-in-law's experience gave me the courage to give it a try.

So what IS Local Fare, you wonder? It's local, seasonal fruits and vegetables delivered to my home. WHAT? Delivered? That's right. I don't have to go anywhere to pick it up. It comes straight to me, every two weeks, on Wednesdays.

What do you get for $25? Here, let me show you...

Oops, I forgot to include the loaf of bread from the French Pantry. But here's an example of what shows up on my doorstep. 5 ears of corn, Italian eggplant, yum yum peppers, zucchini,  white potatoes, spaghetti squash, watermelon, bail and cilantro and a loaf of ciabatta bread. All in this bag:

It's been fun to see what shows up in my bag each week. For those people who like to plan, you can get a head's up by going to the website. But I like to be surprised. You even get a newsletter describing what the produce is (this week we got spaghetti squash and I've NEVER bought that before!) In the newsletter, there are recipes in case you receive something you've never tried before. It's been fun, and sometimes challenging, to try new produce. It beats driving to Beaver Street to the "Farmer's Market!" Did I mention that they deliver??

Chili powder recipe

I was making southwestern chili today when I realized I was out of chili powder. I had read the ingredient list before and knew I had everything I needed on hand . A quick google search landed me on the following recipe from food.com. I'm pretty sure I won't be buying premixed chili powder anymore!

Chili Powder

2 tablespoons paprika
2 teaspoons oregano
1 ¼ teaspoons cumin
1 ¼ teaspoons garlic powder
1 ¼ teaspoons cayenne pepper
¾ teaspoon onion powder

Mix all ingredients well.

Lent 2012

I posted about this year's Lent over on my homeschooling blog. I hope you will take time to go check it out!

I would love to hear your thoughts!

Chimpsy

Yesterday Annie and I took a photography class with Chimpsy. We met at Chamblin Book Mine downtown and at first it appeared that we would be the only two students but after a few minutes another mom and son pair showed up. Israel, our instructor, was friendly, patient with our (*my*) questions and very informative (in a "for dummies" kind of way, not in a show-offy, see how much I know kind of way). He walked us through the intricacies of shutter speed, aperture, ISO, Exposure Compensation, and White Balance. Here are some things I learned:

• Use an inexpensive gooseneck lamp with a Sylvania natural spectrum light when shooting indoors to add light.
• Macro mode shoots real close up (flower setting on my camera)
• If skin tones are off indoors, set white balance.
• Set to the lowest ISO as possible to keep the picture from looking grainy.
• "Large" and "Superfine" pictures render the best quality pictures but also eat up your memory so if you are running out of memory, change it to Medium and/or Fine or Normal to get some more pictures out of your memory card.
• Shutter speed is for movement so if the pictures are blurry, change settings.
• Aperture (this is where f stops come in) is for focusing on things up close and letting background be blurry. (On my camera I cannot control the aperture; that's what my settings do: changes the aperture.)

After an hour of talking through the technical stuff and helping us program our point-and-shoot cameras (set camera to take Large pictures in Superfine settings) he discussed Composition for a while using examples of pictures on his Ipad. Again, some things I learned:

• Rule of thirds. Don't put everything in the middle of the picture. You want to draw attention to something in the picture. If you are photographing a sunset then de-emphasize the foreground bringing the horizon to the lower third of the picture, emphasizing the beautiful colors in the sky. Or if you are photographing a field of flowers and the sky is boring, bring the horizon to the top third eliminating the expanse of boring sky and focusing on the field. For portraits, focus on the eyes. 
• Enhance 3D sense of buildings. Don't shoot a building straight on but at an angle. This adds depth and shows that a building is a "cube" and not a flat surface.
• Frame your subject against other things. Shoot with something in the frame that is familiar to give a sense of scale (i.e. Castillo de San Marco with a palm tree in the picture so you see just how big the fort is). Or watch your angles (tilt camera, get down low) to emphasize how tall a building is or how long a dock is.
• When shooting pets and kids, get on their level. You see the world from their point of view.
• Simplify composition. Get rid of distracting background "noise". Pay attention to what is in the background. You can do this by shifting your angle to get rid of people/stuff from the shot or change your aperture so that the background is blurred and you don't "see" what's there, like a closeup of a single flower. Simplify colors. One bright flower in a sea of green.
• Use leading lines to emphasize depth. Like a row of runners coming in to the finish line. The lines lead back giving you perspective and depth.

After an hour of teaching we went outside to put what we'd learned into practice. (We ran into the Halls and the Lebhars! Too funny!) The first activity we did was to photograph a building with dark windows and very light walls in order to play with our white balance. Here are my shots:

 My camera in normal mode. Had I needed more lighting I could have upped the white balance. When I did, this is what I got:

 The building got a little washed out and I lost details in the facade, as well as in the clouds. When I turned down the white balance...

 the building again lost detail because this time it was too dark but the clouds look cool.

Then we went around the corner and tried to play with the shutter speed. My camera doesn't allow me to do that. I tried several of my settings such as portrait and landscape hoping to get a blurry background or blurry wheels to convey a sense of movement. Unfortunately my camera is too smart and it wouldn't do that. So my shots of moving cars look like cars parked in the middle of the road.

 Annie snuck into this shot...

 Nothing I did could get my camera to mess up. Oh well. No motion shots for me.

 Then we got to play with our macro setting. I got real close up here... (see how the background is blurry? I wanted to do that!)

 Closer still...

 Here I tried a camera angle...

 and played with my white balance again...

 All in all, I learned a lot about the point and shoot camera I've had for years. I've always shot on the "Auto" setting. Now that I've learned a few things, I'm not afraid to try some new stuff! Hopefully this means better photos for my blog!