On Saturday, instead of eating a full lunch, I met with some other Rose Scholars in the Rose lobby at 12:30 to walk up to MVR for this special cooking workshop.  A couple of my friends were TAing the event, so I was really looking forwards to it.  We’d received an email from Lou ahead of time with some of the recipes we might get a chance to make, and a bunch of them seemed interesting.

When we arrived, we got introduced to Rose House fellow Emily Gier, who teaches the food labs for the Nutritional Sciences major, as well as the TAs for the day.  She spoke with us about what she teaches in the school.  She then started demonstrating how to make some biscuits and omelettes.  At this point, I was wowed by the way the classroom was set up.  There were cooking stations on either side of the long room, and in the middle there was the demo station for the professor in front of a few rows of seats.  But what really wowed me was the mirror above the demo station so we could see what the professor was doing on the stove.  She started by explaining how to chop an onion, and then explained the difference between chopping, mincing, and cubing something to cook it.  Then we got to see how she made biscuits, and then how to make an omelette.  Apparently, for omelettes, you need to be really careful about how hot the stove is, because the egg can easily cook too quickly.

The food stations where we cooked.

At this point, we split off to make different recipes.  I wandered for a bit, looking at different recipes to see what I wanted to make.  I was hesitant about making some things, because I wouldn’t be able to eat much of it due to dietary restrictions, but I ended up making the lasagna, with help from Sarah.  I’ve never made a real lasagna, but I have made similar dishes before at home, so it wasn’t so strange to me.  I started by chopping up some mushrooms and then sauteing them until they were tender.  Sarah worked on the cheese mixture, an amazing mixture of ricotta, mozzarella, and Parmesan cheeses with some green mixed into it, and an egg.  After my mushrooms were tender, I added the tomato sauce and water, which cooked until boiling.  At that point, we began layering the lasagna — sauce, noodles, cheese, sauce, noodles, cheese, sauce, noodles, cheese, sauce.  Then we covered it in tin foil and put it in the oven for 40 minutes.

At that point, several other people had finished making their creations, and they were being placed out on the center tables for us to try.  There were egg and bean and salsa burritos, a turkey (sausage) chili, a chicken broccoli and rice casserole, a one-pot pasta, a salmon with quinoa stuffing, and many more options.

Some of the food made at this event

I tried lots of food at this point, while waiting on the lasagna.  All of the recipes seemed rather easy to make, which was part of the point of this activity — to remind us that we can all cook and do it well, with just a little bit of work.  After an hour or so, the lasagna was finally ready, and it tasted pretty good!

Lasagna!

At the end, Professor Gier spoke with us about how we all did a good job, and explained some of the recipe picks.  All of these (except for the lasagna and a couple other recipes) were meant to be quick meals, something we might be able to make ourselves after getting home from work or something.  At the end of the day, I decided that I had to take the nutritional sciences food lab class where they learn how to make healthy meals with substitutions.  I’m sure I could use the help learning how to cook healthier, and I love cooking so much.

Food in the cool mirror!