Whole Foods Cooking Class- Small Budget, Big Flavor

Whole Foods hosts a variety of cooking classes at The Bowery Culinary Center in the Lower East Side. The Bowery Culinary Center is located inside Whole Foods on the second floor behind all the beauty products. It is a private room complete with a kitchen and television screens to broadcast the cooking demonstrations.

Most of the cooking classes offered are for a fee. Once a month, they offer a free cooking course entitled Small Budget, Big Flavor. There are only 20 slots available for the course. Everyone can bring a guest. I felt like I won the lottery by getting a spot in this class, especially in New York City.

Small Budget, Big Flavor focuses on what is on sale during the week of the class. It encourages people to shop at Whole Foods and use Whole Foods products to create a tasty meal while keeping to a budget.

This particular cooking class was not hands on experience. It was more seminar like. Seating was bar style in the front. If you didn't get a seat in the front, there were individual tables set up classroom style. They have tv screens with cameras positioned so you can watch them cook. This is actually a better view since it is difficult to see what food is in the bowls, etc.

Whole Foods Cooking Instructors

Cooking Demo

We learned how to make spicy sweet potatoes, bread dressing, and Salmon Wellington. They jazzed up the meal with hot sauce, a wine sauce with butter and shallots, and chai tea with almond milk. It all turned out very good and tasty. Best of all, easy enough to make at home.

Thanksgiving Sides

I left inspired to cook and was very impressed. Over Thanksgiving, my sister and I made the Salmon Wellington. It was a success and simple enough.

Salmon Wellington Recipe

Ingredients:

2 salmon fillets
defrosted frozen puff pastry
1/2 cup frozen chopped spinach, squeezed dry
thyme
pepper
salt
1 shallot
1/4th lb. mushrooms
2 tablespoons butter

Directions:

In a skillet over medium heat, melt the butter, add the mushrooms, shallot diced finely, pinch of salt, pinch of pepper, and a sprig of thyme. Cook until mushrooms are tender. Add in the spinach and heat over the flame until the liquid of the ingredients have cooked off.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. On a floured surface, roll out the puff pastry into two rectangles (7 x 8 inches). Place the salmon fillet in the middle of the pastry, top with mushroom and spinach mixture, then fold the pasty around the salmon completely covering the it like a package and press to seal. Place on the baking sheet and chill in the fridge for about 15 minutes.

Top the salmon with spinach and mushrooms like so.

Fold the puff pastry over like you are wrapping a present.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Brush the top of the puff pastry with an egg wash. Bake for about 25 minutes until golden brown. Enjoy!   

Baked to golden brown perfection.

Salmon Wellington with Red Wine Sauce

Whole Foods Bowery Culinary Center
95 East Houston Street
New York, NY 10002

Empanada Party

Inspiration can happen anywhere at any time. I was on my way up to Lake Placid and stopped in Saugerties, New York for a quick bite. I came across a cute little cafe called Tango Cafe. It was a typical coffee and pastry shop but with lunch fare and Argentinean influences. Empanadas are one of their specialties. They have been written up numerous times in the local paper and magazines. In one of the articles was their empanada recipe. On my way out, I quickly jotted it down on my iPod. I'd make empanadas and invite people over for a little snack!

The dough was more labor intensive than I thought. I should have started the dough earlier in the day because by the time it was ready for kneading it was near 10 PM! Instead of coming over to eat ready empanadas, my friends had come over to help me cook.

Flattened ball of dough: Only the beginning of a very long empanada process.

The dough could use a few modifications (perhaps more butter?) but here is the basic recipe:

Ingredients

1/2 stick of butter

4 cups flour

1 cup milk

2 eggs

1/2 teaspoon of salt

 
Mix dry ingredients first and then incorporate the wet ones. Form a ball of dough and wrap it tightly or seal in an airtight container. Let the dough sit for two hours. Once the dough is ready, you knead it out thin. Cut three inch diameter circles for each empanada and scoop filling onto half of that circle. We chose to make our own filling rather than use the ones in Tango Cafe's recipe. You can fill an empanada with anything you like whether it be curried chicken, ground beef and raisins, or potatoes and vegetables. Ours had a Mexican flair and was also a little more traditional with a basic ground beef concoction.

Chicken breast with salsa verde

Ground beef with carrots, potatoes, and onions

Once the fillings had cooled off, we wrapped them in the empanada dough. Some were fancy with a closed edge with design. Others just looked like moons and dumplings. Designs could be made with a pinch of a finger or the prongs of a fork.

This recipe made about 3 dozen empanadas.

Brush with an egg wash and bake at 400 degrees for 30 minutes. Enjoy!

Midnight labor of determination

Photography Credits: Desmond Chow

Tango Cafe
216 Main Street
Saugerties, NY 12477

Xmas Eve at Woks & Lox

At The Queens Kickshaw produced by Jeff Orlick and Veronica Chan 

We did it! Woks & Lox turned out to be a smashing success. On a night when most businesses were closed, The Queens Kickshaw in Astoria, Queens played host to the first Jewish and Asian Christmas celebration. It brought the tradition of Chinese food and a movie on Christmas Eve to a whole new level.

Woks & Lox, produced by Jeff Orlick and Veronica Chan, featured a nine course Asian and Jewish inspired meal, a nosh party including drinks (craft beers, Golden Monkey Chocolate Egg Cream Bubble Tea, Double Happy Five Spice Hot Mulled Manischewitz), a raffle, dreidel games, Jewish Mahjong, and a beach themed Bar Mitzvah sign in board. Folks came from all over and much merriment was made over Sweet Red Bean Rugelach.

A lot of hardwork went into planning this event. It was an honor to work side by side with the masterminds behind Woks & Lox, the talented chef Chichi Wang who poured love into the dishes, keen photographer Stella Dacuma Schour, and everyone else who pitched in muscle. On that note, let's raise our Manischewitz! L'chaim!


Woks & Lox

5 Recipes by Chichi Wang

Jeffrey Tastes- Queens Qustodian

World to Table

Stella Dacuma Schour Photography

The Queens Kickshaw
40-17 Broadway
Astoria, NY 11103    

Recipe: Bread Pudding

What do you do with day old bread? Eat it of course! Or feed it to the ducks.

My office ordered lunch from Angelo's Pizza and was given a whole bag of bread rolls. We had plenty left over. It seemed like such a shame to just throw it away so I decided to take them home and make bread pudding. My recipe was a success. Not too sweet, fluffy, plump with raisins, a hint of cinnamon, and served warm out of the oven. I could not think of a better way to end this wonderful weekend.

Ingredients:
4 bread rolls
2 cups 2% milk
1/4 cup butter
2/3 cup light brown sugar
3 egg whites
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla extract
raisins

Directions:

In a sauce pan, warm milk just a little bit. If you boil it, that's too much! Add the butter and stir until it melts. Turn off the heat and let the mixture cool a bit. Add the sugar, egg whites, cinnamon, and vanilla extract. Stir until the sugar dissolves.

Cube or tear the bread into small pieces. In a lightly greased or buttered casserole, place the bread. Add a handful of raisins to the bread.

Pour the wet ingredients on top of the bread.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

Serve warm. This recipe can be enhanced by adding an icing to the bread pudding, vanilla or Bourbon sauce, or bacon cream anglaise. Enjoy! I think you will be surprised at how delicious it is in this simple form.

Angelo's Pizza
1032 2nd Avenue
New York, NY 10022