Iron Chef Contendas!

Saturday I was almost double booked on events. My DAR Regent Reta had invited all the committee chairwomen for lunch and surprised us by having it at 'Savory Chef" a local fancy cookware store, which also has a cooking school. It is a beautiful store and I'd love to have a kitchen like theirs. We arrived at 11am and found a beautifully set table with a chef's apron and towel on each chair. We were off on a menu of spinach ravioli, fettucine and salmon.



Here is our group getting ready to get our "cooking on".

Chef Scott first demonstrated how simple it is to make pasta dough from scratch - and without a bowl. In answer to one participant's question - you don't have to have marble counters for this to work.



After kneading the dough and getting just the right consistency - you can't overwork pasta dough per the chef - you let it rest for a while. Then, it's time to use the pasta machine. One secret Scott told us was to lay the dough over the top of your hands - not palms up which can poke holes in it as it gets thinner.














While we were waiting for the dough to rest, Scott whipped up filling made of creme cheese, fresh ground parmesan (or other hard Italian cheese), and well-drained frozen chopped spinach. After the pasta was pretty thin and very long - it was dusted with flour on both sides and then filled with about a teaspoon of the filling. Here's my friend Lori doing the filling.



After finishing the ravioli, Scott boiled some and the rest he "pan friend" in about 3 tsp olive oil and 3tsp butter. He let it sit and get crispy and then flipped it - I sure wish I could flip food in a pan the way chef's do - maybe that's a special class!!

I had to be at Oneok Field for additional pre-season training at 1pm so I had to leave before all the food was made - dang it! But, I did try the sauteed ravioli. After it was crisp, Scott tossed on some roasted cherry tomatoes he had prepared ahead of time and just a wee bit of very expensive Balsamic vinegar (would you believe $60 a bottle???). The end result was absolutely delicious.

I sure wish I could have been there for the rest of the meal!! This was such a fun outing.