Cooking School

Talk about providential. I received the most beautiful fancy dutch oven (a wonderful green) from the California kids for Christmas. The Jan/Feb issue of Cooking Light "Cooking Class" is on braising - and uses these heavy dutch ovens to do the work. Bob and I have been very adventurous so far this month trying two of the fancy recipes in our fancy pan. The only problem is they make 8 servings so we eat the same thing for many nights.

The first try was Red-Cooked Short Ribs (red cooking refers to a Chinese technique of braising meat in a soy sauce and sherry mixture. the "red" comes from the color soy sauce acquires after long cooking). I learned this from the cooking class. We have two packages of short ribs from our earlier purchase of a quarter beef from Tom Barnes so wanted to try something to use them. It was delicious with a great Asian flavor we like and served over rice. This is definitely one that we will try again when there are more folks around to eat.

Tonight was Moroccan Chicken Thighs (inspired by North African tagines - aromatic dish).
This dish is served with couscous. We just had a little taste because i arrived home late so we ate left over meat sauce (for the third time) from Sunday spaghetti and just did the cooking for the rest of the week. It smelled great and the meat is oh so tender. The flavor is good but bold and we are not so used to Moroccan cooking. It has chickpeas and dried apricots in it. We both gave it a thumbs up but we'll see after eating 8 servings over the rest of the week.

Thanks for the new pan that is creating all this fun - i keep it out on the top shelf of the Gm. Davis hutch. Hope all are having a great week.

culinary sue