French Bistro Favorites

Through the month of May, Elizabeth is offering a 2 for 1 deal for her cooking classes: register one and bring a friend for free. So Aurora and I joined forces and enrolled for this one.

Aurora is ever the trooper. All of the dishes have dairy in it. Then again, out of all of Elizabeth's May classes, this one has the most potentials that our husbands would actually eat the food.

I was a trooper that day too, having been in bed all day from bad sinus infection. Aurora picked me up and I shambled in there, thinking this would be a cake walk.

Oh, no. It was action-packed, mad house of a class. But oh so much fun.

The menu: Leek and potato gratin; Grilled Chicken and Steak with Blue Cheese Sauce; Tomato, pinenut and cheese flat breads, and chocolate tart with creme fraiche.

The class was full, doubling the size of our learn to cook. However, they were all experienced cooks so there was not stumbling through anything there. Aurora and our new friend Chuck were the only two newbies. Again, taking the mother hen role, I volunteered us to do the blue cheese sauce and the flat bread.

We were busy with our flat bread enough that we actually missed out on the gratin and the tart completely. On the plus side, we now know how to roll out a pizza dough. A good trade off, really.



Unlike the deviled eggs that came in last, the flat breads were actually done first so we all had something to snack on for the rest of the class. My god was THAT yummy!



We also did get up close and personal with the grill pans as our flat breads were being cooked right underneath there. All of the ovens and stoves were going full blast. It got quite hot in the kitchen.





The leek and potato gratin came out next. It doesn't look like much here, but boy it was one yummy layers after the other in there.



Time seriously flew by in this class! The crowd size probably helped with that too. The next thing I knew, it all came together for me to snap pictures.





Mind you, I had lost my appetite for the day and didn't have much to eat outside of 2 soft boiled eggs and a handful of crackers all day. Suddenly, I was hungry. Really hungry. But my stomach just couldn't take much of the food.

However, the tart went down quite smoothly.



We will probably be taking a break from taking classes for a little while. But we do adore Elizabeth so you bet we'll be back for more later.