Eating From the Garden Cooking Demo

Monday night was the monthly cooking demo at my local Whole Foods. I’ve gone to the cooking demos many times before but this month’s class struck my fancy because the menu of the evening was “Eating from the Garden” and all the dishes were full of fresh fruit and veggies. Very EBF friendly.

I don’t usually post the recipes that are given out during the cooking demos I attend because they aren’t mine to share, but if I happen to find one online that looks similar to the ones we used in the cooking class, I’ll link to them so you can see the ingredients and prep. Figured that would make it a little more fun for you all.

To start the evening off we sampled a beer from the Lips of Faith series called Kick. Lips of Faith is a small batch beer program from the brewers of the famous Fat Tire amber ale (New Belgium Brewery out of Fort Collins, CO) and so far all the ones I’ve tried from the line are innovative and amazing. Kick is a slightly sour ale with pumpkin and cranberry juice. Pumpkin beers are my favorite so this one definitely made me a happy camper. Although this beer didn’t have the spicy pumpkin pie flavor that most pumpkin beers have, I still really enjoyed it.

For those of you interested, as of this week New Belgium Brewery beers are now available in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia. It’s kind of big deal.

The class went by rather quickly because almost all the dishes were no-cook or minimally cooked and many of the ingredients were prepped ahead of time. To start we had Grilled Zucchini Roll Ups with Herbed Ricotta.

These little rolls were not only cute, but the herbed ricotta with roasted garlic, fresh oregano, lemon, thyme and basil was delicious!

Next on the menu was my favorite of the evening, a Feta Watermelon and Mint Salad with a Vanilla Balsamic Reduction.

The feta and watermelon in this dish brought me right back to a summer day of my childhood when juicy watermelon sprinkled with salt was one of my favorite snacks.

I ended up having two helpings of the salad, but I’m pretty sure I could have eaten the whole bowl if Chef Jesse would have let me. It was THAT good!

The next item on the menu was a Creamy Cucumber, Jicama and Dill Salad. Here’s a similar recipe, it’s just missing the jicama.

This salad had a blend of cucumbers, jicama and onion tossed in a sour cream based dressing. It wasn’t the most colorful salad but I loved the tzatziki sauce flavor. I could see it being a great made with plain greek yogurt instead of the sour cream and served as a side dish with falafel stuffed pitas.

The one non-veggie dish of the evening was Cocktail de Cameron.

The good news for me was that the non-veggie component was shrimp and I love me some shrimp!

I’d never had a cocktail de cameron before last night and it’s quite delicious. The vegetable juice base makes for a soupy consistency and the fresh veggies provide a nice crunch.

I was a huge fan of this one. It’s the perfect Mexican dish for a hot summer night!

The cocktail ened up being the last of the savory items before we moved on to a couple sweet treats – first up, a Fruit Soup.

Tthe soup included a variety of fresh fruit, including blueberries, oranges, pineapple, and melon. It was cooked but was still served cold and not completely pureed so it had a little texture, similar to that of orange juice with pulp. I drank it like a smoothie and savored every sip.

Last but not least, we finished the evening with grilled melon with honeyed greek yogurt, blueberries and sliced almonds.

Ah-mazing!

Jesse used the full fat Greek yogurt and added in local honey, which basically meant it tasted like pure bliss. <– I’m not exaggerating. Full fat Greek yogurt isn’t something I buy on the regular but every time I had it I’m reminded of how good it is!

Just when we thought we were done with the demo, Jesse pulled out a little something more for us to try – another Lips of Faith beer, Clutch and Cowgirl Creamery’s Mt. Tam cheese.

I was pretty full from everything else we had over the course of the evening, but I’m not one to pass up delicious beer and cheese so I took one for the team and tasted both.

Clutch is the perfect beer to finish off a meal with. With notes of dark chocolate, coffee and black malts, it’s like drinking a 9% alcohol coffee for dessert. And the cheese was delicious as well – it had a mellow flavor similar to brie and was smooth and creamy. I’ve been a fan of Cowgirl Creamery since visiting their shop at the Ferry Building in San Fran. They do cheese right!

Jesse was super pumped to share the beer and cheese with us. If you couldn’t tell, he’s awesome!

In other news, we had an earthquake in VA yesterday!!!!! Having lived on the East Coast my whole life I had never felt an earthquake like that before and it was crazy (My first quake experience was actually in California last year). My family lives only 20 miles from the epicenter so one I found out that they were okay, I was relieved and thought the whole thing was pretty cool, but in the moment I was really scared.

Alright friends, I hope you have a wonderful evening. Just in case you missed it, I did my Body for Life Recap post. Check it out if you’re interested.

Question of the day – Have you ever experienced an earthquake?

Tagged as: cocktail de cameron, Cowgirl Creamery, Creamy Cucumber, Earthquake, Feta Watermelon and Mint Salad, Grilled Zucchini Roll Ups with Herbed Ricotta, Jicama and Dill Salad, Lips of Faith, New Beligum Brewery