Cooking Classes 1 & 2

I approached my niece from The Literary Wife a few months ago about coming together once a month to cook. I thought it would be a good time for me to try cooking things my family would never eat. They don't like new things and I enjoy trying new things.

Amber is a fairly new wife and is enjoying her venture into cooking for herself and her husband. She is learning to cook a lot of vegetarian meals, which I'm not against. It's just that my husband is definitely a meat-eater. So with this cooking class, I figured I could try my hand at vegetarian meals along with foods I've never tried before.

I chose to make Margherita Pizza at the first class. I've always wondered at the name...which by the way does not contain Margarita. It's supposedly named after Queen Margherata (or Queen Margherita) who liked the colors of the Italian flag on her pizza. Tomatoes for the red, mozzarella for the white, and basil for the green.

Amber was all set to come over, but the night before it had snowed and she didn't want to brave the roads. I wouldn't have wanted to either. So I made it by myself and Lincoln and I loved it!

Last month, she and I got together again for our next class....Egg Rolls. I don't know what recipe she used, but we prepared the ingredients of carrots, cabbage and green onions.

We tossed all the ingredients into a bowl and salt and peppered it. Then heated some oil and garlic and sauted the veggies. She didn't have fresh garlic, but it worked. Next time I would use fresh garlic and maybe even some ginger.

After the veggies were done, we wrapped them in the egg roll wrappers. Here's Amber giving it a go.

Pay no attention to her hair...uh, yes, it kind of grosses me out that she was wearing that 'do while we were cooking. I didn't tell her that, but now she may know because she's reading this post. However, I did not find a hair in my egg roll...thank goodness. Love ya, Amber, in spite of all your weirdness!

Okay, on to the last photo...Our finished product! They were really good. Amber ate hers with soy sauce. I ate mine plain. Next time, I will add pork to the recipe. Steven would like that better, and I have no idea if my kids would touch them with pork or without it.

So it's my turn to choose something to cook. Any ideas?