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Ravioli with sweet potato, goats cheese and pine nuts 

At 6.30 I went to MJ’s where I meet 4 other ladies, we all introduced each other and said how excited and nervous we were.

We were then taken to the kitchen where we met Allan Collier “Chef” – who introduced himself – with some background of where he had worked and what he does at the Cookery School – this was great and put us at ease straightaway.  He also went through emergency procedures and roughly what we would be doing over the 4 weeks.

Allan has such a good rapport with us all, and his sense of humour is very good and put us all at ease and made us think “yes we can do this”

We sat in front of Allan whilst he explained how to make the pasta – and explained why we used this flour and not that flour and how to use this machine and not that. “Chef” then went on to make his pasta and showed us what ingredients we would be putting into it. He then took us to our work stations, and we measured our ingredients, if we had any queries or questions he was there at hand to answer these.

Wow after half an hour my flour, eggs started to look like pasta, we then made the sweet potato and goats cheese filling and started to roll out the pasta and put this through the pasta maker to flatten it so that we could cut out our ravioli shapes for the filling to go into.

At the end of the evening we all had ravioli (some good – some bad) but I felt I had accomplished something, and the buzz was so good.

We could either cook our ravioli or take it home – which we all decided to take home – Chef explained how to cook the ravioli at home for how long etc

 Allan gave us a fork each to try his ravioli – OMG lovely.

Went home thinking what a great evening I had – it didn’t even feel that I had been in a kitchen cooking – which is quite unheard of for me to enjoy.

 Had family round on the Saturday night – and I cooked the ravioli (just how “chef” had told us to do) so that I could let them taste what I had made, and everyone said how lovely this was.

 Result

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 linguini with  mussels in a spicy tomato sauce

Raring to go – after being told what we were going to make, we sat and watched “chef” prepare/make his Linguini – this week we were making enough for 4 people.

After “chef” had made his Linguini we were told to go and make ours, this week most of us made and cut our pasta dough!! With a knife as this was easier…

We then went and watched chef cook his mussels (in wine)  and to make sure the mussels were fresh and able to be eaten (I was shown how to do this by chef) which was a good learning curve… we then watched him make the spicy tomato sauce and then all went off to make our own.

Cooking fresh tomatoes, chopping our own fresh chillies and garlic and cooking this with the wine and onions – I can speak for the other ladies that we felt like proper chefs.

Chef came round to each and every one of us to make sure we were working ok and knowing what we were doing, which I thought was brilliant, helping some who was falling behind.

Again once the lesson was great, I had learnt how to cook mussels in a white wine and tomato sauce, make linguini by hand and not use the pasta machine.  Chef asked again if we wanted to cook the linguini but we all again decided to take it home to cook, the sauce was put into a container so again we could take it home.

Again forks and spoons came out and we all dipped into chefs linguini and sauce – I am not too keen on mussels, and had never tried them before, but after having to cook and touch them, my other chefs encourage me to try and wow I am now a lover.

 Again another good enjoyable evening.

 Reheated this on Saturday night for my husband (again just like chef told us how to) and it was the first time in 25 years that he said not once but 3 times “omg this is great” he really enjoyed the sauce, said it was so tasty.

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spinach tagliatelle  / beetroot tagliatelle with squid in chilli and soya marinade / chicken fillet breast stuffed with chorizo with a  sauce and pesto  

Couldn’t wait for tonight’s class, wasn’t sure what we were “making today” but was really excited….

 Chef said we were going to make two separate tagliatelles – one spinach and one beetroot with two separate toppings.

With this class we do not use any flavouring, meaning we prepare everything fresh and from scratch, so when we were told that we were going to make “spinach” and “beetroot” tagliatelle we had to cook the spinach – chef showed us the best way to do this ( I have been cooking my spinach wrong for years) and “beetroot” – I have never cooked beetroot before – so was a first for me.

 Wow the colours were brilliant – and when I put my pasta (green/red) through the pasta machine and tagliatelle came out I felt great – some of my class mates said I was a natural (all down to chef and his patience) this tagliatelle was put on separate trays to dry out

 Now for the toppings:

Squid in chilli and soya marinade with chopped mushrooms

Chef showed us how to handle the squid ( as most of us had never cooked squid before – or even eaten it) he also explained about squids etc which was very interesting - we made a chilli and mushroom with soya sauce (all fresh ingredients) no jars or cartons and this smelt gorgeous.

 We all decided to take this home to cook so this was placed into a container and chef told us how to cook it.

 Fillet breast of chicken stuffed with chorizo:

 We were given chicken breasts and again chef explained details on the different parts of chickens and the best cuts – which was very informative…

 We were then shown how to stuff this chicken breast with chorizo and then used herbs and spices to coat the outside.

 Chef cooked his chicken breast to show us how to go from preparing this and how to cook/make the sauce from the juices – with help from whipped cream…. Then the forks came out wow I hope mine tastes like that …. Quick and easy meal to prepare..

 Again we all opted to cook this at home so placed the stuffed chicken into containers – we also placed the spinach tagliatelle  / beetroot tagliatelle into separate containers to take with us.

 Once again a good evening had by all, chef is very knowledgeable and is very good in explaining how and why we are doing this and that, so we are not just watching and going off on our own to make our pasta/sauces he explains why we do it, and comes round to each of us to make sure we are doing it correctly and if we need any help, this is good as we do not feel stupid in asking silly questions.  He puts us at ease and I have learnt so much over the last couple of weeks.

 Next week we are making chocolate pasta!!!!! and ice cream – I cant wait to try this.

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Chocolate tagliatelle pasta with chocolate sauce and vanilla icecream

Well it’s the last week, and also have been told that its “open evening” for students wishing to come and look at the college – oh no people watching us ….

A bit dubious about making “chocolate tagliatelle” – but we made this the same way as previously making tagliatelle but we used high quality chocolate, which we mixed into the pasta dough.

Again using high quality chocolate, we make a superb chocolate sauce, again watching chef making his then going off and making our own.

Chef then showed us how to make vanilla ice cream – we would not be making our own as we would not be able to transport it home, but we were given the recipe to make at home.

Chef cooked his pasta and topped it with the chocolate sauce that he had prepared and then topped it with the ice cream “oh wow” delicious J. We all decided to take ours home to let our families taste the “chocolate pasta”.

This four week course was superb, I would recommend anyone of any age group to consider taking this pasta course if this is on again.

Chef was a superb teacher, he was very clear in his instructions, was there for any questions that was asked and he explained about the different ingredients that we were to use during this four week course.

I have learnt a lot, and would definitely be making my own pasta at home.

Bye folks. Buon appetito!!

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