Click the link below to download the latest group class schedule in the FFK Garage Kitchen. Also available for private group events, birthday parties for kids, corporate team building, bridal events and showers. Contact us for further details.
GARAGE KITCHEN SCHEDULE AND REGISTRATION.JANUARY 2014
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Chef Rachel’s Recipe For Reinvention Tours In Italy
The holidays always remind me that I’m not Martha Stewart. My house does not become a festive winter wonderland ready to be captured on the cover of the some high-end products catalog as the McMansion of the month. I string lights around my mantle but the wires show, (which is very uncatalog-like) and my Christmuka tree is “realistic” but not real. Presents I wrap don’t have perfect edges or artistic bows and the invisible tape is not quite invisible.
But I can cook. So I do that, a lot of that, and I have to say, it makes me happy and fills me with a holiday spirit that is as real as my tree isn’t. And when you deliver a batch of cookies to someone, like I just did to the ladies in the office at my daughter’s school, it feels right and it defines the holidays for me in a way that all the picture perfect Christmas catalogs can’t get close to. Giving. Feeding. Nourishing. Sharing. Taking the time to surprise someone with a gift. Food gifts are one way to bundle all that into one tin, brown bag or box. Make something and give it away and you are not just giving food, but your time, your love, your energy, your planning, your thoughts and your effort.
Here is a simple recipe for a delicious, buttery cookie you don’t have to be a great cook to make well. Put some holiday music on in the kitchen…
Give these a try and then give them away!
Wishing you a happy, messy, unperfect and perfectly wonderful holiday season! xoxo Rachel
Chocolate Ganache Thumbprint Cookies
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
¾ teaspoon baking powder (omit if making thumbprints, ball cookies, or spritz cookies)
½ teaspoon salt
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
8 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips
¾ cup heavy cream
¾ cup crushed peppermints or walnuts (optional)
Make the dough: In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. Beat butter and granulated sugar with a mixer on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy (I prefer the paddle attachment for this, if you have one). Beat in egg and vanilla. Reduce speed to low. Add flour mixture, and beat until combined. The dough will be somewhat crumbly and look almost like fudge. (Make ahead alert: Dough can be refrigerated overnight or frozen for up to 1 month.)
Roll dough into 1-inch balls, then roll in crushed candies or nuts (optional), if using. Arrange on parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing each 1 inch apart. (Tip: to make this part easier and more efficient, I take a big hunk of the dough and roll it out on the counter top into a long tube about 1-iunch in diameter. Then I cut the dough into even 1-inch pieces and then roll each piece into a ball. Try it this way…it beats standing there and individually scooping out five dozen balls of dough!)
Press a well into the center of each using your finger, the tip of a wooden spoon or the back of a small measuring spoon (see picture). Refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes. Bake at 350 degrees for 7 minutes. Remove from oven, and press well again to preserve it’s shape. Return cookies to oven and bake until firm, 7 to 9 minutes more.
Make ganache: melt chocolate in a microwave safe bowl in the microwave for 30 seconds. Stir to distribute heat. Melted chocolate may be warm enough to melt remaining hard chocolate without heating in microwave further. If not, continue to heat in 10 second intervals until chocolate is fully melted. Warm cream for 30 seconds in the microwave. Add warmed cream to melted chocolate and combine fully. (Adding cold cream will make the chocolate seize up. If this happens add a tablespoon or two of boiling hot water to the chocolate mixture and stir until softened and smooth again. Cool mixture completely at room temp or in the refrigerator before using.
Spoon ganache into thumbprints and let the ganache set for 30 minutes or more before serving. Tip: The neatest and most efficient way to fill the cookies is to place the ganache in a plastic squeeze bottle or pastry bag fitted with a narrow decorating tip and pipe or squeeze the glance into the well. You can also use a plastic bag, with a very small corner cut off to pipe the ganache in.
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Chef Rachel’s Recipe For Reinvention Tours In Italy
Read More About…
Chef Rachel’s Recipe For Reinvention Tours In Italy
I wanted to do this four years ago, when I graduated culinary school. “Let’s turn the garage into a teaching kitchen” I said in my best Judy-Garland-gushing-to-Gene-Kelly breathless, hopeful voice. Except I was me, not Judy, and I was talking to my husband, who is not Gene and we didn’t have a barn full of star-struck young gals and guys just waiting to stay up all night to sing, dance and build it. So, for the next four years, I focused my Food Fix Kitchen Cooking School on in-home and on-site instruction and travelled all over: New York, Brooklyn, Westchester, Connecticut, Pennsylvania and the far corners of New Jersey to teach in big homes, little homes, tiny apartments in Greenwich Village and grand ones on Park Avenue too, beach homes, airplane hangars, private jets, corporate conference rooms, hospital auditoriums, food festivals, dairy farms and a few TV show sets. Boy, am I tired. Not of teaching. But the planning and packing and schlepping and travel time was getting to me. I wanted to stop going out to teach and start bringing home the bacon—pun intended. Now, just two months after we cleaned out the last stink bug and relocated all our accumulated junk to the basement, I see this dream come true when I open the door to my old garage: my very own teaching kitchen.
The gigantic Italian ceramic tile island seats up to 16 students! There are two stoves, two ovens and gadgets galore! The back wall is paneled with wood I stained with three different colors to look like weathered barn wood. I designed the overall look of the space (rustic-y? industrial-ish?) but my husband and a two-man team of hardworking jack-of-all-trades-types helped it all come together. (I did lightweight stuff like staining, painting, stenciling and cleaning up.) The budget was twice what we had wanted it to be, but it’s twice as cool as I thought it would be too. I am so proud of how it turned out and soooooo excited about teaching in the space. Last week, I did a soft opening by offering four classes through my local township recreation department, two for kids and two for adults, and the classes were nearly sold out! Everyone had a great time, the space is amazing to teach in, and I got to iron out some of the logistical issues (like I need a full-on dishwashing superhero to help me during classes, for sure!) Now I’m ready to go and I’m officially launching “The Garage” with a full schedule of classes for December. Click here to download the schedule and registration form: THE GARAGE – DECEMBER 2013 SCHEDULE
By January I should have an online registration page set up, but for now I’m doing registration sort of “old school” with a form you’ll need to print out and fill out and send back to me with a check. Spaces will be held by payment-in-full only, and there is limited space, so if there is a class you want to do get the form back to me ASAP!
For those of you who have enjoyed our cooking parties in your homes, offices, etc. I’ll still be available to do on-site events when asked, but my group class schedule will dictate my availability going forward. And now I’ll be able to offer my space to host private culinary events (birthdays, anniversaries, bridal showers, bachelorette parties, wine tastings, etc.) for those who want to have a cooking party, but don’t have a suitable venue (or don’t want to get their venue all messy!). I’m looking forward to partnering with local businesses to do special themed cooking classes and inviting guest chefs from area restaurants to come in and teach classes too. Now that THE GARAGE – DECEMBER 2013 SCHEDULE is open for business, it seems my mind has opened up with all the possibilities for culinary exploration in the space. I hope you’ll come along for the ride sometime soon!
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Chef Rachel’s Recipe For Reinvention Tours In Italy
Corporate Team Building Cooking Classes
First things first: it’s my birthday today. I’m fifty-seven. That’s right. Fifty-freekin’-seven. In my head I’m somewhere around 32. My lower back and knees and skin are not agreeing with that little trick of the mind that keeps me going and doing crazy things like Cutthroat Kitchen, but I’m doing my best to ignore all physical limitations and keep on stirring things up. So watch the hilarious outcome of such denial-oriented thinking this coming Sunday, October 6 on Food Network, 10 PM EST. (Check local listings.) Of course, I can’t tell you anything about the show or the outcome, except to say that it was NOT as much fun as my appearance on Chopped. Nevertheless it was a blast—getting flown out to L.A. for the two-day shoot‚ being put up in a swanky hotel and fed well, and mostly treated like a celebrity chef (hair! makeup!) for a brief moment in time, is no stick in the eye. I met some cool chefs and got to act all bad-ass for a day.
Not to mention meeting Alton Brown…
…who is as you’d expect him to be: a real pro at what he does…wry, intimidating, and just a little diabolical for the purposes of this show. If you haven’t seen the show yet, be ready…it’s no Chopped. It’s more menace and mayhem and less focus on the food and skill, but I suppose it makes for fun TV. The show has already been picked up for a second season, so they are doing something right, though, as a chef, I feel like it’s more “game show” than a cooking show. I think one of the reasons chefs from all over, whether at the Michelin star or backyard BBQ level, respect Chopped as a show, is because of the culinary skill exhibited from show to show and the outcome almost always seems fair…the best chef of the day usually wins. The competition is interesting because you see people rise to the level they need to in order to win, and they usually have a compelling story. With CTK, it’s a different game…in fact it’s more about the game than the food. Watch and let me know what you think by leaving a comment below this post!
So, with CTK behind me, where do my red Converse sneakers take me from here? I’ve got some plans that will keep me busy in the coming year. My 57th year! In a month or so I’ll open my “garage kitchen”…the culinary teaching studio I’ve been wanting to have for years. I’ll be cooking and teaching a regular schedule of classes, continuing do write here and post recipes, doing culinary and literary (more about my novel in another post!) appearances, try (of course) to get back on TV somehow (hello, Next Food Network Star!), taking photos, traveling to see my son at The French Laundry (next post!), helping my daughter finish her college applications, seeing her off to college (weep) and whatever else comes my way, including snubbing my whining back and creaky knees and insisting on acting as though I’m somewhere around 32.
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Chef Rachel’s Recipe For Reinvention Tours In Italy
