Cooking demo

What a great lunch and learn today.

We drove over to Hickory Knob State Park for a cooking demo and luncheon with a local restaurant chef.  Having been trained in as well as owning a restaurant in New Orleans, Heidi Trull prepared a chicken gumbo.  Gumbo is a soup made with okra..which she said it mostly why it is called gumbo.   There are different ways to fix gumbo by using different meats or seafoods such as chicken, shrimp, fish, pork as well as andouille sausage which is really good if you can find it.  

Today she started the recipe by bringing 1 cup of vegetable oil to a really hot temperature and adding one cup of white flour..stirring constantly which produced a dark brown gravy...a roux.   Then she added chopped onions, bell peppers and celery, then chicken stock which made the dark roux lighten up considerably.    Added to this was fresh cut okra, diced tomatoes,  green onions, andouille sausage and the chicken.  And Creole seasonings..she makes her own from spices but she also said she uses Tony Cachere's brand sometimes.  ( I use his seasoning at home!)   Everything was precooked for the demo so it just had to simmer for a short time.  We all had a small bowl (or two) with white rice.    It was spicy with a little heat from the spice mix but totally yummy!

The chef at the resort had also made some other of Chef Heidi's dishes..a beef dish, a spicy lemon /cheesy pasta, brussel sprouts with ham and onions, collard greens cooked in beer, and shrimp jambalaya and a cornbread stuffed tomato..really unusual but so good.   For dessert...a peach bread pudding with peach rum sauce.  

Then a special dessert was brought out..Twinkie Tiramisu..oh my goodness.   The Twinkie is cut is half and dipped in coffee and Kahlua liquour..then layered with a mascarpone cheese mixture and then a half Twinkie dipped in dark chocolate was used to decorate the top!   Oh MY GOODNESS.   That dessert is in the extras!  

A good day despite some car problem..we were able to get home and the car is at the shop now for them to figure out what is going on.    Luckily I have our extra car here that we keep for Jerry to drive instead of his big fancy truck.  

We don't know yet what we will do tomorrow..maybe go to the local museum here in town.   I am sure it will involve eating!