I Took A Cooking Class At The Texas Culinary Institute In Downtown El Paso

I love to cook. It is my favorite thing to do and anytime I can learn something new I'm totally down to do it. I got the chance to take a class on Saturday night at the Texas Culinary Institute in downtown El Paso and had a blast. It's a new cooking school and they are offering not just classes for people who want to make cooking a career but for everyone who wants to learn about cooking in general.

PERFECT DATE NIGHT
The menu for the Saturday night class included an oregano vinaigrette salad with avocados and cottage cheese, Argentinian Empanadas filled with ground meat, olives, hard boiled eggs and bell peppers, and the meal was rounded with alfajores which are a light butter cookie filled with dulce de leche and rolled in coconut. Sounds fabulous doesn't it? Well it was, let me tell you what. I've made empanadas all my life but I'm pretty lazy about making the pastry even though I know how to, but using the made-from-scratch pastry dough for the empanadas that we had during the class was a game changer. I'll never use refrigerator dough again. The salad was so refreshing but the star of the show was the alfajores. Those cookies will haunt me. Again, a super easy recipe, but the combination of flavors and the lightness of the cookie dough made a rich, delicious cookie that I will find any excuse to make in the future.

NOT JUST FOR DATE NIGHT
Date night classes are great but during spring break kids ages 8-15 can take their classes and learn how to make spaghetti and meatballs, crepes, and even sushi. If you wanted to learn how to bake bread during the pandemic but never got around to it, take their Artisan Bread and Pastry class and bake pastries and artisan breads from scratch.

HOW DO YOU TAKE THESE FABULOUS CLASSES?
You can click here to check out the Texas Culinary Institute website and click through all their upcoming classes. The best thing about these classes is that students at the Institute prepare the ingredients you will use and you can BYOB, as long as you're of age, of course. Cooking, downtown, BYOB, eating. Yup. I'm drooling.

Check out this video of the class I took:

@patriciamartinez1969 Great #datenight idea in #ElPaso #cookingclass #local #baking ♬ original sound - Patricia Martinez