Cooking lessons from Chef Mark Davis Jr.

I recently bought a Living Social coupon for Canvas Personal Chef Services. We had Chef Mark Davis, Jr., come to the house to give a cooking lesson. So I asked my neighbors Kelly, Tanya and Karine to come join me. We had a great time. I found out that Canvas offers many different service options.
They can be found on this web page.
http://www.canvaspersonalchefservices.com
Chef Mark will even come and work as your personal chef and cater to your specific dietary needs. We really had a fun time and learned a lot.

We learned how to give that mesquite flavor to salmon even when cooking indoors.

And we made a wonderful tartar sauce to go with it.

Broccoli Cranberry Slaw

And roasted potato packets

It's nice to try something different and to learn new ways to cook great food. I've had really good experiences with Living Social coupons. Just go to http://www.livingsocial.com to join.

Ice Cream Pot - great way to serve ice-cream at a party

Here is a really good idea for serving ice cream to kids whether its for a party or just a fun dessert. You take a small bucket (I got these for $1 at Target) and a pin wheel. The idea is to make it look like the pin wheel is in a bucket of dirt. Kids think it’s cool.
First you wash the bucket out thoroughly and fill it with your preferred ice cream or sorbet then top it with crushed chocolate cookie wafers. You can simply stick the pin wheel into the bucket and Wella~

I made these for some kids down the street. One is allergic to dairy, soy, and gluten so I made his with a dairy, gluten and soy free product I got at Whole Foods. Now, instead of crushed cookies (which you can find gluten free at Whole Foods) I opted for chocolate mint marshmallows by Kraft for Jack ~ Little Owen needed a dairy and soy free dessert so he got some of the same ice cream as Jack did but with the chocolate wafers on top. Ellis can eat anything so he got it all. If you really wanted to make it extra fun you could even add gummy worms to the pot.

You can also buy some small clay pots (wash, wash, wash) and put a little tin foil in the bottom first to prevent the ice cream from melting through the hole and instead of pin wheels put a big artificial flower in the pot. I served this to my husband with coconut gelato and chocolate wafers. Cute.

It’s always amusing to experiment and have fun with the ordinary everyday things. It makes life interesting and helps to create memories and maybe even traditions! I hope that your summer is filled with lots of little surprises ~:D

Figs- They are ripe NOW

The fig is more than a newton cookie. The fig is the most talked about fruit in the Bible yet many people have never taken a bite of a fresh fig. It’s true - the fig can efficiently take the place of fat in baking! Many people believe that it was the fig that tempted Adam and not the apple. I don’t know about that but I do know that figs are ripe and in season so it’s time to start getting to know the fig. 1/2 cup of figs = 1/2 cup of milk when it comes to calcium. You can dry figs and they will keep for months that way but I prefer to make them into compote and freeze them for later use.
This is how fig compote is done.

You take your fresh figs - I get them from a neighbors tree and I get permission to do so - and take off the stem and top of each while I wash them under running water. They are very sugary and sticky to deal with so the running water helps.

I put them into a pot with sugar (a pound to a cup) and slowly cook the figs down on very low heat. This takes about 2 hours. That’s it.

I put some on Brie with toasted pecans and bacon bits for a concert we attended at Chastain Park.

You can also put some on ice cream or homemade angel food cake.
You can wrapped figs in prosciutto after stuffing them with blue cheese for the perfect appetizer. Although considered a fruit, the fig is actually a flower that is inverted into itself. The seeds are the real fruit.
So try a fresh off the tree "flower" and discover the wonderful flavor of a fresh fig - it’s more than just a cookie.