Cooking Lesson!...and Arugula Salad with Goat Cheese and Strawberries

Back in April, I auctioned off a La Piccina Cucina cooking lesson to support Yale SOM's summer internship fund. Greg, a good friend of ours, was the "lucky" winner! He and his fiancee Jen came over last week to cash in on their winnings. It was a blast - for me, at least! Greg did great, too.

Greg made the excellent choice of Risotto with Broccoli Rabe and Pancetta. Not only is this delicious, but it's a useful recipe - risotto is a nice, fancy-seeming dish that's actually pretty simple, and really, once you've learned how to make basic risotto, you can really improvise with all kinds of additions. AND, this particular risotto recipe basically also teaches you how to make broccoli rabe as a side.

We also made a quick salad - Arugula Salad with Goat Cheese and Strawberries. Really, the name is the recipe. I wanted to do a salad to show how to make a basic olive oil/balsamic dressing. We used a bag of arugula, about 4-5 strawberries, sliced, and a healthy sprinkling of goat cheese  crumbles. We dressed it with 4 large spoonfuls of olive oil and 2 of balsamic. (2:1 ratio!) If you want the salad to stay pretty, dress the strawberries and arugula first, then just sprinkle with goat cheese. Or, do as we did (after this photo was taken) and dress it all together and mix (it won't look pretty anymore, but the cheese and dressing will coat the salad nicely).

We ended the night with a lesson from Joef on hot fudge (no Indian Ghost Pepper this time, to his chagrin) - probably one of the more fickle recipes we know, but definitely worth the effort.

Thanks to Greg and Jen for bidding on the lesson and for letting me geek out about cooking all night! Can't wait to do it again.