My first Italian cooking class

When my cell phone pinged me to say I had a new message in my inbox, I couldn't imagine that it was an invite to an Italian cooking class. There were some cancellations to a class that afternoon and I was lucky enough to get a spot. And for $5, who could beat it? So off i went to the Arts & Crafts place on post for my class. We were introduced to the Italian instructor and given a page with our menu for the day. There was a picture of cute little ladybugs on the front and a list of other menu items. I was excited. It turned out that we were going to make some Italian hors d'oeuvres.

Our first order of business was easy. We had some Italian loaf bread that we rolled out flat. Then we spread cream cheese on top and laid on some speck, it's like cooked italian bacon. When that was done, we rolled up the bread lengthwise and moved it to a piece of plastic wrap, where we wrapped up the roll and tightly pinched the ends of the plastic. Then it was placed in the refrigerator for later to be sliced. It turned out to be cute little pinwheel sandwiches.

Next we made the coccinella, which is Italian for ladybugs. They apparently are a symbol of good luck in Italy. To make these, we used sliced pieces of toasted Italian bread. Next you spread cream cheese on top, place a parsley leaf on top and then take a small tomato (preferably cherry), slice it in half, and place it facing down on top of the parsley. The you use a paring knife to poke a few holes in the top of the tomato, inside those holes you place peppercorns. A word of caution though, unless you really like peppercorns, you may want to remove them before eating. Then we sliced a black olive in half and placed that in front of the tomato, forming a head for the ladybug. The remainder of the black olive was sliced and used as decoration for the legs. Since mayo here comes in a tube, we put two dabs on the head of the ladybug for eyes, and voila, coccinella!

The next use of tomatoes included boiled eggs. Here you sliced off the ends of the boiled egg so you have a flat surface to lay it on and another flat surface on top for a cherry tomato half. Again, dab with a little mayo or maybe your favorite ranch dressing and there you have it.

Of course, no appetizer would be complete without bruschetta. We again used our toasted bread and rubbed garlic on it, then we added on top a mixture of cherry tomatoes and fresh basil. That was easy and simple. i would have preferred some mozzarella on top, but that's just me.

The last appetizer we made consisted of grilled vegetables, specifically eggplant and peppers, but you could use zucchini and other veggies too.The eggplant was hand washed with olive oil and grilled until soft. The same was done with the yellow and red bell peppers which were quartered and cleaned. Once the eggplant was done, we again added a thin layer of cream cheese, salt and pepper, and rolled it up. We then place a toothpick through it and added the cut peppers underneath.

Our last task of the day included an Italian drink called Spritz. This is comprised of a wine called Prosecco, another wine called Aperol Spritz, and then a splash of mineral water (frizzante they call it here). The recipe was two parts Prosecco, 1 part Spritz and a splash of mineral water. Intoxicating yes, but okay in taste.

Thus now you have it, my first Italian cooking class and I think we did well.