It’s hard to believe that just a few days ago we were tilling our garden.  The first day of Spring was just last Friday and less than a week later came a huge snowstorm in Colorado.  In Louisville, we have had 13 inches of snow and counting, with 10 more hours of snow predicted.  We are excited to have all of the moisture for our garden after a dry winter.

My friend Amanda and I took a cooking class last weekend in Fort Collins at Come Back to the Table taught by Linda Hoffman.  The classes at Come Back to the Table are all small and have an emphasis in local, healthy eating.  We took her Cheap Eats Class in which she still taught us to eat local and healthy but also cheaply.  We had a great time in this class, it is very hands on and everyone got to cook something.

I tried my hand at cooking kale with onions, garlic, and apple cider vinegar on a piece of bread with a bit of parmesan, and it turned out really tasty.  Then for the main course I tried making some chicken scallopini from bone-in chicken breasts.  Linda showed me how to de-bone the chicken breasts and then pound them out with a mallet.  The bone-in chicken breasts you can buy for significantly cheaper than normal breasts that have already been deboned.  The chicken scallopini that I cooked had spinach, tomatoes, and mushrooms along with some white wine.  Because you pound out the chicken it fools you into thinking you have eaten more than you normally would have, and you can use one chicken breast for two people and still feel satisfied.

Amanda and another woman in our class made grilled vegetable wraps with whole wheat tortillas and a creamy sauce to go with it.  They used a variety of vegetables including peppers, mushrooms, eggplant, zucchini and some others.   Since vegetables are much cheaper than meat you can stretch your budget a lot further by finding some satisfying vegetarian dishes to eat.  Another group made polenta cakes topped with shredded beef from leftover pot roast.

The best part of these classes is eating all of the food you cooked afterward and having a glass of wine.  Everything we cooked turned out delicious and it is fun to sit and chat with your fellow classmates as you eat.

You can use roast chicken for many recipes including enchiladas, stir-fry, or soups. (CC) Gaetan Lee, www.flickr.com/photos/gaetanlee/

I got many ideas from the class including using both leftover roast chicken and pot roasts, for stock, enchilada filling, and stir fry meat.  Now I want to make a roast chicken or pot roast this weekend just so we can try some of our new recipes!  If you live in the Denver / Boulder metro area it is definitely worth a trip up to Fort Collins to try a cooking class at Come Back to the Table.  This spring you can take the Cheap Eats class I just posted about or one of many others that are offered including:  Grilling, Spring Vegetables and Salads, or Fearless Fish.  Most classes run $60 with meals included.