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Results for category "NOLA"

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Creole Vinaigrette Salad – Brought to you by John and Hayden (… and Sean)

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Hayden McPherson

Today started out really great, because we went to The New Orleans School of Cooking. The day before (3/18/17) we went grocery shopping for today (3/19/17) and we split up into 4 teams of three. There was a soup team, salad team, entree team and a dessert team. I was part of the salad team, the day before I bought cabbage, spinach, tomatoes, carrots, strawberries, cucumber, and Arugula plants. The first thing that John did was that he cut up the cabbage, while I cut up the carrots and cucumbers. After that we finished up the carrots and we cut the tomatoes in half I also cut up the Strawberries. We were waiting for a little Sean, John and I took the flowers off the stems and then we also took the leaves off and put them into the salad. The spinach that I had gotten had come pre cut so we just put the spinach into the salad. Then our teacher who’s name was Michael helped (as in just made it). He put Creole muster in, Pecan oil, vinegar, salt and pepper into a bowl and just whisked all up. After the salad was tossed and the dressing was put in, John, Sean and I planted the salad and put the Arugula flowers on the salads to make them look good.

When we were just starting

Dan is helping us cut up everything

Look at all of the work that Dan did

The finished salad

Carrot and Corinader Soup

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Aryana Moore

We visited the New Orleans School of Cooking where Micheal taught us about buying local foods on a tight budget. Our group, Juliana, Alexis and Aryana, decided to create a soup. After speaking to the local farmers market vendors, we discovered the recipe for carrot and coriander soup. It was a simple and affordable (under $20) meal that turned out to be quite delicious.

Our recipe called for common ingredients like carrots, coriander, vegetable broth, potatoes and onion. After chopping the vegetables; we sauteed the onions with some garlic, added the chopped potatoes to soften them, added the vegetable broth along with the carrots and coriander. We also added salt, pepper, paprika, and Cajun seasoning for taste. We allowed for the pot to boil until carrots were soft before using an emulsifier to puree the mix. We then let it simmer for 20 minutes before serving with a touch of coriander on top.

 

It was a messy process that left us feeling satisfied and proud of our creation. We are all grateful for Micheal and the School of Cooking and the experience they have provided us. It left us all with more appreciation for the food and culture of New Orleans.

 

To make this on your own follow this link that will walk you through step by step on how to make this delicious meal! https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/7003/carrot-and-coriander-soup

New Orleans Cooking School: Jambalaya For Everyone

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Jeyla Fendi

Today we got to visit the oh so wonderful New Orleans School Of Cooking where we were guided by Micheal DeVdts to organize 5 different meals for our class. All of the ingredients were purchased at the CBD farmers market from local vendors. Our team Daniella, Devyn, and I were in charge of cooking the main dish. We chose (with recommendation) to whip up some jambalaya!

 

None of us have ever made jambalaya before, so we just kind of winged it. Here’s how to wing it our way. You’ll need:

  • 3 large yellow onions
  • 3 celery stalks
  • 3 bell peppers
  • 2 lbs white jumbo shrimp
  • 1 lb andouille sausage
  • any kind of vegetable or meat stock
  • Joes Stuff (Cajun seasoning)
  • 5oz minced garlic
  • dried garlic
  • 4 cups long grain rice
  • 6 red potatoes
  • parsely

Begin by dicing the peppers, onions, celery, and garlic. Then cube the red potatoes. Heat up some vegetable oil in a deep pot, while setting water to boil in an adjacent pot. Add the stock (or bullion) to the boiling water. Set the red potatoes in the boiling water. At the same time, add in the onions, peppers, celery, and garlic. Let saute for around 15-20 minutes, then dump a cup of Joe’s Stuff seasoning.

Chop chop!

By now the potatoes should be almost done. Add the boiling water and potatoes to the deep pot of vegetables. Let simmer while you set up a frying pan. In the pan, add the 1 lb or andoullie sausage and sauté until cooked through. In this particular dish, we had to set aside the meat because we had a few vegetarians in the class. Once in a rolling boil, add in 4 cups of rice into the deep pot and cover with a lid. Let the rice cook in the pot for 15 minutes or so. In the mean time, de-vain the shrimp.

Once done, take the pot off the heat and set aside. Quickly add in the sausage and then the uncooked shrimp and cover with the lid. The steam from the rice will cook the shrimp. While everything is setting, dice up more celery, parsley, and onion.  Add these to the top of the dish, then re cover with the lid. Taste a small sample to add more seasoning if you wish. When you’re ready, get a big serving spoon and stir everything all up. Tadah! You’ve just made yourself some Cajun noms!

Daniella stirring that bad boy!

Our attempt was succesful, and everybody loved the dish. Not bad for our first time!

Team Dessert!

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Rachael Bowman

Today we had our cooking school and our team was in charge of dessert.
Yesterday we had the opportunity to walk to a local farmers market to pick out fresh ingredients for our dish.
We picked out homemade cayenne chocolate and locally grown strawberries. With these ingredients we decided to make a pound cake topped with strawberries and a drizzle of the chocolate we bought. Unfortunately we were having problems melting the chocolate so instead we crumbled some of the chocolate with the strawberries and gave everyone a small slice to try. It was the perfect way to end a five course meal, a little sweet with a kick. We googled a recipe to use for the pound cake which can be accessed by the link below. We also made chocolate covered strawberries with some Belgian chocolate that Michael, our professional Chef and guide, provided for us. Our end result was pretty tasty!

-Rachael, Angie and Katie

https://www.google.com/amp/www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/mamas-pound-cake-recipe.amp

 

3/18/17 Blog Post

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Alexis Marquez

 Today we visited Woodlands Trail Park, we are expected to do most of our service here through restoring and collecting data with the native plants. After Hurricane Katrina the habitat had to be restored and is nowhere near as tall or full as it once was over a decade ago.

Day 2

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Katie Messerly

Another full day in beautiful New Orleans! We spent the morning learning about the history of the French Quarter. On our walk we stopped at the neighborhood farmers market. Afterwards we were given an opportunity to help out a local organization called Capstone. Capstone is this incredible self sustaining group that gives back to their neighborhood. They have developed a self sustaining system, called an aqua culture, to grow crops. Which are then distributed throughout the neighborhood at local gardens for the community to use. They also make their own honey! 

By the afternoon we received a tour of the site we will be performing restoration at called Woodlands trail. This is a deciduous forest which was damaged during the storm of hurricane Katrina. However the forest is still trying to recover. My favorite part of today was learning about the different tree species that we will be surveying within this ecosystem. Luck for us the Mulberries were ripe, we couldn’t stop eating them!

Day 3 of NOLA

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Hayden McPherson

We had another great day here in NOLA, we started the day out by getting some food for tomorrow’s cooking lesson. While we were doing that our teacher gave us a little history lesson about the French corner which was rather fun and killed about 2 hours. After that we went to help a group out called Capstone which helps family grow there own food, enjoyed giving back to the community, then after that we went to the area where we will be doing the bulk of our research and learned about the plants and the procedure. That was about our day. 🙂

This is here we will cook tomorrow (3/19)

Aquaculture area

This is where we will do most of the research

Mingling with John Boutte!

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Jeyla Fendi

After a long day out on the town and the forest, a few girls and I headed to Frenchman street to check out D.B.A and listen to some John Boutte! (Rhymes!)

The Jazz bar itself was loud, but the crowd would shush each other whenever John sang. Every song was amazing! Nothing quite feels more like New Orleans then listening to some good jazz . At the end of his gig we went up to buy CDs, and I lended him my sharpie to sign them! The line wasn’t long initially, but grew rapidly after 15 minutes. I got to sit on stage and chat with him the whole time. Eventually, I told him to keep the sharpie in exchange for a photo! Overall such a good choice. A great end to the third night of our trip.

Us and the sharpie!

Capstone – Neighborhood Gardens

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Daniella Caccavalla

Today, after visiting the New Orleans Cooking School, we traveled to neighborhood gardens called Capstone. This location is ran by David who moved here years ago and began this project with a single honeybee hive. The mission of Capstone is to become familiar with the local New Orleans and to help them get back on their feet. The lower ninth ward was a large agriculture area and when Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005 all of this was wiped out. Most of the families wanted help from people who “were like them” instead of outside help from different organizations. Years after the hurricane, David has managed to turn disconnected relationships to beneficial ones as well as that single bee hive to extensive garden beds, volunteer projects to remodel abandoned homes, and a variety of other things. What is unique about the garden beds at Capstone, is that it is ran off a hydroponics system. This includes a 3,000 gallon fish tank with catfish, Koi, and other fish, and a series of pipes that filter this nutrient rich water into the flower beds and back into the fish ponds. This closed system is sustainable in that families can harvest fish and fresh vegetables all at once using recycled water. 

Below are pictures of the tank and the pipe systems that lead the water where it needs to go.