6.10.2014

Sur La Table Italian Summer Romance

Happy Tuesday chickies!

I have felt so detached from the blog world these last few weeks.  Any of my teacher readers can relate. The last few weeks are always the busiest.  It has been tough even finding the time to write my posts, much less read all of yours; that should all change come Friday, however!

Today I wanted to share a date night that Bryce and I had this past weekend.  We had talked about taking a cooking class at Sur La Table and I finally decided to just bite the bullet and sign us up for one.


I thought it would be fun to make it a surprise for Bryce so he had no clue where we were going.  In fact, he thought I was taking him to dinner and a movie at Cinebistro, which just so happens to be at the same mall as Sur La Table.  It worked out perfectly, because I even parked by Cinebistro initially to trick him more.  Once I pulled around to Sur La Table, however, he quickly figured it out.

The theme for the dinner was "Italian Summer Romance" which was right up our alley!



The menu consisted of: seared scallops with roasted tomatoes and prosciutto, pork medallions with artichoke and olive caponata, roasted cauliflower with a lemon garlic vinaigrette, and finally chocolate gelato with balsamic strawberries for dessert!


Our chef Brian was a character and had us laughing the whole time!

"Hulling" the strawberries (aka, removing the stems).

Vinaigrette Ingredients



Bryce cooked our table's scallops perfectly! We learned the trick to great scallops is to allow them to reach room temperature before cooking!

Delicious would be an understatement...these scallops (as well as the rest of the meal) were AMAZING!

Caponata brewing in the Le Creuset Dutch Oven...if you don't have one of these, buy one- NOW! I'm particularly fond of this one!

Presentation & Plating is key.

Deeelish!

O.M.G.
The gelato and strawberries were incredible!

As you can clearly see, it was a really fun night!  We already are discussing signing up for another class soon.

I will also have to share some of the recipes with you!

Have you ever taken a cooking class before?

What are some creative date night ideas you've done before?

Have a great day!