Cooking Class: Tiramisu & Other Stuff

Another Friday night means another cooking class over at La Vigna. Tonight's menu was another that was not to be missed with tiramisu on the menu. Seriously, it was the only one I really saw when the announcement went out and even now after spending 3+ hours cooking and eating I still had to look up the other things we made....tagliatelle alla bolognese and involtini alla messicana. 

With so many things going on in the kitchen tonight and probably more socializing than what is conducive to truly learning new recipes, I'm going to just show you what we made. Sorry. I'll try to at least track down the tiramisu recipe by the week's end. I really was trying to keep track of what we were doing tonight but once I was selected to dice 2 carrots piccoli I sort of lost track of what else was going on. I mean, don't they have food processors for things like this? (Please, take a moment to appriciate just how tiny I had to chop these suckers.)

That was just one part of the bolognese sauce and once it was done I didn't even see our beautifully diced veggies. Crazy! But it did make me feel better about eating every last noodle off my plate knowing that there were veggies. (Just ignore that slab of butter and the fact that olive oil was also added.)

Next up was the involtini alla messicana,  or what we were calling, sausage stuffed veal. In a method very similar to the last involtini  we made, the meat was rolled up before being cooked up and served with a sauce. This week's though was spicy (that's why it's messicana) and with the funghi, also chopped by me, almost took on an Asia flavor. It had my taste buds very happy because I was eating something that did not taste Italian at an Italian restaurant- go figure. 

Finally, we got to the main attraction, tiramisu. With the cream and "pudding" already prepared, assembly was the only thing required. Using store bought ladyfingers, each was dipped into "weak coffee." Weak because it was double the water used typically for one espresso shot. Yeah. It wasn't that weak...but what's the point of weak coffee anyway? A layer of the cream mixture was added, and then another layer of ladyfingers, this time soaked in the coffee was layered on top. Then the topping was piped on before being dusted with "just a little" cocoa powder.

 

Yeah. "Just a little."  

As for me, the full belly I left with is totally winning over the super soaked coffee dessert so it's time for me to head downstairs with my espresso charged kitty and get to sleep. 

Buonanotte!