Last month, I attended a 2-week intensive
at the Natural Gourmet Institute (NGI) cooking school.
A few years ago, I took my first cooking class there —
a coconut class where we made an entire meal out of coconut!
I was ecstatic — not only did I people who were
as obsessed as I was about coconut, I found a school with like-minded people and similar beliefs about food.
NGI uses wholesome, natural ingredients to educate their students. Think: pasture-raised eggs, local and seasonal vegetables from the farmers market, high quality organic coconut oil in baked recipes, salads made with sea vegetables and cakes made out of almond flour!
It’s definitely Be Well with Arielle approved.
So when NGI asked if I would join them during their 2-week intensive, I jumped at the opportunity….and it was amazing.
I learned incredible new recipes,
from healthy Vanilla-Cardamom Ice Cream,
and gluten-free caramel cheesecake, to jello made of seaweed and even home-made bread!
I’m so excited about my experience, that I wanted to
share some of the tips that I learned. I hope these inspire you to get into the kitchen… and maybe even take a cooking class yourself too!
10 Tips I Learned at Cooking School:
1. When making a smoothie, treat it like a car – put the liquid (gas) in first, turn it on low, and then add ingredients and increase the speed. And make sure to lower the speed before shutting it off to keep the blade sharp. I LOVE this blender but a $30 one will do the job too.
2. The best way to clean a cutting board: a little lemon or distilled white vinegar with water.
3. Even if you follow a recipe step by step, it may not taste (or look) exactly the same the next time you make it. Every day, two different groups would make the same recipe and sometimes they came out completely different!
So, experiment, take risks, taste along the way and find the uniqueness in each recipe.
4. A sharp knife is safer than a dull knife. So sharpen/hone your knife every time you use it (and wash it after). Here’s a video on how to “hone” and sharpen.
5. Use different cutting techniques to change up the texture and look of a dish. For example, carrots can be sliced into round circles, cut on the diagonal into pretty chunks, chopped into small squares or julienned into thin strips. Try chopping a different way than normal next time you make a salad and amaze yourself.
6. To get rid of the garlic smell on your hands, rub your hands on stainless steel, like your refrigerator, a measuring cup or a pan. Cool, right?!
7. When buying fish, look for these things:
- eyes should be clear and moist, not white and dry.
- stomach should be nice and tight, not loose (ensures that the organs are still in tact and not spoiled).
- gils should be nice and red or pink (not gray).
- smell it – it should smell like when you’re at the ocean – not fishy.
- feel it – the slimier it feels, the fresher it is!
(In the picture below, my fellow students are picking out some fresh fish during our trip to the Union Square Farmers Market)
8. When making your own salad dressing, replace some of the oil with a moisture-rich vegetable (ex. tomato, cucumber, cauliflower or zucchini) and blend in blender. Adds liquid, flavor and nutrients without adding extra oil.
9. Add salt while you’re cooking (not only after). Makes the dish taste much more harmonious vs. too “salty.” The quality also matters. This is my favorite sea salt.
10. When baking vegan, substitute 1 egg for 1 Tablespoons arrowroot + 3 Tablespoons water and voila! Below is a Raw Berry-Cashew Cheesecake dusted with gold and garnished with an edible flower. It gorgeous and delish.
11. Never stir rice while its cooking. Same goes for quinoa. Just stir it up once it’s finished cooking. I like cooking rice in this pot. (P.S How gorgeous is the sushi we made? We colored the rice with beet juice for a pretty pop of color)
12. Lentils and rice cook the same amount of time, so you can cook both in one pot. Saves time and saves you from washing double the amount of pans later on!
13. When you’re making a marinade in advance, never add sea salt to the marinade mixture — it will drain the moisture out and dry up whatever you’re marinating. Add the sea salt after. If you’re looking for ways to cook with less salt, try using sea vegetables, like wakame and arame or dulse flakes.
14. When making pesto, blanch the herbs (ex. basil, mint) for 10 seconds in boiling water, then place them in ice water, then chop. Blanching first heightens the taste and brings out the gorgeous green color. I love this pesto made with almonds and basil, or switch it up and make it with some peas!
15. Food for thought: traditionally, no cultures have ever been vegan. Vegetarian, yes, but not vegan. Interesting, right?
16. When cooking with lemon, use the rind. There are tons of bioflavonols and healthy essential oils in the pith (the white layer). I love making this lemon tea before I go to bed – satisfies my cravings for sweets and helps warm me up for sleep-mode.
17. When sauteeing or steaming greens, add sea salt. Brings out the chlorophyll – which makes the veggie brighter and even healthier.
18. When roasting veggies, leave the skin on to promote steaming inside. It will prevent the veggie from drying out. Here’s my healthy sweet potato fries recipe and below are parsnip towers with white beans in between each layer. Simple, yet fancy.
19. It’s best to use spices in the whole form and then grind them yourself because the shelf life of powders are shorter (only approx 3 months). Some examples, black pepper. Check out this pepper-grinder .
20. Aromatics, like onion, ginger, garlic and chili are best to put first into the pan. It helps to flavor whatever you’re cooking. But, beware, garlic cooks fast, so add last.
21. Smell has more of an impact on taste, so smell and taste while you’re cooking.
And, last but not least…
22. Cooking should be fun, so if you’re not having fun, you’re apparently not cooking properly!
It was really fun and eclectic group of people – from local yoga and barre teachers, to marketing execs from Brazil, nurses from Virginia and Montreal, even a juice cafe owner from the Dominican Republic and a 18 and 19 year-old aspiring college chefs!
Below are some more photos from the 2-week Intensive class. One of my favorite days was when we went to the nearby Farmers Market in Union Square to pick out fresh ingredients for home-made frittatas, pies and salad dressings. See below:
Then, once we got back to school, we created unique dishes using all of the produce from the market.
Each day, from 9:30am-4:30pm, cooked up a storm! Here, we’re plating lunch.
As you can see, we made tons of food, ate tons of food and had tons of fun! 10 entire days of deliciousness.
Hope it’s inspired you to take a cooking class too! If you live in NY or have plans to visit soon, add Natural Gourmet (NGI) to your bucket list. A cooking class is as entertaining as a Broadway Show…and nourishing, too because you get to eat what you create!
A big thank you to NGI for giving me the opportunity to attend the classes.
If you would also like to take a cooking class, they’re offering all Be Well with Arielle fans a special 15% off! Use code: Bewellwitharielle to save 15% (Exp 12/31/15). Click here to view the schedule of public classes.
And, P.S. the next available 2- Week Intensive starts August 17- August 28th (click here) and then one after that is on October 5 – October 16th (click here). They sell out quickly, so I recommend reserving your spot as soon as you can.
I love learning and can’t wait to continue taking classes and perfecting my techniques in the kitchen (and for my cooking shows)!
(Check out my cooking shows here: Glamour Magazine and Healthination)
Have a delicious rest of the week and happy (almost) Fourth of July.
be natural. be delicious. be healthy.
xo
be well,
arielle
