Hands on Gourmet

I felt like this deserved a separate post from the rest of the San Francisco trip because it was just so fun and I took a ton of pictures.

On Saturday, I took a small group to a commercial kitchen, Hands on Gourmet, for a fun cooking class/competition. We divided into teams and each team was assigned part of a meal to prepare.

Oh, and we had an incredible view of the Bay while we cooked! We left the windows in the kitchen open and a great breeze kept us cool in the hot kitchen

And a feast, we made.

My team worked on making dessert! 

We also made the salad and learned some cool tricks on how to cut up an avocado

Our spread

Look how pretty those avocados look :) I sliced 'em up real nice

The first team made appetizers: ceviche... 

... and these yummy empanadas

Team two came up with some incredible steak and chimicurri sauce 

And the sauce on these potatoes was perfect. I could have made a meal of just that

Did I mention we won? That's dark chocolate mousse, orange infused whipped cream with dulce de leche filled short bread. Those cookies knocked my socks off. And the best part? The dulce de leche was so easy to make! Take a can of sweetened, condensed milk. Put it in a pot of boiling water. Leave it for three hours (you may have to add more water as it evaporates). Bam. Dulce De Leche!

Yay team cooking!

It was such a great experience and I'm glad I'm spoiled enough I got to go.

All of the delicious recipes can be found here: Hands on Gourmet