I used my Groupon for a cooking lesson at COOK in Ashburn, Virginia. Since I have been Pescatarian (Vegetarian with fish and egg allowances) for about two years, I really wanted to learn a few more veggie dishes that weren’t too hard to make so I chose the “Veggie Tales” class.
No, I wasn’t lucky enough to find myself living the scene in Hereafter with Matt Damon as my cooking partner so I said yes to each glass of wine they offered throughout the night. And, somehow, I managed to make some pretty good dishes and get home by 930p (geez – I should not be proud of that haha).
Our first recipe was the Roasted Tomato Caprese Salad. The tomatoes should be roasted for 2 hours so the chef, Lucy Ritter, pre-roasted them for us before we arrived to speed things up for us. It was a simple and very tasty dish that I plan to make again tonight as I’m writing this blog post. The picture doesn’t do the dish justice but one of my table partners was a bit of a bossy-knows-everything-about-cooking-and-you-must-need-me-to-tell-you-what-to-do-because-you-obviously-can’t-think-for-yourself kinda person so I was a bit distracted by her. I only put a small amount balsamic dressing on my tomatoes before I snapped the picture.
Check out the Roasted Butternut Squash with Baby Spinach recipe I made next.
Ingredients:
- 12 plum tomatoes, halved lengthwise, seed removed
- 1/4 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil, plus more for drizzling
- 1 1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 2 large garlic cloves, minced
- 2 tsp sugar
- Kosher salt and ground black pepper
- 16 ounces fresh mozzarella
- 12 fresh basil leaves, julienned
Preheat the oven to 275 °F
Arrange the tomatoes on a sheet pan, cut sides up, in a single layer. Drizzle with 1/4 cup of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
Sprinkle with the garlic, sugar, salt and pepper.
Roast for 2 hours until the tomatoes are concentrated and begin to caramelize.
Allow the tomatoes to cool to room temperature.
Cut the mozzarella into slices slightly less than 1/2 inch thick.
If the slices of mozzarella are larger than the tomatoes, cut the mozzarella slices in half.
Layer the tomatoes alternately with the mozzarella on a platter and scatter the basil on top. Sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper and drizzle lightly with olive oil.
Serve at room temperature.
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