Today was a wine tasting day in Advanced Dining Room class.  To be honest, I don’t really like the tasting days – since I don’t drink I usually end up really bored.  I’m also still really stuffed up, so I didn’t even have much of a nose for smelling all the notes and flavors, which made participation somewhat tricky.  We were each given four different wines…

From left to right – Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Sauvignon.  I’ll tell you what – even without a sip I can still tell you exactly what each one is just by sniffing – even with a stuffy nose! 

While the class swirled and sniffed, I took notes and paid attention to important pairings, and enjoyed my hot coffee and ice water.  To give you a little perspective, our tasting started at 8:15am – gulp. 

Also enjoyed having my friend Rachel sit next to me, because she brought in a tub of apples with some amaaaaaaazing Earth Fare cinnamon raisin peanut butter!

When we finished with wine, we moved onto the second half of today’s tasting menu – CHEESE!  Now this is a tasting I can get behind…

My fear of busting out the camera in front of my (sort of scary) teacher totally vanished when I saw this beautiful cheese cart roll up.  How could I NOT show this to you guys? 

We each got a plate, and a piece of each cheese to sample.  All of today’s cheeses were from FRANCE – ooh la la!

On the left – Roquefort – usually I love blue cheese, but this stuff about knocked me on my back.  WAY too salty – eeccckk.  Next was Camembert – gooey and good, probably my favorite of the group.

On the left – Petit Basque – the only semi-firm cheese we tasted.  It was just okay and pretty mild.  On the right – St. Andre – another gooey one.  Yum.

Last was the Le Chevrot – this was unlike no goat cheese I have ever eaten.  The flavor was really strong, and not in a good way. 

We tasted and used the cheese menus we made over the weekend for homework – isn’t mine pretty?  :)

Overall I was pretty disappointed in the cheeses we tasted.  I am such a cheese lover, but none of these really made me want to lick my plate.  Maybe I just wasn’t feeling it because it was so early in the morning?  Clearly others in my class disagreed…

We broke out into our individual positions and got the dining room all set up for service – so pretty!

Lovely single rose bud vases, arranged by yours truly.   Mom, do you approve?

Each day, four students are assigned the “Chef” position – which means you have to either carve or cook at the (terrifying) gueridon stations.  Luckily this was NOT me today, but the people who did have to cook had to make bananas flambé!  I have to do it again in a few days and I am already nervous about it.

And what was I doing while others were setting the dining room and flambéing up a storm?  I went from my fancy schmancy wine and cheese tasting to the least glamorous spot in the school – the DISH PIT!  Mylan and I were the amazing dish team today, and we rocked it out and got our job done FAST.  Love this girl!

We even earned GOLD STARS for our nametags at the end of class for our awesome dish washing skills.  Yep, you heard that correctly – 29 years old and still excited about a gold star.  For washing dishes no less! :) 

Pretty view of Uptown Charlotte from the classroom windows…

I was ravenous when I got home, and put together two random sampler plates…

Apples and peanut butter.  Kath told me about a study she heard about on her field trip last week, about apples boosting immune system function.  Turns out an apple a day really does keep the doctor away.  You don’t have to tell me twice. 

Gluten free brown rice bread with laughing cow and HONEY drizzled on top – yum.  I am NOT happy that my pricey GF bread is already getting moldy though – I feel like I just bought it.  I threw the rest in the freezer to try to save it.

Washed it down with another Sobe Lifewater – Acai Fruit Punch this time.  Same story – pretty good flavor, but I think they all taste the same.  For some reason I like having these mid-day with lunch, but I think they are too sweet for dinner.

Okay, time to solicit some much needed reader advice.  The time has come for me to retire my stone age Motorola Razr phone (I KNOW!) and join the modern folks by getting a smart phone.  With Casey and the GPS out of town this weekend, I got lost THREE times!  I kept thinking to myself, “if I only had a phone that could get me out of this!” 

Also, I’m on the go all day long, and I’d love to be able to answer blog comments and emails faster, not waiting until I can get home and sit at my computer.  I am on Verizon right now, and I can’t decide if making the leap is worth it.  The biggest problem is that if I leave Verizon I have to give up my number – the one I have had since I was 19 – I can’t even imagine!

SO – the big question is… iPhone or other option?  Verizon has the DROID and now the Palm Pre – both of which are supposedly really good.  But does anyone actually have these phones??

My contract is up, and so is my patience with my forever-dead-battery dinosaur phone. Is the iPhone worth the leap, and the new number?  Help!  :)

Man oh man, where did the day go?  I started off my morning playing travel agent on the phone with Casey, who missed his flight out of Sacramento – not good.  He was originally told that because he was booked on multiple airlines, the soonest they could get him home was Wednesday – what?    After many long phone calls and a shot in the dark that landed him in Denver, he ended up  talking his way onto a direct flight to Charlotte, and he is now schedule to land today 30 minutes earlier than originally scheduled.  Go figure!

Let’s get back to yesterday though, when I spent my day baking away and trying out some fun new recipes. 

I also had lots of fun new ingredients to play with – brown rice syrup, succanat, molasses, and hemp seeds – all things new to me!

First up was Ashley’s homemade quinoa crunch cereal, which caught my eye because ONE – it looked amazing, and TWO – it was both vegan (Casey) and gluten free (me – at least this month!).  I’m not going to repost the recipe (because it isn’t mine!), but head over to Ashley’s blog for the full list of ingredients and directions.  (Her pictures are much prettier anyways!).

I started by cooking the quinoa in coconut milk, and a mixture of ground cinnamon and cinnamon sticks.  It made my house smell amazing!

In the meantime, I filled a mixing bowl with all of the dry ingredients.  I only used 1 tbsp each of the hemp seeds and chia seeds because I didn’t have too much on hand, but I don’t think it made a big difference.  I also ended up using whole almonds because I didn’t feel like chopping them – lazy!

When the quinoa was ready and all liquid was absorbed…

I stirred it all together in the mixing bowl, and then poured it out into a baking dish.  I didn’t have any parchment paper, so I just sprayed the dish with non-stick and said a little prayer.

Licking the spoon = best part of baking.

Don’t judge – my husband has been out of town since Wednesday, and my makeup drawer has not been opened since.  I’m also rocking my little sister’s soccer shirt from the 9th grade.  The dogs don’t seem to mind.

The quinoa cereal baked in the oven at 350 for a little over an hour.  I stirred it every ten minutes or so (and made sure to lick the spoon each time), until it was finally getting a little crunchy around the edges. 

The hardest thing about this was that it needed to cool completely before putting it away.  Usually when I make things, I force myself to put the rest out of sight and out of mind, so that I don’t end up snacking my way through half the stash.  But in a house with wild dogs, food cannot just be left out on the counter top, so clearly I had to keep watch over it as it cooled and cooled.  In my effort to “protect” it, I snacked on what was probably close to a whole cup – whoops!

Ashley, you rock – this stuff is amazing!  I only wish I had made a double batch, since I know Casey will devour it as soon as he gets home.  As vegetarians, it’s nice to have a high protein cereal/granola option that was relatively inexpensive and easy to make.

While my quinoa baked, I moved on to project number two – homemade granola!  Can you believe this was my first time?  Due to the aforementioned baking/snacking problem, I don’t really do much baking.  But I’ve seen too many delicious looking homemade granolas recently, and knew I was overdue to try my own.  It ended up pretty successful!  Here is the breakdown…

Homemade Cocoa Molasses Granola

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups dry rolled oats
• 1/4 cup walnuts
• 1/4 cup cashews
• 1/4 cup almonds
• 2 tbsp cocoa powder
• pinch of salt
• 1 tbsp cinnamon
• 1 tbsp ground flax
• 2 tbsp pumpkin seeds (pepitas)
• 1 tbsp succanat
• 1 tbsp molasses
• 1 tbsp brown rice syrup
• 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
• 1 tsp canola oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

To Prepare:  I started with two mixing bowls – one big one for dry ingredients…

And a smaller one for wet ingredients – check out that molasses!

Once the dry ingredients are all mixed together, the cocoa powder gives it a great dusty look.

I added wet to dry, and then stirred until it was thoroughly combined.

I spooned the mixture into a shallow non-stick rectangular baking dish.  It was probably about a half-inch deep.  Make sure to spray the bottom of your dish with non-stick spray so that the granola doesn’t stick or burn!

Baked this on 325 for about 25-25 minutes, and stirred once in the middle.

The end result is cocoa coated and super nutty granola – delicious!  I wish it had come out a little bit crispier, but I think I may not have let it cool quite long enough.  The key to granola (I am learning) is that you must let it cool ALL THE WAY before covering. 

While I was trying to decide what to make, I realized that the possibilities were endless.  Next time I am going to try mashed banana instead of applesauce and see how it effects the flavor.  I also had a HUGE stash of dried fruit in my pantry that I was really tempted to throw in this mix.  I also didn’t want this to end up incredibly calorie dense, so I forced myself to stop adding things even though it all sounded so good.  Final nutritional breakdown, as calculated through one of my favorite web tools – Spark People’s Recipe Calculator.  Nutrition facts are for 1/2 cup serving…

I was pretty pleased!  Calories are right in line with most granolas, if not maybe even a little lower, and the protein and fiber is pretty high with no added sugar.  As vegetarians, we don’t really eat a lot of natural fat in our diets so added fats are a plus for us, especially good nutty fats like these.  Chocolate is one of those things that seems so decadent, but in reality cocoa powder is only 10 calories per tablespoon.  Just 2 tbsp of cocoa gave this mix a great chocolate flavor, and the molasses and brown rice syrup balanced it out with a bit of sweetness.  I love the nuttiness of this granola, and can’t wait to make a FRUITY one next. 

Let me know if you try this, or if you have a favorite granola recipe of your own!  Off to wait for Casey (!) and hopefully knock out my homework before the rest of this day gets away from me…