{Over The Weekend} Cooking School, Cakes and Cat Tipis

I know it's already Monday again, but I wanted to share my past two weekends with y'all. {This post is weekend #1.} A friend of mine gave us tickets to a Market District Cooking School Class {as her husband was sick and couldn't go}, so we headed out to Robinson Township two Friday evenings ago. The class was structured around tasting the intricacies of wines and beers with food. 

Just Starting

We arrived in the large classroom above the wine and beer area of Market District, and sat down among approximately 30 people. A good size class, I thought. {If the class is too small, it can seem awkward at times!} We were offered appetizers of grapes, cheeses, lobster and red pepper dip, and water crackers.

It's a bit pricey at around $35 a ticket, but you get food, drinks, information and good company. {Go Pittsburgh food community!}

Visual Evidence

I promise to stop blowing up your Twitter feeds, Google Readers and Facebook pages about the Giant Eagle Market District and Creta Farms event after I share this one last thing: You can catch photos and a video of the event on the Acrobatique blog, The High Wire. 

My thoughts on my demo: Someone should have told me to turn down the bubbliness!  I’m fairly sure I seemed like an idiot, and I apologize to bloggers everywhere for giving us a {potentially, likely eventual} bad rap!  I was just happy to be there!  Honestly.

Cooking Demo: That's me on the far left! {Courtesy of Acrobatique Creative}

In other news, this weekend was full of prepping for the aforementioned event, then was followed by recouping with Husband through the aid of homemade Thai food and movies on the couch.  Now it is Monday again, and it’s back to the grindstone.  Tonight is a laundry night, so you might get a two-fer posting today!

How was your weekend?  What did you think of the video?

{Recipe} Kielbasa and Caramelized Onion Quesadilla

Since you're all dying with suspense for my recipe for the Giant Eagle Market District and Creta Farms "I Heart Picnics" Event, I'll share it before I pop over to the Market District in Robinson Township.  If you're in the area, please stop by!  I'll be there from 11:00am-early afternoon. 
I sincerely hope I don't botch this demo!

{Featured In} Quoted by Acrobatique!

Exciting things - 
Earlier this week I was quoted by the folks over at Acrobatique's blog, The High Wire, talking about the Creta Farms and Giant Eagle Market District event on Saturday.  

If you need a refresher on that, click here.  Here's a few quick tidbits from the post:

The ‘Creta Farms I Heart Picnics,’ blogger event is open to the public. All are encouraged to attend and sample recipes from their favorite blogger chefs using Creta Farms product ingredients including AHA certified Hot Dogs, Bologna, and Sausage. After the event, Creta Farms will donate $100 to the American Heart Association in each participating bloggers’ names.

“Picnic food is all about convenience and the taste of comfort without running into boring-land,” said Ashley Oates, writer of Pittsburgh food blog A Dash of Spectacular. “Creta Farms’ line of ready-to-eat sausages, hot dogs and bologna is a healthy way to bulk up your options for picnic fare without going overboard on slow-cooking ribs or other heavy food.”
Oates has been selected as the lead blogger to demonstrate her recipe at the July 14th event. The Market District chefs will also be on-site to prepare recipes submitted from other participating bloggers including Food Collage, B-More Healthy, Annie Oakley’s Kitchen, and eatPgh. The recipes will be announced on the Creta Farms Facebook page at (facebook.com/iheartcretafarms) a week prior to the event.
When selecting a summer recipe to submit, Blogger Ashley Oates recommends something that is “easy to make, tastes great, and is light enough to still eat a decent portion without regret!”

You can read more of their blog post here.  Now that you've read about it, come see me at the event! I'll be there around 11:00am, but I think the event starts closer to 12:00pm noon.

{Hint} I'll be making tasty samples of my picnic food, y'all!  I'll post the recipe Saturday before the event so you'll know what you're getting into.

Recipe Writing

Happy weekend, y'all!  How did you spend your weekend?  Husband and I installed our new A/C unit, did some errands, had some good friends over for dinner, cleaned up the house, and did a smidge of grocery shopping.  We picked up a few items for an exciting opportunity I have coming up:
Last week a representative from Giant Eagle invited me to participate in their I Heart Picnics event they're hosting with Creta Farms in honor of National Picnic month, which is July! The challenge is simple: Come up with a recipe featuring Creta Farm's lower fat sausage, kielbasa, hot dogs or bologna, then perform a demo of your recipe for Market District customers on July 14. Sounds fun, yes?

Thanks to Market District's supplies gift card, I picked up a ton of ingredients to recipe test with. I'm thinking of taking a multi-country dish that'll be perfect for taking to a picnic. These are the items I'm working with:

Any ideas on what I'm making? 

I'm so thrilled to be able to demo my recipe at the Robinson Township Market District - I went there to shop for ingredients, and it's huge! They even have a Williams-Sonoma style area you can buy any cookware or piece of equipment you'd need. I also passed by an area where they were hydroponically growing lettuce...there in the store!

Anyway, I'll post more information on where I'll be in the store for my demo - I'd love to meet you!