05 May

4 Comments

Arrabbiatta Pasta – wHy I haVe EaTen thiS for 3 MoNths StrAight!

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This will sound crazy, but this pasta is so good that I have “lit-erally” (as it is said by Rob Lowe, in Parks and Recreation, for those of you that watch it) eaten this pasta every single Saturday for the past 3 months.

proof that the simplest things in life are often the best

Okay, it’s not just because it’s that good – which it is – it’s because I have been training for a marathon since January. In our training, we are encouraged to find a meal that works for us and practice eating it before our long Sunday runs. Once you find what works for you, you sort of feel compelled to stick to it because you can’t make too many chances when you are out there running for 3-4 hours.

Arrabbiata sauce, which is Italian for angry, is a sauce made with garlic, tomatoes, red chili flakes and olive oil.

chilies, onions and garlic are slowly cooked to bring out all of their goodness

That flavor base is then deglazed with white wine and then rich tomato passatta is added. The final sauce is fiery red in both color and flavor. Don’t be afraid though – it’s not too hot and you can totally control the amount of chilies you add anyway.

fiery red and full of flavor

This sauce goes well with any type of pasta. It also happens to pair well with many other dishes. For instance, Chicken Parmigiana and this sauce would totally be friends :-)

This afternoon (our big carb loading meal) is the last time I will be enjoying this pasta dish for awhile because tomorrow (Sunday May 6th) is race day! Actually depending on when you receive this post, I be currently running as you read this. Wish me luck!

Hope you all enjoy this dish as much as I have.

Ciao for now,

dawn

04 May

2 Comments

Happy or Feliz Cinco de Mayo + Recipes to Help You Celebrate!

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For many people, Cinco de Mayo represents a day in which they have an excuse to over indulge in beer, tequila shots and greasy chimichangas. However, Cinco de Mayo, is about much more than delicious Mexican food. Cinco de Mayo, which is Spanish for 5th of May, commemorates the day, way back in 1862, that the Mexican army won the Battle of Puebla. In winning this battle, the Mexican army foiled Napoleon III’ s plan of invading and controlling both North and South America.

Para mucha gente, la celebración del Cinco de Mayo es sólo una excusa para tomar caballitos de cerveza y tequila, así como disfrutar de grasosa, pero deliciosas chimichangas. Sin embargo, la celebración del Cinco de Mayo representa mucho más que exceso y comida. El Cinco de Mayo se conmemora la victoria del ejercito mexicano sobre el francés en la famosa Batalla de Puebla. Gracias a esta victoria, la Francia de 1862 desiste en su intento de establecer una monarquía en México para así invadir y controlar el continente Americano.

Delicious Mexican Buffet pic from my last trip to Tepotzotlan, Mexico.

Of course, most of us readily accept any reason to celebrate and eat good food and share drinks with friends. So, with that said, here are some Mexican recipes to celebrate in style.

A pesar de que el Cinco de Mayo sea una fecha para conmemorar algo tan solemne, la mayoría de nosotros vemos en este día la oportunidad de celebrar con amigos compartiendo con ellos buena comida y bebida. Así es que, una vez dicho esto, a continuación les dejo algunas recetas de comida mexicana para celebrar con estilo.

Here’s one to start the day Huevos Motuleños

Huevos Motuleños - refried beans, corn tortialla, soft fried egg, ham, peas and fresh salsa

Salsa de Molcajete - roasted tomatoes and jalapeño salsa

Salsa Verde - tart tomatillos, avocado, onion and fresh cilantro

Salsa Borracha - meaning drunk salsa because it's finished with a touch of lager beer

Mexican Corn - mayonnaise, queso fresco, chili powder and lime juice

Scallop Ceviche - thinly sliced scallops, lime, garlic, red onion and jalapeños

Red Rice - Mexican rice made with fresh tomatoes and stock

Tacos de Pescado | Fish Tacos

Enchiladas Verdes – roast chicken, corn tortillas, tangy salsa verde and Oaxaca cheese

Puerco Pibil - Slow Braised Melt-in-Your-Mouth Pork

Happy Cinco de Mayo, Everyone!

Felíz Cinco de Mayo a todos. Salud!

Daniela

29 Apr

12 Comments

Why is one eyebrow always higher than the other?

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Okay, re: the eyebrow thing…I’ll let you in on a little secret, when I’ve worked a really long day, one of my eyebrows goes higher than the other. So pretty much, it’s always up there.

The real reason I’m writing is to let you know that Monday, end of day, is the deadline to have your previously-paid fees credited toward a Lifetime upgrade.

For the hundreds of you that took advantage of the offer, congratulations! You will NOT regret it. The response to this model change was overwhelmingly positive, so thank you for your suggestion and for your ongoing support.

IN ADDITION: Please check out the above video. The first part is in response to the questions that many of you have asked over the last few days. The last part of the video is about Rouxbe for Life. What’s that you ask? Well, many companies tell you what they do, how they do it, how they do it better than everyone else, but not all companies tell you why they do what they do – why they exist as a company. This video explains why we created Rouxbe (“Engine of Contribution – where we take a percentage of our proceeds and help better the world we live in”).

Have a great day everyone. Thanks again for your support.

Joe

26 Apr

11 Comments

The Cooking Slot-Machine a.k.a. Learn the Skills Behind Cooking

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You may be wondering what the “Cooking Slot-Machine” is all about. I’ll get to that in a minute. In a nutshell, it’s related to how we teach here at Rouxbe and how you should think about the cooking school lessons. Why? Because we do things differently!

As an example, instead of teaching you how to make a braised dish, we teach you how to “braise”. Braising is a cooking method or process that involves a number of extremely simple techniques. Once you learn these techniques, you will be able to braise anything you like (well not oatmeal, but hopefully you get my point).

Our most recent lesson on How to Stir-Fry is another great example. In this lesson, we teach you about the main components of a stir-fry and how they should be prepped. Then we take a simple or basic stir-fry and focus all of our production energy and expertise to teach you the process and techniques behind stir-frying. At the end, we try and help you understand that once you get the process down, it’s a piece of cake (or a “wok” in the park…sorry, I couldn’t help myself). You will be able to make an endless number of stir-fries, simply by changing up one or more of the components. BUT, the execution and techniques are EXACTLY the same. This is where cooking gets really interesting and where recipes provide great inspiration.

Okay, this brings me to our “Cooking Slot-Machine” (drum roll please). Daniela, who is one of our fearless camera/editor peeps, came up with this fun video. It’s really just to emphasize that once you know what you are doing, the world of food and ideas is at your finger tips (or in this case, the “play button”).

Remember, once you learn these skills they will be with you for the rest of your life (just like riding a bike). View each lesson on Rouxbe as it should be viewed – as a process. This process is one that you can trust, one that involves many small, but simple techniques, and most importantly, one that can be replicated to create hundreds, even thousands of dishes. You’ll be very proud of all of your hard work and dedication as you “wok” through it…sorry, I couldn’t help myself again!

Tell us what you’ve created with what you have learned from our Stir-Fry Lesson. And, if you’re not a student at Rouxbe yet, email me directly and I’ll set you up if you promise to try it out.

Cheers!
dawn

p.s. Here are some Rouxbe recipes to help guide and inspire you.














After practicing all of these dishes, be proud of all of your hard work and dedication!

Cheers!

dawn

Filed Under: Miscellaneous, New Recipes, Video

Tags: , ,

19 Apr

154 Comments

Lifetime’s Back Baby! Announcing the Great Culinary Top-Up Campaign for Existing Students!

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I know, I know…I can hear the customer comments already.

For those of you that might not know or remember what I’m referring to, we used to sell Lifetime Tuition Plans but canceled them for good back in September 2010.

So what happened you ask and why are we offering it again?

Over the last couple of years, not a week has gone by where we didn’t receive questions, comments and concerns from existing and prospective students that didn’t like the fact that they would lose access to their Rouxbe resource at the end of their payment cycle. While this is not unlike any recreational or professional cooking school where you go to a class, learn what you can in the time allocated and then back at home you are on your own, we have to say that we kind of agree.

At Rouxbe, we believe that culinary education can change lives. This is what we set out to do when created the site. We teach life skills and once those are learned, you have them for life. However, it is true that from time to time you may need a “refresher” to remind yourself of the key indicators and key steps necessary to perform a variety of cooking skills.

So that’s it. We agree. We hear you. We’re responding. But that’s not all…

Starting May 1, the Rouxbe Cooking School becomes a:

Premium Online Lifetime Cooking School.
Once you’re in, you’re in.

There will be two new tuition purchase options:

1. Lifetime Tuition Plan for $399.95 USD
(payable upfront in one single payment, save $100 off option #2)

2. Lifetime Tuition Payment Plan for $499.95 USD
($99.95 for the first month and then $33.33 for twelve consecutive months, cancel at anytime)

One other very important note:

Coming very soon, we will only be accepting a limited number of students each month. The reason for this is simple. Rouxbe never attempted to be the largest cooking site on the web. We set out to provide the very best online culinary education. And like any school, teacher to student ratio is a critical metric contributing to a student’s successful learning process. Rouxbe is now in over 180 countries, and in addition to the thousands of students we teach, we provide instructional video services to over 12,000 culinary students, work with universities, colleges, and provide training services to hospitals, hotels and restaurants. To ensure that we maintain the highest educational standard, we have decided that it’s critical that we scale our instructor team alongside our students, but this means limiting the number of available seats in the classroom. Stay tuned for more details regarding this, but rest assured that if you are already a student, you will, of course, continue to have full access to the school and our support services.

Introducing Learning Paths and “Certificates of Completion”

Over the next few months we’ll be rolling out our Version 3.0 Rouxbe Cooking School – an extremely ambitious and innovative site update that will completely transform online learning in the cooking space.

We have spent the last 18 months developing a new learning path feature. Essentially, learning paths are curriculum-driven classes or paths, that will walk students through our lessons and recipes to a variety of culinary end goals. For you, maybe this means that you’d like to follow the same path that a professional chef takes or maybe you’d just like to learn more about Culinary Basics, Knife Skills, Healthy Cooking, or Italian Cooking, etc. Each learning path will come with a specific task-by-task path guided by a Rouxbe Chef, additional assessment features and a “Certificate of Completion” at the end of the class.

Follow this blog, twitter or facebook as we’ll be releasing more information about this new feature over the course of the next two months.

As we move into our 7th year of operations, and the upcoming 4th anniversary of the “official” launch of our online cooking school, there is no doubt that 2012 is going to be an exciting year of content and feature releases. We hope you will agree.

Again, if you’d like to participate in this “Top-Up Campaign to Lifetime”, please monitor your inbox over the next week or contact our student support team.

We’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback by adding a comment below. Has Rouxbe helped you become a better cook?
Respectfully,

Joe Girard
Co-Founder of the Rouxbe Cooking School