20-minute meal recipes just don’t cut it when you arrive home to an empty fridge with hungry kids (and perhaps spouse too) who want dinner now. Our curriculum includes menu planning and prioritizing strategies as well as ingredient selection, storage resources, and must-have efficient cooking skills. Participants save time and money, nourish their families and themselves, and gain joyful confidence in the kitchen.

Classes will be held in three 4-hour sessions over three weekends and may be attended individually as well as a series for a discount. Our initial run of From Scratch (the revised version of our “What’s for Dinner?” Kitchen Boot Camp) we’re aiming to start in the first half of 2012. Please sign up for our From Scratch email list for updates if you are interested in attending.

Class One: Making Menus Happen

Cooking starts with planning.  Learn how choose recipes, create reasonable menus, and make efficient shopping lists each week. We’ll talk about how to enlist your families’ help and other techniques to make a sustainable routine of cooking and eating as a family.

Class Two: Work With Your Pantry

How to keep yourself organized in your kitchen and actually use the ingredients you’ve already got at home. Learn equipment  essentials and how to build your collection affordably by prioritizing your needs.   Finally, learn the in’s and out’s of storing fresh, frozen, and dried items to maximize shelf life.

Class Three: Power Cooking

Learn basic, essential culinary skills that will make your cooking more efficient and enjoyable.  Knife skills, basic cooking techniques and vocabulary needed to make any recipe, and information on how to choose and prepare ingredients and meals ahead of time are emphasized   How to store prepped ingredients and fully cooked meals is also covered. Go home with a cooked meal.

We’ll post more details as we get closer to class time. Meanwhile, if you have any questions or topics you would like to see covered, please let us know. We’d love to hear from you!