We were thrilled to welcome Emily Richards into the Petits Chefs kitchen lab again this week. Emily is a Professional Home Economist with over 20 years’ experience in the Canadian food world. If you were a regular viewer of Canadian Living Cooks on Food Network. you might recognise Emily! This week was her NINTH time working with the boys!
I’m always so pleased when chefs want to come back and work with the Petits Chefs over and over again and Emily is one of those. She’s taught them how to make gnocchi from scratch, strawberry and rhubarb pies, sticky date pudding, how to grind meat and make their own sausages, she showed them how to bake hors d’oeuvres for the holidays, they made gnocchi from her latest book, Per la Famiglia, they made ricotta-stuffed pasta shells and last time she came, Emily showed the boys how to make arancini.
This week we worked with jalapeño peppers to create an easy holiday-friendly hors d’oeuvre. We started out by making the filling…
We mixed salsa with cream cheese…
Added some grated cheese…
And a few breadcrumbs…
Then we prepared a crunchy breadcrumb topping. We chopped some parsley…
Melted some butter and prepared more breadcrumbs…
Then we mixed all that together…
The we started working on “operation jalapeño”. It was serious business and we used gloves! The boys did a wonderful job of preparing their peppers…
(impressive skills, huh?)
The we got to stuffing and topping them…
Don’t these look great?
While these baked, we cleaned the lab and brainstormed other filling possibilities (they are endless – this is such a great holiday hors d’eouvre!). And the boys got to chat about deep-frying a turkey (which Emily was en route to cook, on live TV the next morning!).
After about 20 minutes, these emerged from the oven…
So, so good! Beautiful work by the boys in this last week of school when everyone’s tired. I love showing the boys how easy some of their favourite store-bought foods are to make at home – what better winter holiday activity than to get in the kitchen and cook, right?
THANK YOU Emily for taking the time to come to work with the boys in the lat busy days of December. We hope you’ll come back again soon!
Check out what Emily’s up to by visiting her website and follow her on Twitter @ERiscooking or Facebook at Emily Richards Cooks.
Buy Emily’s latest book Per la famiglia on Amazon (this link should bring you to the Amazon store in or closest to your country) or for free worldwide shipping, buy from The Book Depository.
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Please note: I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. This post also contains affiliate links from the Book Depository. This means that if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price (at no extra cost to you). Thank you in advance!
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Disclosure: I received a copy of Per la Famiglia for review purposes. I was not asked to write about the book or work with Emily, nor am I being compensated for doing to. All opinions 100% my own and I only recommend products that I really love. FULL disclosure: Emily is my good friend too!
Well needless to say, not a SINGLE one of THESE made it home for the ubiquitous Mr. Neil LPC taste-test. 😉
Looks great, boys!
Commendation for the professional chefs who give their time to work with you and the LPCs. I think they probably do not realise the impact/effect they have on these youngsters. I’ve loved reading the various LPC adventures this year.