Chef Don McMillan Honored at ACF Southeast Regional Conference

We’re all very proud of our very own Chef Don who was recently honored at the ACF Southeast Regional Conference!  

Chef Don who is a chef-instructor at The Stocked Pot Cooking School in Winston-Salem, N.C. was recently awarded the Hermann G. Rusch Chef’s Achievement Award at the American Culinary Federation’s Southeast Regional Conference.  The award was presented at the Conference’s closing gala.  This award, formerly the Hermann G. Rusch Humanitarian Award, honors chefs who have demonstrated the highest level of commitment to both ACF and the culinary profession. Such chefs, through their involvement with and contributions to ACF and their craft, have advanced the culinary profession and ensured the enrichment of students, ACF members and those in the profession. Candidates are worthy of carrying on the proud tradition of the chef for whom this award was named, Hermann G. Rusch, AAC (1907–1997).  Chef McMillan will now travel to the ACF National Convention in Los Angeles, CA where he is a contender for a national award there.

Please join us in congratulating Chef Don in this wonderful honor and wish him the best in his upcoming journey!

Celebrate Our 25th Anniversary – Great Things Are Ahead!

You are our most important asset.  Without you we would not be able to do what we love: teaching cooking classes,  bringing unique and hard to find kitchen items, offering the kitchen products you asked for, affordable catering to the Triad and beyond, and expanding on to meet your culinary needs you can now order specialty cakes, designer cookies and so much more.  To keep our celebration going the whole year long we are offering many amazing specials just for our loyal friends and foodies!

Let’s get started:

• Check out one of our “Bring a Friend for Free” cooking Classes
• Two of The Stocked Pot Graduates Alan Roberson and Josh Pathman offers three FREE cooking classes.  First up – check out “Strawberry Fields Forever“!
• Spend $200 and get a FREE $50.00 gift certificate to our cooking school.  Starting now until April 30th.
• Save $75.00 on Stand Mixers from Viking.  Offer good while quantities last.
• Spend $250.00 on any Le Creuset items and get a FREE 8 qt Le Creuset Stock Pot.
• $25.00 Cooking Classes, one each month discounted from our regular price of $44.00
• FREE Cooking classes on Saturdays.
• “Just ask and it’s yours!”  Save 10% on your total purchases with our FREE in store coupons.
• New cooking school instructors coming soon: new baking classes, wine and southern cooking classes.

Have You Heard of Chef Don’s Book Club?

Chef Don’s Book Club – Once a month Chef Don picks a book about food (not a cook book), selects dishes from the book and recreates them in class.  Join us once a month for a fantastic culinary literary evening of cooking and wine to compliment the food.

This month’s book is:  The Omnivore’s Dilemma

Need a refresher course?

Here are some of the upcoming classes starting this weekend.  There is still some room and if you have never been to a class with us, you’re in for a treat. Who knew learning could be so much fun!

TEXAS BAR-BE-QUE $25 ANNIVERSARY

Forget Apple Pie! Nothing is more American than Bar-be-que, and if it is not pork than Texas lays claim to the best Bar-be-que in America. Chef Don and Andrew have visited some of the best bar-be-que pits in Texas and laid claim to some tasty authentic recipes. As a thank you to our patrons we our celebrating our 25th Anniversary with a monthly special class for only $25. These special classes are designed to show case the best Of The Stocked Pot and will always include complimentary celebratory beverages, as well as some of the best eating anywhere. So join us today when we will kick off our monthly $25 Anniversary classes, seating is limited, and if you forget your bibs do not fret as we have plenty of napkins.

Our menu today is: “Texas Bar-be-Que style”, Brisket of Beef, Leg of Venison, Breast of Turkey, Pinto Beans and Corn on the Cob, with Winston-Salem’s Firehouse #1 “best ever” Cornbread. Recipes for all as well as a wash tub of cold beer. Please note that we only use Texas Pete Hot Sauces, Chef Don’s Favorite condiment.

CHEF MARK FREEDMAN ENTERTAIN WITH FLAIR
		Chef Mark Freedman is no stranger to fine dining in the Triad. Chef Mark has served as Executive Chef at such local eateries as: Chateau Morisette, Chef Marks on Westover, Marshall Street Smoke House and currently leVel 2. His operations have been rated 5 stars by such publications as The Greensboro News & Record and The Winston-Salem Journal. He is known as one of the most talented and creative chefs in the South-East. The Stocked Pot Cooking School is proud to present his talents is today’s class on Entertaining with a Flair, please join us and learn to prepare the following menu items and so much more: Artichoke Rice Cakes with Manchego Cheese, Stuffed Mussels, Pork Empanadas, and as a fitting finale, Chocolate Souffle with a Raspberry sauce. Your ticket to fine dining is only a click away.

From Our Recipe Books: Arborio Rice Pudding

We hope you enjoy today’s recipe! Let us know if you try it and how it turned out!

Ingredients

2 cups water

Pinch salt

1 tablespoon butter

1 cup Arborio rice

3 cups whole milk

4 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Few dashes ground cinnamon

Whipped cream, for serving

Directions

Bring water, milk, salt, to a boil in a medium saucepan, then remove pan from the heat, set aside. In a separate stock pot add the rice, and butter and sauté for 3 minutes, and then add the hot liquid by the cup full and stir until the liquid is absorbed, and repeat the process, until the rice has absorbed all the liquid

Stir in the, sugar, vanilla, and a few dashes of cinnamon and cook at a simmer over medium-low heat for an additional 2-3 minutes.

Transfer pudding to a large bowl and serve with whipped cream and a dash more cinnamon.

From Our Recipe Books – Gluten Free

Gluten, the protein found in wheat, rye, and barley, is the common denominator in most of the grain-based products we eat, such as cereals, breads, and pasta.

Simple gluten intolerance can be uncomfortable, but the symptoms are fleeting, Bonci says. The good news is that gluten intolerance is not a food allergy, and eating gluten does not usually cause damage – unless you have celiac disease.

If you’re striving to cook “gluten-free”, we hope you’ll find the recipes that we’ll be posting helpful! We’d love to hear your feedback.

Gluten-Free Chicken Tetrazzini

SERVES 6

Ingredients

1 lb cooked chicken breasts
8 ounces brown rice or regular rice spaghetti
3 tablespoons butter
1 1/4 cups rice milk
1 1/4 cups no-salt chicken stock
8 ounces sliced mushrooms
2 tablespoons chickpea flour (garbanzo)
1 tablespoon fine rice flour
1 teaspoon potato starch
1 teaspoon garlic pressed
2 teaspoons Italian Herbs
1/4 cup parmesan cheese

Directions

Cook spaghetti until firm.
Rinse in cold water immediately to remove excess starch.
Set aside.
Sauté mushrooms and garlic until nicely browned, and place in the bottom of a 3 qt square casserole dish.
Put spaghetti in an even layer over the mushrooms.
Put chicenin a layer over the spaghetti.
Melt butter over medium heat, and whisk in the flours to make a roux.
Dissolve the potato starch in either the milk or the broth.
Whisk the milk and broth into the roux, and bring to a boil. Stir until thickened.
Pour over all. Top with the parmesan cheese and bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, until nice and bubbly!

From Our Recipe Books

We love to cook, we love our friends and we love to cook with our friends!  We’ll start doling out some of our favorite recipes for you to try at home.. some will be basic “tools of the trade”, others will be more complex.  We’d love to hear your feedback on how you used them. Who knows?? Maybe you’ll teach us a thing or two!

Basic Crepe Recipe    

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons water
1/2 cup milk
3 large eggs
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled, plus some for the pan
1/2 teaspoon salt

In a large mixing bowl beat shelled eggs (with a whip or spoon) water and  milk utill a smooth batter is formed add butter and salt and whip  for 5 seconds more.  Let it stand, covered, for 1 hour in your refrigerator. The batter may be made up to one day in advance.

Heat a 7 to 8-inch crepe or non-stick skillet over moderate heat until it is hot but not smoking and remove from heat. Brush the pan as necessary with butter. Stir the batter, half fill a 1/4 cup measure with it, and pour the batter into the pan. Tilt and rotate the pan quickly to cover the bottom with a thin layer of batter and return any excess batter to the bowl. Return the pan to the heat, loosen the edge of the crepe with a spatula, and cook the crepe until the under side is browned lightly. Turn the crepe, brown the other side lightly and transfer to a plate. Crepes can be made in advance, stacked, wrapped in plastic and stored refrigerated for 3 days or frozen until needed.

A Sampling of Our Upcoming Classes

If you have ever considered taking a cooking class, take a look at a sampling of the ones we have coming up next week!

ADVANCE VEGETABLE COOKERY HANDS-ON CLASS
Our very popular series 101, 201 and 301 had led us to complete our students culinary training by offering a 401 series. Advance Cooking Graduate Level. Chef Don and Andrew will teach our talented students the finishing touches of Grande Cuisine.

Our class will prepare the following vegetable dishes. Spinach souffle, vegetable terrine with fancy vegetables, Puree of Carrots with Grand Marnier, samosas, filled with potatoes, peas and cooked in a whole wheat crust. Fresh vegetable preparation and preservation will also be covered.

BACK TO BASICS SEAFOOD COOKERY 201 HANDS-ON

Properly cooking seafood is all important to enjoying this healthy menu choice. The variety of seafood choices leaves one to quit before they start the process of preparing any new dish. Chef Don will instruct our hands-on students on how to select, store, cook, season, combine, and create the right sauces for a wide variety of seafood. Our menu will include mussels, clams, oysters, scallops, tuna, sole, squid, salmon, catfish and crab. The cooking techniques we will cover are, stewing, sautéing, grilling, broiling, baking, and frying. A variety of sauces will also be prepared to compliment the class menu and of course Chef Don will discuss and you will taste a selection of wines that complete the seafood dishes.

CAKES 101PART ONE

Our resident Cake Wizards, “Two Sisters” have created a series of two classes for the beginner cake bakers. This is the perfect class where you will learn tested tips, and recipes that work every time. Our first class in the series includes baking two different cakes, Chocolate and White cakes. Flavors, fillings, storage, flours, sugars, shortenings, leavening agents and so much more will be discussed and demonstrated. Sign up for both classes, as part two will cover icings and decorations.

Register for any or ALL of these classes by clicking on the titles.  The full schedule is located to the right!

Bon Appétit!

Become a Stocked Pot Fabulous Foodie!

Last month we started a monthly give away for all of our Stocked Pot Facebook Fans.  Every Fan (old & new!) is eligible for a monthly drawing for a free cooking class at The Stocked Pot (value is $44). Then we thought about it.. the only thing that Foodies love more than food is enjoying it with their friends! So we decided that we needed to go back to the drawing board and make the monthly drawing more fun for everyone!

For each additional 50 fans who become our Fan on Facebook, we’ll add an ADDITIONAL cooking class at The Stocked Pot to the monthly drawing! We’re already at one and we’re thisclose to hitting the level. In addition to that, when we hit 500 fans, we’ll add a $50 gift card to use in our store! When we get to 750 fans, we’ll add ANOTHER $50 gift card and so on!  If you’re keeping track, at the 750 fan level, we’ll be up to 10 classes and 2 $50 gift cards!

So if you love food and you’re already a “Stocked Pot Fabulous Foodie” be sure to suggest our fan page to your friends.. (The “suggest to friends” button is in the top left corner, right under our logo) odds will be in your favor that someone you know will get a free class at The Stocked Pot! Maybe you can go together!

We love our fans and our customers – they let us do what we love to do – cook and be with friends!

Andrew

Great News For Our Facebook Fans – Current AND New!

We’re excited to tell you about  a fun way for our Facebook Fans to get a chance to win a free cooking class! We’re going to be giving away one free cooking class a month and all you have to do to be eligible is be a fan.. whether you’re a fan already or just decided to become one.. everyone is eligible!

On the last day of every month, we’ll take all of our fans names and select one of you to come in for a free cooking class. How easy is that and what more can any true foodie ask for??

So, what are you waiting for?? Go and be sure that you’re a fan of  The Stocked Pot on Facebook!

http://www.facebook.com/thestockedpot

Build a Stronger Team Using Cooking?

Corporate Team Building is an effective way to build trust and improve communication between co-workers. We work together, have fun and build relationships between co-workers.

Corporate Team Building Events bring co-workers together to improve communication, hone problem-solving skills, build morale and have fun. Each person contributes their own personal skills to make great food together as part of a team and this becomes the focus for sharing, responsibility and making the most of each person’s individual skills. All teams work toward a common goal with prepping the food using tools of the trade, cooking the food with precise timing and plating the food with an eye for appealing excellence.

Contact us today for Corporate Team Building at The Stocked Pot Cooking School or at your location. We will help you plan your Corporate Team Building event that you and your co-workers will remember for many years to come.
Call us 336.499.5844 or email us at amcmillan@serestaurants.com