For our third anniversary, we celebrated by taking a cooking class on Friday night at Ann Arbor Cooks. I love cooking, but am pretty much self-taught and watch way too much Food Network. I’ve wanted to take a real live cooking class for a while and I’m so glad that we did!

There were about 16 people in our class, which started with a demo from one of the chefs on staff.  After the demo, we cooked our three course meals in pairs.  All in all, we were there for about 3.5 hours.

I’m a new blogger and need to get the balance of being in the moment versus snapping as many photos as I can. So my apologies for not taking more detailed photos.  We sure had a good time if that counts for anything!

Here’s what we cooked for dinner:

Simple Fall Greens Salad with Dijon & Red Wine Vinaigrette and Garlic-Toasted Baguette Croutons

The greens were baby kale and we made our own salad dressing.  I learned that traditional vinaigrettes are usually one part vinegar to three parts oil.  However, our instructor prefers hers to be more half and half, so that is how we made ours too. Baking our own croutons in the oven was super easy and worth the effort (croutons are missing from this photo, oops!)

For the main course we had Boeuf Bourguignon with Pearl Onions and Mushrooms with Herb-Roasted Root Vegetables

The stew was fun to make because we got to light some cognac on fire during the process! Still considering whether we can try that at home? Sort of scary.  Also, I officially love brussels sprouts now but only if they are roasted in the oven with olive oil, salt and pepper.

And for desert we made Apple Tarte Tatin and our instructor made vanilla bean ice cream for us to enjoy with our tartes.

The puff pastry was pre-made, but I learned how to make caramel which is incredibly easy.

We are going to try to re-create this meal at home in the next few weeks, so I’ll post full recipes with more detailed pictures then.