Peyton and I love to watch cooking shows and competitions, so when we found out we were spending an evening at THAT Cooking School we were pretty excited. I have grown up in the Twin Cities all my life and I have never been to THAT Cooking School. To be honest, I didn’t even know about it until I got my itinerary for the weekend. But once I read about it I knew it was a place I wanted to visit.
For those of you unfamiliar with THAT Cooking School let me tell you a little about it. THAT stands for Teaching, Heart, and Team building. Created by the Niemer family in Lilydale, Minnesota they took a cooking school and turned it into so much more. They have cooking classes for the littles starting at age 6 years old all the way up to us adults. You can also do team building classes to help improve your team through learning how to communicate, have fun, get to know one another and make some yummy food!
Peyton and I went to THAT Cooking School with a group of bloggers. It was our first night on a press trip that was to last several days. So, for us, this was clearly a team bonding event, getting to know one another. And that’s what we did.
We broke into 5 teams and we each got a basket full of ingredients with a theme. Kind of reminded me of Chopped but without the $10K prize up for grabs.
There was a fully stocked pantry where we could get everything we needed to complete our recipes. We received a box full of hot dogs, sausages, chicken, wild rice, and cornmeal. Our theme was State Fair, so pretty much everything and anything on a stick.
My team consisted of 2 other adults and 2 more children. Together there were 3 adults and 3 kids. When we looked at our basket we could see there was not going to be much the kids to do so we let them go play outside. That meant we were down to 3 cooks! And guess what, my other teammates were not big on cooking. We were in for a challenge! But the best part was, all of us had can do attitudes. So we went for it.
We looked over our basket and thought about what we could make. We came up with a corn dog, sausage with veggies on a stick and a breaded chicken. We only had an hour but we did our best. While we were chopping and dicing we were really got to know each other. In the end, the corn dog didn’t work out and neither did the chicken. It just wasn’t the night for those two items. We tried but the corn dog would not keep the batter on. And we ran out of time to cook the chicken. So that was crossed off our list. But we did have sausages with veggies on a stick!
We ended up serving sauteed summer squash and zucchini with sausage on one skewer and red peppers, green peppers, onion and sausage on another skewer. I think what really made them pop was that we sauteed them in butter with tons of seasoning, then we put it all on a stick and popped it in the oven to get a nice crispy edge.
For a team that shrunk by half and not very experienced cooks I thought we did ok. And the judge thought so too. We took 2nd place! Can you believe that? I nearly fell off my chair when it was announced. It just goes to show you, that if you have a good time, work as a team, when things don’t work out you move on and improvise it all works out. Plus we had a blast!
THAT Cooking school was a night I will never forget. It was unique, challenging and fun. Definitely, something I want to take Peyton back to and enjoy again.
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