There was everything to love about these sandwiches: they were so easy to put together, took less than 10 minutes, were filling and really delicious. We then put together slices of ham and cheese between 2 round breaded mozzarella bites before placing them in the oven to get all hot and melty. Our group, “Team Queso”, first made a honey-mayo dipping sauce. Our first recipe was for “Ham & Cheese Pullaparts”, featuring their Mozzarella Bites. There were recipe cards and all the ingredients we needed to make easy meals with Farm Rich products. We were presented with aprons (for keeps!) and put into groups of five around prep tables in the kitchen at The Gourmandise Cooking School. I could barely tear myself away when they called us into the kitchen.
There were drinks with blueberries and calamansi oranges (foraged from a friends’ yard) and guava and sea foam made from St. His produce and jars of homemade infusions made the whole area smell like a sweet garden. With his signature fedora and tableful of farmer’s market produce I was excited to see legendary mixologist Matthew Biancaniello of “Eat Your Drink”, creating cocktails. I was too busy stuffing my face to remember to take pictures. Presented by Farm Rich, I first walked into a reception featuring Farm Rich frozen appetizers: breaded avocado slices, loaded potato skins, pimento cheese bites, chicken roll ups and veggie skewers. So when I was invited to a cooking demonstration in the Tasty Kitchens I said “OH.YEAH.” I’m completely obsessed with those short cooking videos from Tasty, where everything comes together in under three minutes and I’m like, “I can totally do that!”. When she’s not scouting out new snacks and drinks in LA, she’s perfecting 20-minute dinner recipes, which you can subscribe to at. Toby Lowenfels lives in Culver City with her husband and two toddler boys. I’ll definitely consider adding these recipes to my rotation-especially supplemented by side salads and veggies-and look forward to following the channel for more tips and tricks. Both recipes are perfect for miniature hands and there’s no doubt that my kids would enjoy making and eating them. The second recipe was for Meatball Cups, another decadent, bite-sized take on a traditional comfort food, which took about 5 min to prep and 20 min to cook. Go, teamwork! I stepped aside to check in with my husband and remind him to DVR the Will and Grace revival and, by the time I came back, the snacks were coming out of the oven-gooey and prime for the mayo dip. We broke into teams to learn the first recipe, Ham and Cheese Pull-Apart Sandwiches, which only took about 2 minutes to assemble among five sets of hands. Guests were treated to cocktails served by mixologist Matthew Biancaniello, including ingredients I can’t pronounce, like calamansi, and guided through cooking demonstrations featuring ingredients I can pronounce all too well, like salt, garlic and butter.
I was excited to learn cooking tips, meet new people and be relieved from cleanup/bedtime duty for the night. So of course I jumped at the opportunity to attend a Cooking with Tasty demonstration presented by Farm Rich last Thursday evening at The Gourmandise Schoolin Santa Monica. As a mother of two toddlers, I’ll take all the kitchen hacks I can get my hands on to put dinner on the table (almost) every night. People with more than one mouth to feed are required to cook at a superhuman pace, making the hyper-fast Tasty videos especially useful.
I sent my two top foodie friends, Kristy and Toby, to cover it (and enjoy the evening). TASTY invited to a cooking class at The Gourmandise School in Santa Monica.