Maybe the temperature in Arizona will drop into fall territory some day, however unlikely that seems right now, but the kitchen is switching to fall food, like or not.
If you’re ready for fall cooking classes though Tucson Botanical Gardens, you know just how fun those Zoom classes are, then here’s the fall line up.
09/19/20, 3:00 – 4:30 PST – A Sonoran Breakfast. There’s no better way to start the day than with a trio of Sonoran foods: nopalitos con chile colorado, huevos revueltos con verduras y machaca and tortillas de harina caseras. Tender and tart prickly pear paddles swimming in red chile sauce, finely pounded dry beef rehydrated with vegetables and bound in scrambled eggs and the perfect pairing for them both, soft freshly made flour tortillas.
10/10/20, 3:00 – 4:30 PST – Sonora Hot & Cold: Caldo de Queso y Horchata de Melon. It is a strange thing to have the people of a hot desert love soups as deeply as the Sonoran people do, but who is to complain when the soups are so delicious? This class will cover one these many soups, Caldo de Queso, a soup not for the dairy faint of heart. Cool off after this wonderful soup with a refreshing Horchata de Melon, made not with the flesh of the fruit but with the seeds and inner pulp. It isn’t garbage, it is perhaps the fruit’s best part
10/24/20, 3:00 – 4:30 PST – Sonoran Sweets: Coyotas y Ponteduros. Two of Sonora’s unique sweet creations, the classic piloncillo coyota, a baked tortilla filled with the highly fragrant raw Mexican brown sugar, and the very spherical ponteduro, a solid ball of caramel popcorn seen hanging from racks at many of many of Sonora’s market and street vendors.
11/07/20, 3:00 – 4:30 PST – Classic Pozole Rojo. Join us for preparing a classic pork pozole with chile colorado (red chile) and tender long simmered hominy. This class will cover nixtamalización, the process by which dry corn grains are treated with an alkaline solution to not only improve their digestibility but their nutritional content as well.
11/28/20, 3:00 – 4:30 PST – Tamales de Res Sonorenses. With December approaching it is time to get the tamalera out and clear some space in the freezer: it is tamal-making season. Enjoy these pillowy beef tamales in chile colorado. And while there are many arguments saying it is the filling that makes the tamal, it is a light and flavorful dough which truly makes a tamal as great as it can be.
All classes are $45 and there’s a 20% discount for Tucson Botanical Gardens members. Register through the Garden’s website and take a look at the great line up of classes for this fall. I’m looking at several of these classes myself.
Cooking segments for these classes are prerecorded and played back during class with plenty of time allowed for questions and comments. The class is recorded and available to view for 2 weeks after the original class date.
If you would like a preview as to what the class videos look like, please enjoy this segment from a past class by the title of A Tale of Two Pickles: Escabeche de Chiles y Escabeche de Papas.
Keep an eye out for that Escabeche de Papas video and recipe in the near future.
Cucumbers and limes 