fall harvest menu

With our bodies still adjusting to daylights savings {it gets so dark by 5pm!!!}, one way to embrace the coming of winter is FOOD. This weekend, I took a cooking class at the Institute of Culinary Education called Fall Harvest Feast taught by Chef Melanie Underwood. The amazing full menu consisted of: Butternut Squash Risotto; Roasted Garlic Soup {roasted garlics in the upper right}; Root Vegetable Soup; Mushroom-Stuffed Pork Tenderloin; Seared Duck Breast With Honey and Ginger Glaze {searing in action in lower left}; Beet Chutney; Brussels Sprouts With Bacon; Pumpkin Puree {fresh-out-of-the-oven roasted sugar pumpkins in upper left}; Cranberry Upside-Down Cake {sugar glaze and cranberries in lower right}; Roasted Spiced Pears; and Caramel Ice Cream. In a huge kitchen facility, we learned knife skills, prep tips, how we shouldn't measure or use a thermometer, and more...and resulted in a sit-down dinner together with our classmates. Between the pumpkin orange to the fuchsia beets to the golden garlics to the soft orange butternut squash to the red-brown meats - it was not only a feast to our bellies but the fall color palette was also a feast to the eye. I had true food coma at the end...but it was oh, so worth it.