My First Live Cooking Demonstration Was A Success!

I have quite few cooking videos under my belt at this time and I feel fairly confident doing those. Last week I had my first live cooking demonstration in front of a group of people. I will tell you that I was so nervous the day of that I couldn’t eat! Almost nothing get’s in front of my appetite but this time my nerves did. I was busy all day long prepping food and putting the final touches on my Power Point presentation on batch cooking. Which by the way, was the first time I even made a Power Point. I barely had time to practice my presentation. I ran through it one time in front of hubby Tom while he ate his lunch. Then we spent quite a bit of time packing everything up for the food demonstration. We had so much stuff it took 20 minutes just to pack the car.  We had Instant Pots, the Vitamix, mixing bowls, utensils, all the prepped food, trays, handouts, paper goods, name tags, extension cords, computers and more stuff that I can’t even think of right now. It was so much fun!

Nutmeg Notebook
Cooking Demo

In the foreground is my friend Bethany Davis who is a PCRM food educator and she was telling everyone about the PCRM Power Plate. Your plate should be full of fruits, grains, legumes and vegetables! This is for optimal health and to prevent food related diseases like heart disease, high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, cancer and a host of other medical issues including obesity.

Nutmeg Notebook
Food Demonstration

Once I got started talking my nerves went away and I had a great time! It helped that I had friends in the audience – there is something comforting about looking out and seeing friendly faces that are smiling back at you.

Curry Split Pea Soup
Nutmeg Notebook

The first thing I made was this Curry Split Pea Soup. It’s the first recipe I made in a pressure cooker when I got mine years ago. It uses some basic ingredients that I always have in my pantry and my refrigerator. This freezes well too!

California Quinoa Mango Salad
Nutmeg Notebook

The California Quinoa Mango Salad is my copy cat version of one they sell in the Whole Foods Deli. See the recipe for ideas on how to make this and stay compliant on Chef AJ’s Ultimate Weight Loss Program. This salad gets rave reviews and is perfect for pot lucks. It is one of those salads that holds up for days so make it on the weekend and use it for lunch through out the week.

Creamy Balsamic Dressing
Nutmeg Notebook

One of the most difficult foods to replace when you adopt an oil free whole food plant based diet is an oil free healthy yet tasty salad dressing. The Creamy Balsamic Dressing recipe has become one of the most popular recipes on my blog! This is so delicious you won’t miss your oil based salad dressings any more!

Batch Cooking Presentation
Nutmeg Notebook

Once the cooking demonstrations were over and everyone was enjoying their tastings I presented my Power Point presentation on Batch Cooking. That got the conversation flowing and people were asking awesome questions. We had a nice discussion going on the benefits of batch cooking, the many different ways to accomplish it and of course I shared how batch cooking looks at my house. To find my blog posts about Batch cooking again just click on the Recipe tab at the top of the page, click on Plant Strong on the drop down menu, this takes you to the navigation page where you can click on Batch Cooking. Scroll down that page to find all of my posts on batch cooking and there is even a video on my Nutmeg Notebook You Tube Channel you can watch.

Teaching people how to cook and eat this way is so rewarding. Once I figured out how to cook whole food plant based this lifestyle became so much easier. It is a wonderful thing to be able to pass this information forward and make it easier for other people who are just learning how to make this lifestyle change. Tom and I are going to start holding cooking demonstrations in our home. The next one is February 17th and will be Scrumptious Soups and Salads including a couple of no oil salad dressings! If you live in the Sacramento area I’d love to meet you and have you in one of my classes!

Be sure to see my Amazon Recommendations Page. You can access it anytime by clicking on the Shop tab at the top of the blog page. It contains a lot of my favorite things! When you buy items through my Amazon links you help support the work here on the blog with out any extra cost to you. Thank you for your support!