HOME
News
Classes
Catering
Free Recipes

See what I can do for you!

Gourmet Menus Appetizers
Salads
Main courses
Soups
Desserts

Oonagh Williams of Royal Temptations, offering monthly cooking classes at Not Just Kitchens of Bedford, NH

2006 Class Schedule

• Mini Filo pastry tarts with caramelized onions, cream and Swiss cheese.
• Freshly made crèpes filled with turkey breast in a cream and wine sauce. Crèpe making is often approached with trepidation, but when you know how, they turn an ordinary meal into something extraordinary. Imagine crèpes filled with shrimp and crab for your next party or Crèpes Suzette, the fabulous dessert of orange liqueur butter filled crèpes which are flambéed.
• Mild Goat's Cheese Salad with apples, grapes, pecan toffee and a honey, vanilla and balsamic vinaigrette. The men devour this as happily as the ladies. I created this for a weekend of demos at Costco in Nashua as Business Member of the Month.
• Apple and Craisin Galette. Rich French sweet pie crust (pâté sucre), made in a pan and rolled out while still warm between plastic wrap. Pastry is wrapped around a filling of apples, craisins, butter and sugar. So simple but fabulous tasting.

• Mini filo pastry tarts with pears, topped with varying amounts of blue cheese and pecan toffee. Even non lovers of blue cheese will enjoy these. During a taste testing in one of my classes we all agreed we preferred the slightly sweeter flavor and crunch of pecan toffee to chopped pecans. You can make the pecan toffee in November and keep extras for December (if it isn't discovered and eaten before then).
• Shrimp and Crab Bisque. A rich, creamy mild tomato based soup with shrimp and crab. When I experimented with this, my son thought it was for clients not for Saturday lunch. Only you need to know how little time you spent in the kitchen preparing this, but your guests will be impressed.
• Chicken Drummettes. I use the mini drumsticks, not the annoying bony wings, in a homemade barbeque sauce and I can never make enough of them.
• Taco Cheese Log. Cream cheese, cheddar cheese, salsa and spices made into a log and normally covered in chopped nuts. Served with crackers. Very familiar flavor in a different disguise.
• Tiramisu Napoleons. Crispy puff pastry fingers, scattered with sliced almonds sandwiching a Mascarpone cheese mixture with plenty of Kahlúa and cream. One of my students made these for a party and other guests thought they were store bought as they looked so beautiful, but wouldn't bother to eat them until they were told they were home made.
• Mini filo pastry tarts with chocolate ganache. They have been called addictive and they are!

Proposed 2007 Class Schedule

• Mini Filo pastry tarts with cream cheese and sun dried tomato pesto (non garlicky for Valentines, but see the red color.)
• Asparagus and Shrimp in an orange vinaigrette. Super elegant, made in advance but couldn't be more straightforward to make, once you're shown how.
• Quick Boeuf Bourguignone made with Sirloin Steak in an onion, mushroom, red wine and herb sauce. Only about 1 hour cooking rather than 3 hours.
• Served with Orzo Risotto with onions, garlic, bacon, Marsala wine and smoked cheese. Risotto made with Orzo pasta cooks far quicker than Arborio rice risotto.
• Raspberry Almond Tart. A rich shortbread base with raspberry preserves topped with a thin almond cake layer and sliced almonds. Looks like the product of a French Patisserie but one of my most popular recipes with clients.

• Mini Filo Pastry tarts with Irish Cheddar cream sauce topped with asparagus tips (green you see).
• Irish Soda Bread with imported Smoked Salmon. Please don't mistake my soda bread for the abominations in some local stores. Mine are moist, no metallic tang from the baking soda and definitely no caraway seeds. This is the bread I grew up on not white Wonder loaf. And of course, topped with sweet butter and smoked salmon.
• Irish Chicken. A dish I created as a wedding present for people of Irish descent. Boneless breast of chicken with a bacon and herb stuffing to replicate the Roast Chicken we used to have at my Aunt's farm in Tipperary on a Sunday. I serve it with a cream, mushroom and sherry sauce. My aunt would never have approved of the Sherry.
• Kahlúa Tipsy Cake. A bundt cake that is saturated (once cooked) in a coffee and Kahlúa syrup and then smothered in whipped cream enhanced with Kahlúa or Baileys, with chocolate curls on top. We would make 16 inch square versions of this cake for weddings in England.

• Mini filo pastry tarts with mascarpone cheese and freshly roasted red peppers.
• Mandarin Almond Salad Salad greens topped with cooked bacon, almond toffee and mandarins in a sweet sour dressing that's wonderful.
• Roast lamb with a garlic, mustard and herb crust. Butterflied imported roast lamb. Many people don't like lamb because domestic lamb can be very strong tasting and doesn't compare to Welsh or Australian/New Zealand Lamb. I find once people are introduced to imported lamb, they're converted. Butterflied means opened flat for cooking, so a leg of lamb cooks in about an hour. Served with roasted garlic (learn my easy way), smashed potatoes with plenty of cream of course.
• Lemon Cake with lemon liqueur and whipped cream. Italy produces a wonderful lemon liqueur called Limoncello that really lifts an ordinary lemon cake to a higher level. In season, we would scatter the cake with fresh strawberries, raspberries or peaches.