SCHOOL PROVIDES TIPS ON SIMPLE-TO-MAKE RECIPES

Today's cooks want recipes that taste good and are simple to prepare, and don't require an abundance of ingredients and steps. So Southern Living magazine offered tips for the novice and near-professional cook Thursday during its two cooking schools.

Rebecca Kracke and Catherine Hall, food and entertainment specialists with the magazine, prepared 12 dishes before crowds during the Southern Living Cooking School.

The event was sponsored by the Cape Girardeau Area Medical Alliance, the Southeast Missourian and Schnucks. Local charities benefited from the ticket-sale proceeds.

Recipes ranged from appetizers and main entrees to desserts that would be treats for special dinners but easy enough to prepare for a weeknight meal.

Hall also showed the audience how to prepare a table for an afternoon tea party or a lazy summer evening's dinner.

Leisure time is important to today's cooks. They don't want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen, but they like to cook nice meals. A lot of what the show offers is finishing touches and ways to add the Southern Living touch to a dish, Kracke said.

"It's the little things and secrets that we share," she said.

Kracke, who did most of the on-stage cooking, showed the audience the proper technique for peeling and slicing avocados and peeling mangoes, and offered substitutions for baking chocolate and ways to adapt the recipes for "family-friendly" cooking.

While the names of the dishes might have sounded intimidating to some, the preparation was actually rather simple. Ten women from the Cape Girardeau County Medical Alliance volunteered to help with the cooking and food preparations backstage.

"Except for some of the spices, I've got all this in my kitchen," said Barbie Gibbs. And with the exception of shellfish, most of the recipes were full of traditional ingredients like meats, spices, fresh vegetables and fruits.

Each dish was prepared four times, so there were plenty of leftovers for volunteers to enjoy after the show. Guests from the audience were invited on stage during to taste the foods.

Some in the audience were surprised at how easy the foods were to prepare particularly the Peach Melba Pie. The main ingredient in the recipe is a frozen Mrs. Smith's Special Recipe Deep Dish Peach Pie.

Kracke, who used to be a pastry chef before joining Southern Living, said her family often expects her to bring great desserts to family gatherings. But there are times when she doesn't have the time to prepare anything fancy, so she turns to the frozen pie.

"Nobody has to know that Mrs. Smith's helped me along the way," she said as she transferred the peach pie from a foil pan into a pie plate. The dessert is topped with almond-praline ice cream, a raspberry sauce and garnish of mint.

One woman who tasted the pie said she would never have considered buying a frozen pie, but "I think I will become really good friends with Mrs. Smith," she said.

Barbara Wright of Anna, Ill., knows she'll be preparing some of the new recipes she learned at the show. She particularly liked the Shortcut Paella, which could be considered a Spanish version of the Creole staple jambalaya. It is made with chorizo sausage, chicken tenders, shrimp, diced tomatoes, saffron rice and green peas.

"My husband is from Mississippi so I'm always making gumbo and jambalaya," she said. Her friend Mildred Varner of Tamms, Ill., also attended the show. "I thought it was interesting," Varner said, adding that she often watches cooking programs on television.

As each of the dishes were prepared backstage, Kracke and Hall presented the ingredients and showed the audience how to prepare them. Smells of the cooking food drifted into the audience as the onions caramelized for the Pork Medallions with Spicy Creole Sauce.

Laverne Frentzel, a family and consumer sciences teacher at Perryville High School, brought 45 students with her to the cooking school. She hoped that the show would teach the students that cooking isn't just about making favorite dishes but also nutrition and technique.

Some of the students "are creative in the recipes they choose" to prepare in the classes. Cooking "intrigues those students," and the Southern Living show was a way to expose them to new ideas, she said.

During each unit of the course, the students prepared a dish. Perhaps some of the recipes from the show will appear in the classroom kitchens soon, she said.

Attending the show lets the students know "that it's not just one kind of food but exposure to all areas," from preparation to presentation and layout of a table, Frentzel said.