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Home » Reviews » Rouxbe Cooking School Review

May 13, 2015

Rouxbe Cooking School Review

This Rouxbe Cooking School review comes at my three-month mark into the six-month, self-paced, online cooking class. Today we’re diving into the pasta portion of the course!

Two hands kneading dough.

Table of Contents

  • Rouxbe Cooking School Update
  • An Online Cooking Class, Cooking Schools and Interactive Cooking Classes: All Great Tools to Teach and Inspire
  • Rouxbe Cooking School: Second Half
  • Rouxbe Online Cook Course: Task Takeaway

Rouxbe Cooking School Update

It’s been about three months since I began Rouxbe’s Plant-Based Professional Certification Course! Read my previous updates about Rouxbe here.

A hand tossing flour over a work surface.

Before we moved from Boston to LA, I worked for several years in the downtown’s financial district, which was right near the North End. There are literally more than 100 Italian restaurants and bakeries in this densely packed area. I have really happy memories of walking through that area while we lived there, and when I think of Boston, the feel of the North End is one of the things I miss the most.

One year, the department of the law firm I worked at held a half-day retreat at one of the restaurants in the North End. The retreat included a scavenger hunt to buy ingredients at the various small markets dotted around the area for a cooking class we’d take later on in the day. It was fun to walk into each one and look at all of the new-to-me ingredients packed along the walls in the tiny shops, as well as interact with the shop keepers as we figured out what to buy on our list.

A hand kneading dough.

An Online Cooking Class, Cooking Schools and Interactive Cooking Classes: All Great Tools to Teach and Inspire

The hands-on cooking class itself later on that day, of course, was centered around butter, cheese, meat and eggs, so I mostly just passively watched. However, seeing the restaurant’s head pasta maker demonstrate how to roll out fresh pasta using a pasta machine to make cheese ravioli using a Norpro ravioli press inspired me to attempt to try to veganize the entire process myself at home.

If it wasn’t for that two-hour demonstration, I wouldn’t have attempted to make pasta or ravioli on my own in the past couple of years. It just seemed way too advanced and overwhelming of a process. Except that it’s not. I mean, it’s a process, but it’s a completely meditative and relaxing one. The end result is always worth the work, and the work is always just as satisfying as the end result.

Although the inspiration and enthusiasm was there, the intuitive know-how and complete understanding of the process was not. My results were always hit-or-miss because I was guessing on ratios and timing instead of approaching it with complete confidence about how all of the ingredients worked together.

Rouxbe Cooking School: Second Half

So now that I’ve entered the second half of Rouxbe, I was especially excited to see the pasta-making portion of the course pop up on my dashboard.

This time, instead of just watching some parts of pasta dough being made, I learned about the entire process of pasta making in Rouxbe’s highly structured platform.

By the time I set up my mise en place and rolled out my Rouxbe Eggless Pasta Dough, I already had a good understanding of the what and why behind each step of the process, as well as how everything worked together. From learning about how gluten behaves, what impact resting and kneading has on the dough and how to cut it, I didn’t just blindly replicate the process—I understood it. The results? flawless. The taste and texture? perfect. Did I get it right the first time? yes!

Homemade vegan manicotti being prepped on a cutting board.

This completely vegan homemade manicotti was absolutely amazing. Soft but sturdy, it encapsulated the rich and creamy tofu ricotta filling, and held up well under a slather of homemade tomato sauce and a drizzle of cashew béchamel. We loved every bite of this, and the work and effort required was part of what made everything about this task so perfect. Since then, I’ve been making pasta at home and love it!

Rouxbe Online Cook Course: Task Takeaway

My takeaway from this task? When armed with the right kind of expert guidance, I can do more than I think I can, and the end result offers much more than a fantastic dish: it creates a sense of satisfaction that feels just as good as the finished dish tastes.

Stay tuned for another Rouxbe update next month!

Rouxbe generously waived my tuition in exchange for blogging about my experience and sharing my honest opinions about their Plant-Based Professional Certification Course.

You may also like:

Avellana Vegan Hazelnut Cheese
Vegan Bacon Burger
Review of Thistle's Plant-Based Meal Delivery Subscription Service
The Vegetarian Flavor Bible

Filed Under: Reviews Tagged With: Rouxbe Plant-Based Professional Certification Course

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Christine (The Raw Project) says

    May 18, 2015 at 11:03 pm

    Great information and gorgeous pics. The program sounds wonderful, some day! 🙂

    Reply
  2. Johanna says

    May 14, 2015 at 10:30 am

    thanks for sharing all this. Would be a program I would love to do some day! Johanna@woodbury.org

    Reply
  3. Kristina @ spabettie says

    May 13, 2015 at 2:39 pm

    as far as pasta goes, nothing beats fresh. I was a pasta maker at an Italian restaurant in college – such a fun job that frankly, I'd still enjoy! when I make pasta at home, I roll it out on my counter and cut with a knife – truly rustic!

    I love this post – bringing back memories, and the photos are as always, beautiful! I love following your Rouxbe project!

    Reply
    • erinwyso says

      May 13, 2015 at 2:55 pm

      Thanks Kristina! Kneading and rolling out fresh pasta dough is THE BEST, right?!?

      Reply

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