"PPP" Cooking Class Day: Pizza, Pasta, and Project Pie

- March 21, 2015, Saturday.

- Heaven can come in many forms; one way is through an afternoon of free pizza and pasta. My friend Clarisse, a.k.a. "The Tummy Train" (click here for her awesome food blog) was invited to participate in a free pasta-and-pizza demo cooking class called "Food Tastings," to celebrate the 20th anniversary of ABS-CBN's "Food" magazine. Since she could invite an extra person, she invited me to accompany her. The one-afternoon cooking class was held in Project Pie, Tomas Morato branch. We were both excited since it was also our first time to be in Project Pie..

- We both arrived around quarter to 2, just a few minutes before the event started. The whole restaurant was closed off for three hours just for this event, and it was well-attended by documentation and press people, from ABS-CBN's own staff, to official blog partners like Clarisse' food blog.

A (professional) blogger doing her blogger duties.

A non-professional blogger taker a selfie.

- Food magazine's editor-in-chief Ms. Nana Ozaeta opened the event and introduced Ms. Portia Baluyut to start the pasta cooking demo. Portia is a celebrity chef who was the runner-up of the Lifestyle Channel show "Clash of the Toquen Ones" in 2010, and currently has her own show in the same channel, called "A Pinch of Portia." (I could actually remember seeing her compete in "Clash of the Toquen Ones" back in 2010, and once in a once I get to see her show on TV too. I like her very personal and heart-felt cooking style.)

Ms. Nana Ozaeta.

Portia and her bubbly personality.

- Portia made chicken and chorizo summer cream tomato pasta. The pasta was very light, despite the cream in the sauce. I found it a bit too oily though. To cook the sauce of the pasta, garlic cloves, half an onion, colorful bell pepper and capsicum, parsley, button mushrooms, sliced cherry tomatoes, cooking cream, stewed tomatoes, chicken breast, and Spanish chorizo.

Thank you for free samples.

With Portia.

- After Portia's segment, Chef Nancy Dizon-Edralin from The British School Manila prepared three pasta dishes. She also asked for volunteers to help her out with the chopping and cooking. Chef Nancy was also particularly popular among the crowd because she'd give away kitchen knives as tokens to the volunteers, or those who could answer Chef Nancy's questions to the audience.

Chef Nancy getting a volunteer.

- He first dish, conchiglie pasta with sun-dried tomatoes and goat cheese. The pasta was vegetarian, and since it was an oil-based pasta, it was lighter than Portia's pasta; it was almost like a pasta salad or garden pasta. The pasta sauce was made of oil, garlic, onion, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, white button mushrooms, sun-dried tomatoes, basic, goat cheese, and parmesan cheese. Each bite into the whole cherry tomatoes used in the pasta were also little balloons of surprises.

Teaching her how to properly chop food. It's the girl's birthday by the way.

While the girl was chopping, Chef Nancy gave a short lecture on the different kinds of knives.

Yay for pasta!!

- Chef Nancy's second pasta was an even easier pasta to cook - pasta portobello. The star of this vegetarian oil-based pasta is the fairly big portobello mushroom. Chef Nancy told us that the stem of the mushroom which most people throw away, can still be used in the sauce since it actually had more flavor than the cap of the mushroom. Apart from the portobello, spinach or kale, olive oil, garlic cloves, thyme, parsley, and ricotta cheese were used in the sauce.

Portobello secrets.

Free sample with my intended wacky chameleon eyes.

- The last pasta of the afternoon was the seafood pasta with squid ink sauce (pasta negra.) This pasta was the most complicated among all pastas, because it involved a lot of seafood like mussels, clams, and prawns; Chef Nancy however, did tell us that simpler versions of the pasta can be made by lessening the variety of the seafood used. Apart from the seafood and the squid ink, oilive oil, garlic cloves, onions, dry white wine, parsley, and parmesan cheese were used to flavor the black pasta sauce.

Clarisse and her blogger duties.

Another volunteer.

Pasta negra!!

Yay again for free samples, boo for bad lighting.

- There was a brief break after the pasta cooking demo to prepare for the pizza making demo. Two Benildean culinary graduates, Chef Leona and Chef Claire, who are now affiliated with Project Pie set up the demo area, and demonstrated how to make pizza toppings for an oil-based and a tomato-based pizza.

Chef Leona and her oil-based pizza.

Free samples yet again, and a tray exhibiting some of Project Pie's special pizza toppings.

Chef Claire and her tomato-based pizza.

- Unlike the pasta demo cooking class, this time, we were able to make our own pizza creations (1 pizza per pair,) just like what Project Pie is all about; Project Pie is a restaurant that allows people to make their own pizzas. Clarisse and I made a half-oil- and half-tomato-based pizza that had mozarella and gorgonzola cheese, caramelized onion, sliced black olives, button mushroom slices, picked jalapeno slices and chilis, large tomato slices, cranberry raisins, candied walnuts, and chopped cilantro, and of course, prosciutto slices. I thought our pizza was awesome, until I saw someone else make pizza with a mountain of ingredients. I don't know if their pizza tasted great, but it sure was a feast for the eyes.

Saucing up our pizza.

Picking out ingredients; I was asking Clarisse for some of her preferred toppings as she took my photos.

Fake drama.

Again, chameleon eyes.

"Could you hold this for me??"

Making our pizza; Clarisse was helping me decide on how to do it as she took my photos.

I was the only one with the glove, so I was doing all the "dirty" work.

"You can't see me." - John Cena. LOL.

Someone else made this pizza. I'd like to have a bit of it....but how?? :)) :)) :)) :))

Our delicious masterpiece to end the day!!

- Clarisse and I had our pizza boxed since her driver arrived to fetch us, and I was able to eat my half of the pizza in the car. It tasted great, and not too overwhelming. Clarisse and I had so much fun in the cooking class, especially making our own pizza, so I think we're  both looking forward to our visit to any one of Project Pie's branches again in the future. Thank you ABS-CBN Food magzine for giving us a wonderful opportunity (and thanks Clarisse for tagging me along again to another one of your interesting blogger-related food adventures!!)