This was the week in which the chefs learned about improvising – when we found ourselves shorthanded in the kitchen and our oven didn’t heat.

Working with 3 chefs instead of 5, everyone busily cut, seasoned and mixed. So an hour into class, once we had cut the veggies for the steaks, cut and seasoned the sweet potatoes, sugared our strawberries and mixed the biscuits, we realized the oven remained cold. Now what??? We bagged the potatoes for the chefs to cook at home. Sadly we couldn’t salvage the biscuits. But we melted the cheese over the veggies on the stove top, warmed the rolls in a frying pan and still had strawberries and yogurt for dessert. Meal saved! The girls enjoyed the cooked mushrooms, though not the raw texture.

And they agreed this would be an easy, tasty meal to make at home, but unanimously said mushrooms are NOT a substitute for the real cheese steaks they have enjoyed in the past!