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On a cheery Saturday, a group of bloggers and I headed down My Private Chef Studio at Tras Street (just off Tanjong Pagar mrt!) for a basic cooking class to prepare our very own antioxidant meals!

But of course, before the chef starts cooking, the chef has to be fed. Lovely muffins from Sugar n Spice, super famous ones if you're near Tanjong Pagar Plaza you have to give it a try!

Muffins are best accompanied with tea :) Major plus as Gryphon teas are currently my favourite!

Chef is very satisfied already. Hehe!

We were then introduced to the new Prevage anti-aging range specially formulated for ladies who want to prevent the effects of fine line and wrinkles, more so than to treat them before it's too late!

Featuring their new cleanser which preps your skin to get maximum benefits from your beauty regimen and also gently removes any residue make up, as well as their eye serum which claims to minimizes the look of signs of aging and is clinically proven to reduce the appearance of crows feet in 15 minutes. Will share more in detail in another post after I've tried it for myself! Excited!

The Cooking Demonstration

As a kid, I vaguely remember accompanying my mother to cooking classes, she'd leave me in a corner to read my books and then hour later, we'd go home together. In the middle of her class, being a curious child, I'd walk up to her to look at what she was doing just to catch a whiff! Cooking has always fascinated me and my tummy has definitely benefited from my mum's improved skills!

Like a real chef

The REAL chefs teaching us how to slice onions efficiently. Unfortunately he was too pro and too fast I couldn't remember how he did it. How did he make everything look so simple?! Guess practice makes perfect.

After all the ingredients were sliced, to stir them up in a pan until the aroma comes out!

"So this is how you do it..."

Then, blend using this blending blade thing to mash the food up a little. This definitely looks too dangerous for young kids to play with.

During the demonstation, Chef gave us many tips, and one was to remember to add lots of salt to the water when boiling pasta so the flavour comes out! Hope mine turns out just as good~ so...

Let the cooking begin!

The first step before you begin cooking is... to read the recipe. Know which to prepare and slice up first, before freaking out while already cooking halfway.

Chefs on standby when any lifelines are needed to be used.

The first dish - Cabbage, red beet and orange salad didn't require any cooking, but the important bit was how to de-skin an orange. Now, I've eaten oranges all my life and the only de-skinning I know how to do is peeling the skin off a mandarin orange. However, we were NOT provided with mandarin oranges so all of us were stuck. Some sliced the oranges in half while hoping to peel the skin off, while others just procrastinated and left that for later.

Chef came to help us, mortified by our lack of knowledge, and then taught us the right way to peel the skin off (how were we to know?!)

The right way, is to slice a small amount off the top and bottom of the orange, then use a knife and carefully slice the skin off. *crowd goes "OHHHH"*

Since there were some marks on presentation, I decided to place my orange slices around my cauliflower, vegetables, beetroot etc :) One down, two more dishes to go!

The second dish - Whole Grain Spaghetti Nests with Vegetables, had wayyy more items to prepare and slice up. I sliced my celeri into cubes instead of sticks, and had to recut mine LOL. Once it was done, we threw all of it into the pan, just like what the chef did earlier! If Yan can do it, so can you! (Reference to an old TV show catchphrase)

If you're wondering what's in those cupcake tin holders, that's vinegar and olive oil!I also cut my zucchini into pie shaped ones instead. For kicks. After mashing the vegetable mix to form a puree using the blender (it was fun!!), we had to cook them altogether with the pasta!

Was taught a neat little trick on how to slice basil prettily. roll them together and slice them thinly, sideways! That's me trying my best. If you've done it correctly, they will turn out pretty and curly. Place everything on baking paper, decorate, wrap, and throw into the oven. Dish number 2, done!

Everyone hard at work!!

There was barely enough time for dish 3, which was a simple rocket salad and cheese, but I rushed it out. The best part of the dish WAS THAT YOU GOT TO PLAY WITH THIS.

I've sat at enough sushi counters to know the trick of making aburi sushi. I just HAD to try it out for myself, supervised, of course.

It was funny because I was just about to blowtorch the cheese in the picture above, when the chef freaked out and asked me to STOP because I would've burnt all the vegetables as well. #quickthinking

So one of the helpers helped me transfer the cheese onto the cutting board instead, to blowtorch. Which was really fun!!! Until... the cutting board started to get a bit burnt. Thankfully it could be cleaned off!! So don't ever blowtorch on a cutting board or near vegetables!! #lessonlearnt Guess I'm ages away from making my own aburi salmon. sob.

After it was all done...

Quick picture with everyone's successful dishes! Successful in terms of presentation, I can't be held responsible about the taste.

Finished result!

Here's a photo of my first 2 dishes. I didn't know we could take out the pasta from the baking paper. Hence mine looks brownish and greasy. Oh well. My pasta design was inspired by Squishy, my rabbit who would looove all these greens provided today!