Cooking Courses

No matter what your personal living-off-the-land dream looks like right now, and whether you have 100 acres all to yourself or you live in a city apartment, Pioneering Skills for Everyone: Modern Homesteading will bring you closer to that dream than you ever thought possible. In 24 exciting lessons with field demonstrations, you will learn how to grow a wide variety of produce in raised bed gardens or in back porch containers, the basics of soapmaking, how to pickle or ferment vegetables, the fundamental hand tools you will need for any project, and so much more. Your guide, Professor Greg Pryor, knows every facet of modern homesteading and is clearly excited about the subject, presenting the information in clear, step-by-step language. Not only does Professor Pryor hold a PhD in zoology and serve as Professor of Biology at Francis Marion University in South Carolina, but he also lives on a 130-acre homestead and was raised in a rural setting in a home his father built with his own hands (and where he still resides today). Homesteading is not something Dr. Pryor learned from a book. His experiential, hands-on approach makes Pioneering Skills for Everyone more than just an intellectual approach to homesteading and gives you the real-world experience of living off of the land—no matter what that means for you personally.

• You will be able to use the four methods presented, which are separately available for purchase as paperback books

In the 30 lessons of The Complete Guide to Baking Bread, you will learn the secrets to making dough and a wide variety of breads in your own kitchen. You’ll follow along at your own pace through four sections, as three renowned chefs demonstrate every step of the way: Zoë François, Michael Kalanty, and Richard Miscovich, all expert bakers, authors, and culinary educators. Their obvious skills and passion for their craft, step-by-step instructions, and ability to clarify the science—as well as the art—of bread baking will have you making bread in no time.

Professor Roy Benaroch of Emory University School of Medicine provides just the direction we need to answer important questions, look beyond media hype, and more in The Skeptic’s Guide to Health, Medicine, and the Media. In 24 fascinating lectures that address the most important health issues of our day, Dr. Benaroch shows us how to recognize the good reporting that provides balanced, accurate, and well-sourced information and the bad reporting that is incomplete at best and purposely misleading at worst. You’ll learn how to ask the questions that take you past the headlines and beyond the way health news is typically reported.

• Interpretation and understanding of instructions
• Choice of raw materials
• Evaluating equipment
• Understanding the science of cooking
• Decorative techniques
• Research and collection of recipes
• Testing and modification of techniques

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

• Describe the mechanics of cooking, and in particular baking.
• Investigate the behaviours created as they cook, the cultural role that baking plays in life and how to become better cooks.
• Research and collect recipes that they want to try based on being able to evaluate the written instructions.
• Learn how to ‘read’ or interpret a recipe to see if it is workable, and to annotate it, to improve it
• Reflect on failure if it happens, assess possible causes and modify techniques

• Business Acumen
• Decision-Taking
• Entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurial skills
• Food and Beverage industry
• Restaurateur
• Wine taster
• Healthy cooking
• Healthy eating

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

• Explore the importance of food processing in the journey from farm to fork to understand how crops are converted into nutritious and appealing food items for consumers.
• Evaluate the foundations of nutritional advice provided by governments by applying scientific knowledge about nutrition and considering factors that influence decision-making when it comes to food.
• Analyse the biological pathways of digestion to discover how different nutrients travel and are absorbed by the body.
• Apply New Product Development (NPD) principles to design a new food product that responds to a market need, which can also provide health benefits and appeal to the senses.

• Flood cookies neatly and smoothly
• Build on a base layer of icing with different flooding and fill techniques
• Use stencils for clean, cute designs
• Use a combination of techniques to create complete cookie designs

Learn to prep, plate, and pair recipes that wow guests. With 13 restaurant-inspired dishes designed for home cooking, you’ll learn how to build elevated courses from appetizer to dessert using everyday ingredients.

You'll learn how to:

• Make two kinds of fresh pasta dough: egg and flour/water
• Form two pasta shapes: cavatelli and orecchiette
• Properly cook and plate your pasta dish

In The Mayo Clinic Diet: The Healthy Approach to Weight Loss, Donald D. Hensrud, M.D., M.P.H., shares practical tips to help you implement the behavioral changes needed to lose weight and keep it off. In 12 engaging lectures reinforced by explanatory visuals and exciting demonstrations, you will learn about setting your caloric goals, food prep shortcuts, developing a physical activity plan, and tracking your progress. But this course also will take you a step further as you learn how your thoughts and emotions affect your weight loss, including:

• determining whether or not this is the right time for you to start a weight-loss program
• how to identify your personal motivation to lose weight
• why perfectionism doesn’t work
• taking responsibility for determining which changes you’re willing to make and how you can modify the Diet’s suggestions to meet your goals
• identifying your weaknesses and triggers so you can adjust your plan accordingly
• the crucial interplay between guilt and forgiveness
• how to identify appropriate personal goals—short-term and long-term, outcome, and performance