As it gets colder outside, you might find yourself less willing to go out to restaurants, and even feeling a twinge of regret for making a delivery guy bike through the snow to bring you some Chinese food. That means firing up the oven and cooking for yourself. Fear you don’t have the skills to do that? Don’t worry, we found some affordable CourseHorse classes that will teach you to cook, without instructors that are gonna get all Gordon Ramsay on you.
Got a hankering for the spicier things in life? Well first make sure you have some bread or milk handy at home to cool your mouth off, and then sign up for this mole negro class at Red Hook’s Pioneer Works. For $45, you’ll learn how to make the spiciest mole sauce in all of Mexico, and even better than merely getting the gift of knowledge you also get a meal and a glass of mezcal.
Doughnuts are never not good. Seriously, find us a time when you think, “Eh, this isn’t the right time to eat a doughnut,” you can’t do it. Can you imagine if you could have a doughnut whenever you wanted, without ever having to leave the house? Holy moley, that would be great. Oh hey, you can learn to make them at the Brooklyn Kitchen for $75. Don’t have a deep fryer? Not a problem! You can still learn to make Apple Fritters, Chai Spice Cake Doughnuts and Coffee Glazed Doughnuts, but just be ready for your neighbors to start knocking on your door asking for treats.
Pierogis are great, but you may not find yourself in Greenpoint often enough to eat them as often as you want. However, if you take this $32 pierogi class at the Brooklyn Brainery, you can have the pierogis come to you. Best of all, this is a beginner-level class, so don’t worry if you suffer from stupid fingers and don’t feel confident wrapping up a dumpling.
If you’re going to learn to cook Indian food, don’t be satisfied learning to cook one dish. Instead, be satisfied learning to cook five Indian dishes, so you can make a different one each day of the working week. For $90, you can learn to make coastal shrimp curry, Kashmiri lamb kabob, mung lentil curry, dahi okra and pulao.
Of course, if you’re going to be spending a lot of time in the kitchen, you’re going to have to know how to use all the tools of cooking without grievously injuring yourself. That’s likely to happen if you don’t know how to wield a knife, so let an expert teach you at this $50 knife skills class where you’ll learn some basic knife moves and learn how to cut things like onions and garlic without slicing your finger open!