So I have discovered this FABULOUS little online website called Groupon…. Groupon is a fun website that offers daily (weekday) “coupon” offers for your city. I subscribe to the Salt Lake City area, but you can sign up for ANY city they offer nearest you.    It’s free to join and you get daily emails with AMAZING offers.  Oh My Heck… and I have spent a fair bit of money on it buying Groupons for fun adventures and savings….

A couple of weeks ago I picked up some gift cards for a make up store here called Apothica at the SLC Gateway shopping center.  Apothica carries the mineral make up that I like using (Bare Minerals) and other fun “Sephora Store” goodies.  Groupon offered $40 gift cards for $20.. you bet your BareMineral bottoms I bought some… can’t beat that kind of make up for 1/2 off!

A couple of weeks prior to that I got this email with a fabulous deal for cooking classes at the Viking Cooking School in Salt Lake City. The deal was $49 for a class normally priced at $135.00.  I originally thought it would make a great present for Brent for “Fathers Day” but then I thought, “Hey, that would make a GREAT DATE!”.. so I bought two gift cards, one for me and one for him and promptly enrolled us in the Grilling Basics class for this past Saturday (June 5).  Go ahead, click on the link, read the description, drool over the menu.. I sure did. LOL! But wait.. I have photos to share… lol!

We woke up bright and early and made the 1.25 hr trek to SLC on Sat am for our 10 am class.  We pulled into the parking lot where they had a smoker already going and a grill already warming up. AWESOME! I could just tell it was going to be a fun day!

Upon arriving we were given our course packets (loaded with recipes and information) and donned our aprons…  We did a little overview of the day and then went to the kitchen to get ready to have some fun, chop, chop, chop!  I’ll just show u a few highlights of the day cuz I took TONS of photos and don’t want to bore you with all the silly shots. Tee Hee!

Here’s the two of us cheesin’ it up before class got going….

Look at this kitchen prep area… wow…  you should see the other half (which I failed to photograph) with all the fancy schmancy stoves and ovens I can only DREAM about owning… wow….

We started off learning to cut onions properly… LOL.. and every one of us cut ours the wrong way… and then we began creating a MOP SAUCE for some delightful ribs we were gonna be making…

We got our ribs ready (they’d been rubbed down with a dry rub the night before by the staff) and went out to put some ribs on the barbie….  We learned how to build a box for woodchips (for smoking) out of tin foil if your grill didn’t come with a smoker box and how to check for proper temperature before and during grilling.  The smoker box and chips smelled DIVINE once they got going.. yummmm!  Instead of using a “mop” to mop the sauce on, we actually used a spray bottle, which is nice because you can keep using the marinade sauce since nothing has touched the raw meat.

We also learned how to use a smoker oven (no pics, sorry) and do a pulled pork roast with the Low and Slow method.  (We had pulled pork sammies for lunch.. Absolutely D-VIIIIINE!! Nom, nom, nom….  We went back in and finished making up several more dishes and marinades and even a dessert…

Here we are watching the pot of coleslaw sauce boil and the grits baking in the oven… is it done yet? Is it done yet? Nope, not yet? How bout now?  Mmmm that smells good! Oh, hey, there’s a photo of the other side of the kitchen, yay!

At the end of the day (around 4 pm) we’d prepared a full meal, and then some… dishes included:  BBQ’d ribs, BBQ’d chicken thighs, Pulled Pork (which we had for lunch), Southern Cheesey Bacon Grits, Roasted Yukon Potato Salad, Carolina Coleslaw, and a Brown Apple Betty.  They also served  (they made ahead of time) these fabulous (according to Brent) Hawaiian Luau Baked Beans.

Did we have a blast? YES!  Was the food delish?  YES!  Would I do it again?  UNDOUBTEDLY!  It was a fun way to spend a date with my hunny and jumpstart the summer cooking season.

~BBQ’in Cheesey Smiles!