Savory and sweet- cooking with honey!

One of my breakout sessions today, at the BBConvention was about cooking with honey. It was hosted by Chef Jim Whalen and was a full on cooking demonstration, complete with taste tests (score!).

In the class he showed us how to make a ton of different appetizers and desserts.

Chef Jim Whalen.

We learned how to make honey and almond nougats, an honey bourbon smoked almonds. We also watched as he mixed eggplants, onions, honey, red wine vinegar, basil, and mint with marinara and served it on crustinis. It was delish. I am not a fan of eggplant and this was definitely on my make-at-home list.

The Agridulce.

On a toast triangle! Yum!

We also had some salmon that had been soaked in bourbon, cured in salt and brown sugar, glazed in honey and then smoked. It was served with honey sour cream and mango chutney. Awesome.

The smoked salmon.

Ginger and honey tea.

Then we had some honey and ginger glazed grilled pineapple with red pepper flakes. Amazing. This was definitely my favorite. He recommended serving it warm over froyo.

If only you could smell these....

The honey-almond candies were divine.

In addition to these new dishes he also showed us how he made a honey ginger combination for tea. It was all so yum. I am going to email him this week and get the official recipes and I'll share them here if you want!

The smoked almonds.