A wonderful day of cooking was in store for a group of volunteers from Good Mews Animal Foundation. Good Mews is a non-profit, no-kill, cage free shelter for cats in Marietta and when my friend Dana asked if I would arrange a cooking day for some of the volunteers, I knew we would have great fun.

My usual menus always include southern cooking but we decided to go for something different for this group of friends. The menu included 2 pasta dishes; linguine with caramelized onions, mushrooms and parsley and penne with corn, tomatoes and caramelized onions. We also made homemade bread, cheese soufflé, arugula salad, and blueberry cobbler for dessert.

I couldn’t let the day pass without teaching the beauty of adding caramelized onions to a dish to add a special twist. We even cooked scrambled eggs with the onions for everyone to sample and then added a small amount of cider vinegar for an added twist.

I think everyone would say it was a fun and delicious day. Click onto all of my links for the recipes to some of the days treats.

Here is the salad recipe:

•  6 cups of arugula
• 2 ripe pears
• ½ cup crumbled blue cheese
• ½ cup toasted pecan pieces

• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/2 tsp. dry mustard
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1 tsp. kosher salt
• 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper