The Chopping Block Cooking & Wine Blog

Lisa C

Chef Lisa graduated culinary school at Kendall College Evanston in 2003. Before Lisa became a chef instructor at The Chopping Block, she worked in numerous restaurants around Chicago including Naha (where she met her husband), Spiaggia, Custom House and opened Acanto in 2014. When not in the kitchen you can usually find Lisa curled up with a great bottle of wine and a good book or eating out at a new restaurant with her husband.

How to Roast Pork Shoulder and Turn it into Hog Wild Recipes

During this stay at home order, I have been trying to be very smart and creative when it comes to grocery shopping. Since March, I have only been to the grocery store twice! Before this pandemic I ...

Beef: It's Wellington for Dinner

I was talking to my brother on the phone recently, and he started asking me a bunch of questions on how to make Beef Wellington. He had seen a video online and decided he would give it a try. This is ...

Fishing Adventure Gets You Hooked on Fish

Now that we are deep into winter and I have to schlep through the snow and cold to and from work, I sit here reminiscing of my wonderful vacation to North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The sun was ...

Tis the Season for Baking

As a savory chef, this may be blasphemous to say but the best part of any meal for me is the dessert. I am a self-proclaimed chocoholic and one of my favorite treats are chocolate truffles. I love ...

Say Cheese... Platters

One of my favorite things to do at The Chopping Block, besides teaching cooking classes of course, is making cheese platters. I know that it may seem like a weird thing to obsess over, but for some ...

A Step-by-Step Guide to Making Chili

When the leaves start falling and the air outside gets colder, I like to make my go-to chili recipe. There is something so comforting about chili to me in the midst of fall and winter. If you read my ...

Food Fit for Football

It's my favorite time of year: football season. Tailgating, Super Bowl parties, eating food with your fingers. How can life get any better? For me, it is all about the food, game and friends. Whether ...

The Great Vanilla Debate

When it comes to cooking with vanilla, there are quite a few choices like pure vanilla extract, vanilla bean paste and vanilla beans. There's also vanilla sugar, infused vanilla syrups; the list goes ...

The Power of Parmesan Cheese

Just recently in a class I was teaching at The Chopping Block, a question was asked about how to finish a risotto without parmesan. To which I responded, why wouldn’t you want to finish your risotto ...

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Lisa C

Recent Posts

How to Roast Pork Shoulder and Turn it into Hog Wild Recipes

Beef: It's Wellington for Dinner

Fishing Adventure Gets You Hooked on Fish

Tis the Season for Baking

Say Cheese... Platters

A Step-by-Step Guide to Making Chili

Food Fit for Football

The Great Vanilla Debate

The Power of Parmesan Cheese

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