By MOLLY DAVIDSON / Staff Writer

MT LAUREL—Say goodbye to the beets and cabbage of winter and prepare your kitchen for the fresh crop of spring vegetables. While buying seasonal produce is simple, preparing the fresh goods can be challenging. Mt Laurel’s Simply Infused is offering cooking classes to keep your recipes as fresh as your produce.

Chef Aimee Bishop’s series of Simply Seasonal cooking classes, taught in the Simply Infused Cooking Loft, cover a variety of recipes featuring a seasonal ingredient. Bishop uses her years of experience as a magazine food editor to create delicious and easy-to-follow recipes participants can recreate in their own kitchens.

On March 22, Bishop’s Simply Seasonal class focused on asparagus, a spring vegetable packed with vitamins and nutrients.

Bishop led the five-person class through three recipes featuring asparagus—an asparagus and orzo salad with Neapolitan herb vinaigrette, dark chocolate balsamic infused asparagus and chicken and asparagus crepes topped with a wild mushroom and sage sauce.

Bishop talked about selecting the best asparagus from the grocery store, demonstrated how to properly trim asparagus and took participants through each recipe. Participants sampled each dish as they were prepared.

“One of the reasons I love doing this is I love feeding people,” Bishop said. “This is what I love to do. This is my happy place.”

In addition to giving participants new ideas to try at home, Bishop also aims to help participants get comfortable in the kitchen.

“I have people who tell me, ‘I can’t cook,’ and I just don’t believe that,” Bishop said. “You are in charge of the food, the food is not in charge of you.”

By the end of class, Bishop had participants handling the daunting task of making crepes.

“That’s why I get people up (to cook) that are intimidated, because I’m showing you that you can do this,” Bishop said.

Simply Infused offers cooking classes in the Cooking Loft every week on Tuesdays at 11 a.m. and Thursdays at 6 p.m. For more information and to view upcoming classes, visit the shop’s Facebook page, Facebook.com/SimplyInfusedofMtLaurel.