Long Time No Blog...

  HOWDY YA'LL
    Ok, I am finally back to school! Just finished the third week and already so much to do. BUT! I am happy to report I have still NOT cut myself, WOO!! now I have burned myself more times than I can count but still....haha..no cuts.
    I am in my Advanced Food Prep class and loving it; this last week we covered breakfast. We made pancakes, waffles, bacon, sausage, and most importantly EGGS! =P

I poached my first egg ever, it was way easier than I thought...we used our poached eggs for Eggs Benedict, which is really tasty by the way! We practiced frying eggs and it cracked two dozen eggs all myself..that is a LOT of eggs...poor chickens!


This is Huevos Rancheros: Corn tortillias topped with two sunny side up eggs, salsa roja, and cheese. Oh it was soo good and easy to make!

Quiche! This was just a cheese quiche; which the cust was too crumbly and under cooked but the center was prefect.

So second week was still on chickens but we had moved on to the chickens themselves.....

I now know how to cut up a whole chicken, and debone a whole chicken. This was so much fun, we cut up about 30 chickens and all our meals to be cooked were all chicken. In my next post I will show you some of the dishes we made over the last couple weeks. :)

After "chicken week" we moved on to fish week! Oh! So much fish: Tuna, Flounder, Salmon, Tilapia and Sole.... and I mean whole fish. We had to cut most of it right from the dead fish itself, and I loved learning how that is done.

So to close this post I just wanted to say that I have found one TINY thing i dont always enjoy about my classes and that is....DISHES! Some times the classes "forgets" to wash anything during cooking and then it must ALL be clean right at the end of class..*sigh*..no fun at all. However, that is such a small factor compared to everything else I am getting to learn about that it is not a show stopper for me so I shall carry on!!

Well all, I shall stop here and try to update this more often....*fingers crossed*....Next I shall share my photos of all the wonderful dishes we make!

Buffets!

     This week in class we talked about the In's and Outs of the buffet style catering.....and oh my goodness! There is so much involved, with the planning, food prep, transportation, and the set-up at the location. In class we made our own mini buffet, we set it up and cooked what our chef had preplanned for us. It was a blast!

 

    Our groupd were divided and each given a different food and task to complete. Our meal was oven roasted chicken, veggies, and rice pilaf.

 We also had rolls and cookies from the basic bakers one class over :) they were so yummy! I believe they made peanut butter, oat meal rasin, ginger snaps, and maple bars of some kind.

     My group was in charge of the veggies, which was carrots, celery and broccoli; we started by blanching the carrots and broccoli, then sautaeed all three in clarified butter.

     Clarified butter is made by melting butter and allowing the different componant seperate into the milk solids and butter fat. you then pour off the butter fat leaving the mild solids and now you have clarified butter.

     So we made it, set it up, and then ate it like a real buffet! All the students, our chef, and the other chefs that were there that day were invited to come and eat what we had made....oh boy was it tasty!!

Hors d'oeuvres and Appetizers!

So last Wednesday we had a super fun lab session! We discussed hors d'oeuvres and appetizers. We made canapés, which is a thin piece of toast topped with anything really..but we used chicken...mmmm!! My table made garlic basil chicken,diced with mayo as a bonding agent. We garnished with lemon slices and fresh basil! We also served it with a side of celery and cream cheese, which had a garlic curry seasoning it was very lightly flavored. So fun times had in class! ;)
Oh and over the weekend my mom and I made the BEST potato soup ever! I was practicing my knife drills on onions, carrots, celery, and potatoes do we decided to make soup! It was great, we sautéed the veggies while the potatoes were boiling. Then we added the veggies in with some chicken broth and half & half. It was fantastic! The veggies were crunchy with the rich taste of the cream...yum!!

Fruit Fun!

    So Monday we did a little bit of lecture but mainly we learned about fruit. We peeled cantaloupes and honeydew melons...soo yummy! My favorite part was learning to make a Bird of Paradise :) See.....

 

 

     It was neat to be able to try this, it was hard but sooooooo much fun! It is all from one apple, you start by cutting a small piece off the apple to make a flat spot. Then you slice about a half inch slice after that flat spot and you set that aside. Next you simply take the rest of your apple, flat side down, and make one "v-cut" after another, deep toward the core, until you have as many layers as you want. Do this three times across the front of the apple and you have the body of the bird. The head was the hard part because you have to carve that yourself..and for some one like me, who can't picture things in her head, it's HARD! O_0   You just have to decide how much curve you want in the neck, then carve it out of the 1/2 inch apple slice we set aside earlier, attach it with a tooth pick and you now have you Bird of Paradise! Whooo!  REMEMBER to put at little lemon water on your apple to help keep it from turn brown too fast..nobody really loves brown birds.. :D
     Here are some other pictures of the whole classes work all together, some really good melon baskets.....OH and we got too eat what we wanted when class was over... Bonus!

Pics....

Here are some pictures of my uniform, and then me chopping some carrots in the brunoise cut...So tiny! :D

Drills, drills, drills...

     So the first two weeks of  my Catering class have been mainly full of the Syllabus and the business side of catering. All about how best to set up and maintain a successful business...blah blah blah...right now I don't really care! lol I am totally ready to get in the kitchen and start cooking. :) And this last Wednesday was amazing. We did our first set of knife drills!! WOO! So I learned that a French knife is to be held where the center balance is...so basically put the knife on your index finger so it can balance, then hold it right there and your all set. We cut carrots Brunoise, which is 1/8 by 1/8 by 1/8 of an inch, and potatoes in a medium dice, which is 1/2 by 1/2 by 1/2 of an inch.And let me tell you.... that is so hard to do. You have to simply eyeball the measurements and try to be consistant..phew..BUT on a good note, I made it through my first drill without cutting myself...that is quiet an accomplishment for me! :-P  Well that's all for now...I must go practice!

First things first....

Hey-o!
    So this is where I plan to tell you all about my new adventures in the Culinary Arts. I have to keep a journal for my classes so I thought... why not share my stories...on a blog! So I hope you enjoy it. :)  Posts soon to follow about my first two weeks.