6th Week - Beef

Top left corner: Baked Apple Top of plate: Salisbury Steak, wilted spinach, Roman flat bread, pepper steak covered in pan gravy, roasted potatoes, grilled asparagus, beef stroganoff on egg noodles with peas and carrots, and Chateaubriand with roasted peppers.

Today was beef day. We did not necessarily fabricate beef, because of time constraint and money. The teacher showed us how parts of the beef are fabricated. The thing that did not make me happy today was that we had to cut parts of our day out and some recipes, due to the fact that some students signed up for an event that they had to leave at three for. I'm sorry, but I payed to go to class and learn. Not to rush and accommodate others for lack of commonsense. Students should not be allowed to sign up for events that occur during class time. It is not fair to the other students that come to learn. I do believe that going to events are good for learning experience, but not when you ruin class time for others. I had to get on my soap box, because it is something I strongly believe in. We were supposed to have a knife test today, but it didn't happen.

Team 1 : Pepper Steak, Risotto Radicchio, Grilled Asparagus, (Roasted Potatoes).
The pepper steak was good. The Grilled Asparagus was wonderful. Chef said it was spot on. Yeay! We did not make the risotto radicchio. Instead we made roasted potatoes, because of us cutting class short.

Team 2: Chateaubriand, Chateau Potatoes, Bearnaise Sauce, (Tourned Root Vegetables).
The Chateaubriand was so tender and flavorful. Yum! The teacher made a comment about what happened to the tourned vegetables and the chateau potatoes. Well, we did not have our knife cut test to give the group the potatoes, and they didn't have time to make them in the shape requested.

Team 3: Beef Stroganoff, Buttered Egg Noodles, Peas and Carrots.
The Stroganoff was wonderful. The only time I can remember eating something close to this was when my grandpa made it.

Team 4: Aunt Ruthies' Pot Roast, Roman Flat Bread (Finally came out right), Baked Apples.
Because of the time it took to make Pot Roast we did not get to eat it today, but we will next week. The flat bread came out right today. Along with not having time to let it rise the previous times, they were also stretching the product out to thin on the sheet pan. So, today they doubled the recipe and gave it plenty of time to rise. The baked apple was good. I had never had a baked apple served to me in tack with the core taken out stuffed with raisins and a batter. The only thing I would have done different would have either not served it in a small ramekin like bowl, or maybe have mixed cut apple slices in the raisin batter and baked that in a bowl.

Team 5: Salisbury Steak, Broiled Tomatoes, Wilted Spinach.
Well, I have never really had Salisbury steak, but it looked like a meatloaf patty. Not a huge fan of most peoples take on meatloaf. I am very partial to my mom's which has no added vegetables and the meat is grilled with a yummy homemade BBQ sauce. The tomatoes and Spinach were good.

Made my own Birthday Cake!

Today I finished my birthday cake. It took a little over a week to finish it. Of course I waited till the last three days to bake and put it all together. The longest part were the leaves and the flowers. My leaves were my favorite part of the cake. Yes, parts of it were not what I wanted it to be or perfect. But I'm still learning and practicing. Which is why I made my own cake.
The inside of my cake is the triple layer devil's food cake from the Cake Bible and a spice caramel crunch butter cream. It was absolutely delicious. I was sceptical about combining the chocolate cake and the spices in the butter cream. But many confectioners or chefs pair chocolate and different spices. It worked out great.
Also today I start to practice the classic knife cut, tourne. The biggest mistake was that I did what I thought I remembered being taught. Wrong! I learned that I should look up what I'm doing before I do it. I was practicing the cut the wrong way, and I ended up cutting my left thumb. Boy was that fun. NOT! This is not my first cut, but it is the worst so far. Knives are the one thing that scares me the most, and the fact that you perform this cut in your hand and not on a cutting board. The other thing I dislike is how the teacher has us cutting the onion. We hold it in our hand and carve the root and top end out. We already had one girl cut the area between the thumb and the index finger. Ouch! Well life goes on.

5th week - Chicken

Top left clock wise: Chicken tenders with chipotle dipping sauce and beer battered onion rings, Roasted Chicken with Gravy, Chicken sauté with garlic mashed potatoes, Wing with SE Asian Style peanut Sauce, and in the center Chicken Fricasse with Broccoli.

Today we butchered chicken. The way the teacher showed us was different from what I learned in high school, and it was a whole lot better this way. The first step is to cut the back bone out. Then you pop the keel bone out of the chest. From there you can take the legs and wings off the body, and debone the breast. Lunch was full of chicken.

Team1: Breast of Chicken Saute with Red pepper coulis, Garlic Mashed PotatoesThe chicken was yummy. I would make it again. The garlic mashed potatoes maybe a tad more flavor. We did not make the red pepper coulis. We made the sauce that was with the chicken recipe. It did contain roasted red pepper though.

Team 2: Chicken tenders with chipotle dipping sauce, Beer Battered Onion Rings

The tenders were my absolute favorite. I did not care for the chipotle sauce. I loved the onion rings.

Team 3: Chicken Fricasse with Sauteed Broccoli Rabe, Curly Endive, Apple & Gorgonzola Salad

This was good as well.

Team 4: Roast Chicken with Chestnut Dressing & Giblet Gravy

The breast meat was maybe a tad dry.

Team 5 : Deep Fried Chicken Wings with SE Asian Style Peanut Sauce, Asian Slaw. The wings were okay. I like my wings wet. The Asian Peanut Sauce was complex in flavor, but heavy in my opinion.

Sorry, for the messy plate. We go around a table as a class and hold our late and get food.It's a bit crowded.

A picture of me working at Sucre

I was looking at Sucrés Facebook page and ran across a photo of me. What a surprise! I probably could have held the bag better, but if I'm not mistaken I am making the Kalamansi Chocolates. You can see that some of the cavities are not coated with chocolate. That is because they had cracked. Oops! Somewhere the temperature went wrong. Most likely they got left in the freezer a tad too long. Chocolate, if you don't know, is very temperamental. Any slight change or not paying attention could mess it up. I looked so peaceful.

4th week - Mother Sauces

From top left clockwise: Mesclun Salad with Rasp. Vinaigrette, Roman Flat Bread, Macaroni and Cheese, Broccoli Almondine with Maltaise sauce, Tomato Sauce pasta, Pan fried chicken with carrots and pan gravy.

There are 5 Mother Sauces : Hollandaise, Tomato, Brown, Bechemal, and Veloute. They were classified this way under Auguste Escoffier after simplifying Careme's work. Each of these sauces makes many small or intermediary depending on the types of added ingredients desired.

Each team in our class was assigned a mother sauce to make.

Team 1 : Hollandaise, Broccoli Almondine (roasted almonds, Maltaise)
Maltaise is a small sauce of Hollandaise You add Orange zest and juice to the finished product. I believe it needed a bit stronger orange flavor. Hollandaise is still not one of my favorite.

Team2 : Tomato, Meat balls (pasta)
The group was missing a person today so they did not get to making the meat balls for the pasta. I would not compare this sauce to a store bought sauce. I have never tried making one from scratch so I have no bases to judge off of.

Team 3: Brown Sauce, Mesclun Salad with Rasp.Vinaigrette, Roman Flat Bread
This was the only sauce we did not get to taste today, because of the time it takes to reduce it down. We will try it next week. The Romain Flat Bread which was supposed to be thick came out rather flat, like a cracker. Just did not have time to let the dough rise properly.

Team 4 : Bechemal, Macaroni & Cheese
The mac and cheese was good. I would have loved some more Cheddar in it. I'm not sure I love bechemal sauce. I find it heavy.

Team 5 : Chicken Veloute : Pan fried Chicken with Pan Gravy
This came out good.