*Dances*

Today was the last A La Carte day!!! All I have left is a make up lab for Butchery, and then written finals and I am out of kitchen block!!

Today I was on soup. That is the best station ever. Make soup. Check. Ladle soup. Check. Garnish soup. Check. It's over so fast because it goes out as soon as the ticket comes in, so as soon as every ticket came in I was done, basically. :D Wooooo! Of course I went around and helped the other stations, and cleaned, but that is way less demanding than sitting at your own station.

Okay, I will talk about yesterday in Desserts now.

It was the practical final, of course, and we had to make a dessert of our own choosing, and then make a dessert using whatever ingredients she wrote down at the beginning of class. She wrote Chocolate, Raspberry, and Almond, but I'll get to that later.

The dessert I chose was a Pecan & Apricot Roulade. :) I chose it because I've been wanting to do a roulade this whole time, plus I knew it was quick to make (it only took me an hour including baking.)

The hardest part, of course was rolling it up. And really, it wasn't that hard, I was just freaking out because a little bit of the cake was sticking to the parchment paper as I was rolling it. But when it was rolled up I realized I could just smother it with powdered sugar and it'd be fine, so that's what I did. xD

Purty, huh? The sauce is apricot. :) I just cooked the jam I used for filling with added water and strained it. It's such a beautiful orange color!! :D <3

Okay, so like I said, we had to make SOMETHING that involved Chocolate, Raspberry, and Almond. I'm not going to lie, I wanted to make something I knew wouldn't take a ton of time or be seriously difficult. So I made a tart with Almond short dough, Chocolate ganache, and Raspberry sauce. :)

Ta-da!

All in all, I got a 96 for the day! Very happy with my 96. :D Some people were still there after 4:30... I felt bad for them. She deducted a point for every minute you were still cooking after class was supposed to be over. :O So I feel smart that I chose these things, because I was done with time to spare, and by the time I got done cleaning and out the door it was 4:29. xD

Well, that's it for the CCI kitchen. I still need to take plenty of lecture classes to get my degree. I may post, I may not. My favorite part has been posting pictures, so I suppose I could start experimenting at home and post those, while talking about boring lecture classes! Who knows?

TTFN!

Time to stop ignoring the blog!

Only a few more weeks left, really only 1 because after next week it's just written finals! :O Scary!

Looking back, this term really did fly by. Of course there were times when it felt like it would last forever, but I'd say that the first few weeks and the last couple weeks actually have been fast. :)

Anyway! This is... from last-last Wednesday. Frozen Lemon Mousse with Mint Whipped Cream (the mint was our little addition and it was awesome. ^_^) So refreshing!

On Thursday of that week, I actually didn't do a whole lot. I was supposed to be repeating chicken for the 2nd time, but then someone on Salmon station was absent, so I was supposed to help that station instead. Well, she basically wanted to just take charge because she said no one has been letting her do much on Thursdays. Pretty silly, really, to whine about how no one lets you do anything, and then not let ME do a single thing, but oh well. xD So I just helped out on Salad station and then helped Salmon with plating. hehe Super easy day. :)

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OKAY, now LAST Wednesday, we did a "Specialty Pastry." The Gateau St Honore (gatoe saint on-ray :P) Which wasn't actually as horrible as it looks. It was pretty fun, really! I guess last term the students were pretty much crying over it, or losing it in general. lol!

I'll just post a pic and explain it after. :)

So! The base is simple, just a pate brisee, which is basically a mealy pie dough. Then, you make Pate a Choux dough, the annoying pastry that remembers exactly the shape it was in and puffs up accordingly, so if there are any ridges at all when you pipe it out, there will be awkward ridges in your final product once baked. First, you do a ring around the crust to give it some height.. After you have baked that, you do the vanilla and chocolate creme diplomat, and pipe it in alternating layers in a ribbon. After thaaattttt, you bake as many pate a choux bulbs as you can get, pick out the best ones, cut a hole in the bottom, fill THOSE with cream, alternating between chocolate and vanilla. Then, you make caramel, dip the tops in, lay them on parchment so there is a flat "glass-like" look about them. Then! You take more caramel, and glue each bulb on one at a time. o.o For how fancy this thing is, I'd say most of us did a great job. xD

On service, the next day, I was on desserts. So, I had to cut in between each bulb to get slices, which took some very careful hands. Keep in mind that almost everyone had different sizes of bulbs, and some were squished together harder than others. Some bulbs would fall off entirely!

I got to decide the plating design, which is of course my favorite part. I forgot my camera that day so I will make a crappy MS Paint version of what it looked like! :D

Just imagine that, only less silly and more realistic. xD It was very cute, I assure you. The brown lines are chocolate sauce, make from leftover diplomat creme, and the dots are an orange-caramel sauce that somebody made. At the end of the day, I plated 63 of those, so I got pretty efficient at making that design. :)

This week is Thanksgiving, so have a happy one!

Just not much to write about this past week in school. Life has been very hectic, so that has taken most of my focus away. Anyway, there was nothing to take pictures of unless I wanted to whip my camera out during service. (which, by the way, I don't.)

On Wednesday, we made ice cream. Vanilla and Caramel. Making ice cream is very easy if you have the machine for it, but it takes quite a while and is somewhat boring. xD Tasted very good though, and it's cool to be able to adjust the ice cream flavor to exactly your own liking. ^_^ We did a tasting in class of four different brands of vanilla, and you can definitely feel the waxy texture in ice creams that use way too many preservatives. I can't remember which, but there was one brand that had a horrible chemical taste to it after eating the other ice creams. That comes from way too much cheap artificial vanilla, and I don't think the skim milk helped it any. =/ Also, that kind of vanilla will turn it yellow. :D

Yesterday was service day, and I was on chicken... again... except Salmon only had one person due to an absence or two, so I did prep for chicken and then went to Salmon station. So, in a way it was my second time on chicken and my third time on salmon, all in one day. -.-''' The person on Salmon really wanted to take charge because I guess she has been partnered with some huge do-it-alls before. Fine with me. :P I floated between helping her and Salad station plate and carry over their dishes to the table. So, not too stressful. I'm irritated that I keep getting put on stations that I've done before. Next service I am scheduled to do the steak station AGAIN, so I emailed saying that I'd REALLY like some NON-ENTREE EXPERIENCE GRRRBLARGGGHHH!!! I want to do a starter course, or maybe desserts for a change. Guess he really does not keep track of who has been where because I've heard some complaints from others about repeating as well. *sigh* If we had just started this term with a good, simple rotation system, this wouldn't have been an issue. Well, we don't have class on Thursday next week so I am thankful for the break. :)

"Coulda said something nice about my profiteroles!"

^From a Flight of the Conchords song. :D

Because we made profiteroles! Whee!

They aren't too beautiful, because we only got to fill one of the ones we were plating, and couldn't use whipped cream, so... very minimal. Still, cute!

Pat a choux is very hard to pipe correctly... you have to hold perfectly still with just the right amount of pressure, stop at just the right time, don't lift it AT ALL, go in a circular motion, but not more than ONE CIRCLE, and then swipe it off to the side and pray the whole thing doesn't fall off. And then you usually still end up with a "tail" that you have to smoosh down! O_O Silly profiteroles... Anyway, these had a pumpkin filling, and the swish is creme brulee. And I definitely would have done something with whipped cream if I had it. :P That was yesterday, Wednesday.

Today was service day and I was on Salmon. Freaked out for a minute because we got a little bit behind, but mostly because I burnt my finger on the pan... twice... in the same spot.. lol Hand towels are your friend... It's actually not too bad, just stung and was really frustrating. Kept having to go re-numb it when it got slow. :D Overall, a very smooth day though. Caught up really really fast, and from then on nothing went wrong. The rest of the class were going very smooth, too, and we really busted out everything when it was time to clean, and got out of there are 2. :)

Almost time for Halloween! I am having a nerdy Halloween party with friends on Saturday. ^_^ Can't wait!

Dining Room Management

Our final project for my Dining Room Management class is Food Photography. We watched a video about a food stylist today and it made me think about how awesome it would be to plate and photograph food for a living. ^_^ I think that would make me happier than being in the kitchen every night, honestly... Anyway, I'll look into it while I'm finishing up my AAS degree. I'm sure it's not the most readily available job on the market, so it'll just be a wish for now. :) I'd prooooobably have to take some photography classes too (duh) so ... yeah, it's fun to think about anyway!

So I haven't decided what I will create for the plating yet... in fact, I'm still debating between dessert or hot foods! Desserts usually look the prettiest to me, although shrimp can be pretty cool looking on a plate, too. And then, there's all the desserts to choose from if I *do* go with that, and I know I don't want to be in the kitchen forever, so I have to decide on what length of time do I want to spend baking the darn thing before I can take its picture!!! *huff* Chocolate and raspberries look reallllyyy pretty together, so I'm considering something with those in it... and sauces, of course. Boo-ti-full sauces. ^_^