Sammich

Today was pretty much "create your own sandwich" day. Actually, it was create your own pig sandwich day. So, only me and one other girl didn't wanna eat pig, so we left it out. xD My sandwich wasn't as attractive as I wanted it to be, but I guess eggplant is just an ugly veggie. :D So, yeah, I made it with Eggplant that I rubbed with balsamic, Monterey Jack cheese, Red pepper, and onion, with some mayo to make the bread moister. I was the only person to make my sandwich an adorable circle though! :P
Yep, and that didn't take long so I spent the rest of the class making potato salad for lunch service tomorrow.

Bready breads!!

Yums!!

Up there is more baguettes (third time we've done them this term,)espresso biscotti,cooked challah bread, and uncooked challah bread. Blogger is being really annoying and posting all my pictures in code for the last few weeks, so I can't arrange them the way I wanted to without it being a huge pain.

The challah bread was fun, because I got to learn how to do a six-braid! ^-^ I didn't bother taking a pic of the biscotti cut up, because really they looked exactly like something you'd find in a coffee shop, only messily strewn about a baking pan. xD But they turned out perfectly well and all. There was something wrong with the yeast we used, because the baguettes turned into giant monsters. :D But that's okay, giant baguettes are still tasty. :)

Chicky...

Today we butchered a chicken.

I was doing okay til we got to this part where he's like "Okay, now score the front right here, flip the bird over and push! *CRRAACCCKKK*" D: Yeah, got a little queesy at that point. lol! And moving all the bones out of their joints made me feel really weird too. I've never popped one of my joints out of place, and I didn't know it was that easy to do... I mean, sure it's just a little chicken, but still. Creepy. xD

Didn't do much else... de-pooped some prawn, cut up some root veggies, made some short ribs. Yep. Oh, and today is the first day I can keep the car parked here instead of having Mish take it back! So if we get out early, it'll be a good thing like it's supposed to be! WOO! And I hope we do cause Patrick is coming over later, and I needs cuddles. :)

Got a lot of stuff to do tomorrow as always. Here's the list:

Challah, six braided,
Baguette,
Biscotti, Espresso Biscotti
Creme Anglaise
Pastry cream

Yeesh. Better remember my camera tomorrow. :)

Drive Test

I PASSED!!! WOOO!!! All the stress just went *poof* the second he said I passed. xD
I got this nice, mellow older mexican guy and it was SOOO much better than the giant! He was normal human sized and everything!!! And I totally told on that first guy for talking during the test, because I was asking the desk dude what my chances were of getting someone else. xD He said he's "gonna have to talk to him about that." LOL

I didn't make any of the mistakes I did last time, and the only things I did do wrong, were not checking side roads of neighborhoods, and not paying close enough attention to the merging cars on the parkway. I passed with 90/100, which is gooooddd enough!! xD

Yep. I'm happy again. ^_^

Oh, and I was going to learn how to make mochi ice cream tomorrow for extra credit, but then I realized I just gave up both of my chef coats to be embroidered with my name and CCI... and it's against health code to be in the kitchen without a uniform... Oh, well, it wouldn't been a hassle to get there anyway because Misha is taking the car this first weekend for her job, so I would've had to get up at 3:30AM to drive her there. Still, making mochi would have been a nice experience! : / Well, I'm sure there'll be other cool opportunities. :)

Oh, yeaaahhh... here's the dinner I made last night! Tofu with Ratatoille vegetables, and crostinis with white bean and garlic on top, garnished with thyme. ^.^ Mish helped me out by making the baguette for the crostinis. :)
Completely vegan for Mom and Sissa, and totally nummy!

Platingness!

Was feeling better enough today to remember to bring my camera! xP So, we made a jamaican fruity salad thingy, and gots to plate it, which is probably my favorite thing in school so far, besides eating baked goods. xD

Here ish mine!



I used an ice cream scoop to get it round, then I put orange zest on top and cut out a pineapple flower to set next to it. Oh, and if you can see it, it's all on top on a romaine leaf that I cut to a nice little V shape. :) I like to keep it simple when I do plating, but...



...not everyone does. lol!

That's all! Wish me luck for tomorrow morning... ;-;

Hmmm

So, I've been really stressed this week because I'm worrying about my drive test coming up and it's making everything else in my life (except you, Patrick xD) seem way more stressful as well. So... yeah, I meant to bring my camera today, and I meant to post yesterday as well as today, but I'm just not up to it this week. Maybe tomorrow. But I don't want to turn this into a vent blog. :P

I did find out that I seem to be getting A-'s in my classes, so that is good. Just need some more extra credit to boost it up. And today we made really yummy danish desserts.

Hopefully I'll feel better after I maybe pass the test on Thursday. >.<

Arg!!!

Today was pretty fun... we got to make dressings and a carrot ginger soup and then plate them... then we got to eat the salads we plated. xD

Unfortunately I completely forgot to take pics. *shrug* I guess I was too hungry. hehe
But mine were pretty simple.. for my caesar salad, I put a half lemon slice on either side of the plate, 4 croutons around it and lemon zest on top. The other salad, I did 3 baby tomatoes, some croutons, and slivered carrot and cucumber on top. With the soup, I just chopped some parsley, and put that in the middle as well as one sort of sticking up out of it. So it was a pretty orange/green thing. :)

I've got to go now because I'm typing this up during lunch and I really want to finish my spaghetti leftovers. xD

Raisins

So I didn't post about yesterday, mainly because it was boring. It was hot foods midterm day, and really all we did was make our own stock and do some cuts on vegetables, then we took a very easy 5-question quiz. Not really sure how I did yet on the cuts, but I'm sure I got all the quiz answers right.

Anyway, I felt really shitty yesterday because after school I rushed off to go take my driving test, and I failed. >.< My main problems were not stopping before the pedestrian crosswalk before stop signs (which sucks, because usually I make sure to do that! I don't know what happened this time, might've been nerves. :C) and at the very start of the test, I didn't reverse all the way into the lane I was going to be driving in. *shrug* The other things he failed me on... it was something really weird, like, I checked my blind spot before merging, but then he also wanted me to check behind *after* I finished merging? I think that's what he said... I was too busy trying to keep myself together, knowing I had failed, to clarify that at the time. :/ And the other little thing was I apparently went 55 on the 45-limit parkway while he was making me merge around. I remember seeing it at 50 after my second merge, so that sucks. ;-; I think that was because I was trying to avoid my usual mistake of slowing down before a merge. >.< Anyway, next time I take it, I'm going to request a different guy. This guy was effing HUGE which was just pretty intimidating, but the thing that really bugged me was that he made some small talk during the test... which the stupid pamphlet they give you specifically says they WILL NOT DO. UGHHHH.

Anyway.

Baking was pretty typical today... make a bunch of stuffs... today it was danish style croissants, normal croissants, Raisin bars, and a Genoise cake. Not enough time to finish the croissants, but our raisin bars and our cake didn't turn out so well.. the bars were flat, and while the cake tasted fine and didn't have much of a tunneling problem, it broke while we were de-panning it. :|

Here is my croissant after one of it's folds, our cake mixin', and someone elses raisin bars. xD

Nummies!

We made spanakopitas today! They are flaky delicious triangles filled with a spinach mixture. They were really fun to fold and also very tasty. xD



Hmm I sort of wish I could get a pic of myself doing some of this stuff, but I really don't feel like shoving my camera at someone else and making them take a pic. xD Anyways, I didn't get a pic of them after they were cooked, but it's just that, only golden brown, anyhow. xD

I'm feeling pretty brain dead today. Tomorrow is dining room and I'm worried about whether I'll be back or front of house. I'll just bring both outfits and hope for the best. I'll tough it out either way though, it's just that I would much much rather be drink station, or chop veggies or whatever else needs to be done behind the scenes. ^_^

Baking Midterm

Today was a little bit crazy, because we were being graded for our midterm. We made Muffins, Baba, Savarin, and Brioche. It felt like Iron Chef at the end because Chef Julian kept going "You've got TEN MINUTES!" and my partner and I were rushing to glaze the baba at the very last minute and just barely made it. xD I felt like there should've been a buzzer and a slow motion seen of our plates touching the table at the split second it sounded. *sigh* Why is real life so real lifey? :D



Those are the Savarin, Muffins, and Brioche. The Baba is in front in the pic up there. I have no idea what grade I got but I'm hoping it will be good news!!

Soupses

Today was a soupy day. Not much to tell, really. We made Butternut Squash soup, a Chicken Consumme, a New England style Clam Chowder, and my favorite of the day, the vegetarian Vichyssoise (vihj-ee-swah)! It was fun to say AND fun to eat. :)

Another kinda cool thing about the vichyssoise, is that it was mentioned in the book I was reading just last night and I had no idea what it was(it's a potato-leek soup that is generally served cold, in case you were wondering too!) The book I've started reading that mentioned it is Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. I've only gotten a chapter or so in, but so far it seems promising. At the beginning of the term, Chef Thor gave us a whole list of recommended reading, and since then, this is the book that has been brought up the most. It was something he worked on before shoving off to work every day, so it should very realistically describe the experience of being a typical cook; bad language, questionable practices, and shit-talking included. xD

Guess that's it for today. Midterms are next week so we didn't get much in the way of reading assignments. Just have to memorize all the cuts and study up some more on the mother sauces.

Oh, before I forget, I ended up doing prep after class on Thursday for that Pasta event the culinary club was throwing. It was pretty fun and we got some insight on how next term will go from talking to the second term students. They said that first term is really easy(yep,) but are apparently "chickens with their heads cut off" when it comes to baking level 2, because they are thrown into the world of cakes, which is a harsh place to be, I assume. xD We might be able to avoid this if we study in advance, it seems, so it was nice to get some advice there. :)
I was considering going to help out for the actual pasta dinner on Friday, but when the day came...

I forgot. :|