hey guys! just a quick one today, because life is so ridiculously busy this quarter! went on a field trip to the buford farmer’s market (which, btw, is cooler than the dekalb one) and this was the coolest thing we found:
it’s a sword of wine! it’s in a big wooden scabbard, but the sword is all glass and filled with wine. we figured it would make for some pretty awesome sword fights.
so this past weekend i volunteered at the hope and will ball, which was held at the st. regis. it’s the largest event the st. regis has held to date, and was a plated dinner for 680 people. that means we had to plate 680 entrees in about 10 minutes. that’s 68 plates a minute! we had four teams working, but it’s still a ton of work. anyway i didn’t have time to get pictures of the entrees, but here are the salads. aren’t they pretty?
just to give you an idea, there are about sixty salads in that picture. this is less than a tenth of our salads (it’s 8.8% of our salads). all the hallways were filled with salad (salad as far as the eye can see!) it was pretty crazy.
these are the desserts. we added some ice cream on top of the peanut brittle, but i didn’t have time to take a picture. as you can imagine, that had to happen pretty fast as well, so the ice cream wouldn’t melt.
all in all, it was a great event. the ballroom looked absolutely stunning, the chefs were really cool, and i learned a lot. it was exhausting, thogh!
finally, these are some hors d’oeuvres we made in class. profiteroles and mini-eclairs filled with smoked salmon mousse with whipped cream and fennel, and crab puffs with fresh-made tartar sauce and mini-pickles. they were really good!
Sausage making!
So I was going to wait until tomorrow to share these, but because Kathleen was awesome and shared my last post on reader, I felt the need to come through. Honestly, y’all, it was even more hilariously inappropriate-looking than I had expected. (And my expectations were high.) I will tell you, though, that the final product was delicious.
Hey guys- here are some sandwiches I made for class! The chef gave us free reign to do whatever we wanted, but each person had to turn out two sandwiches, one hot, one cold. We could ask for any ingredients within reason, but were encouraged to use things we had made in class. He really liked my presentation and described them as “sexy sandwiches.” The cold one is tomato, basil and mozzarella with balsamic vinaigrette on a baguette (our group made the mozzarella the day before). The hot one is a French dip with roast beef, Swiss cheese, horseradish mayo, and served au jus. The jus was beef stock, red wine, and seasonings. Both were really good, although the French dip was definitely my favorite. I also have sausage-making pictures to share with y’all, so get excited for that.
Tried a new method for grits this morning, it turned out great. Figured I would share! Basically it was a result of what I had in my fridge. I am out of milk, but I’m sure you could do that instead of the water and cream. And the risotto method was mostly because I’m too lazy to measure out the liquid for my grits, but it made them very creamy and lets you adjust to the consistency you want.
Pour cream and water (a little more water than cream unless you are just trying to gain weight) in a saucepan, add a few sprigs of fresh thyme. Bring to a boil then immediately turn off the heat and cover. The amount of liquid should be about half of what you think you need for the amount of grits you’re making.
Let it steep for a few minutes then remove the thyme. Season the liquid with salt and pepper. Bring back to a boil, add the grits. Once it returns to a boil again, lower the heat. When all liquid is absorbed, add a splash of water. When it is absorbed, add a splash of cream. Repeat until the desired consistency is achieved. Add butter, season to tase, serve and garnish with a thyme sprig.
Milk would almost definitely work better, and I am wondering what would happen if I did the risotto method from the very beginning. You’d have to steep the liquid first, though, and add it while it’s hot. Anyway, it’s good as it is. If you try it, let me know what you think… any changes?
Found this while looking for the contact number for the restaurant at school! It’s a good description of the restaurant, although we have actually moved to more casual service this quarter.
Hey guys! Life is good. Busy busy, but good. Lots to share. First of all, the picture. I am annoyed that none of my pictures of these turned out quite right, but this was the best, although I don’t think it’s all that appetizing. I need to bring a better camera if I’m going to take serious pictures of food. Okay anyway, these are mini Reubens that we made in Garde Manger. Our group made the corned beef (brine it for a week, boil it in stock for a few hours, slice it on one of those big deli slicers), the sauerkraut (brine it for a week), and the dressing (fresh mayo— which involved a lot of whisking and is one of my favorite things to do— plus worchestershire, chili sauce, tobasco and horseradish). Another group made the mustard, we sliced the cheese and fried the bread in butter. And assembled them, of course. That was probably a confusing description so, from the bottom: rye bread, Russian dressing, Swiss cheese, corned beef, sauerkraut, fresh mustard, more cheese. Melt and serve. We got rave reviews, and learned that I like corned beef. Maybe I’ll make some for St. Patrick’s Day. So Garde Manger is fun, but man if I thought pastry was going to make me fat, this is a whole new level! Great food, but a lot of it.
Started working at the restaurant at school yesterday. It was a lot of fun, but tiring. This was sort of our warm-up week; the patrons were all friends and family and then we open for real next week. Here’s a link to the info if you want to come eat… it looks like they haven’t updated the menu for this quarter, but I’m sure they will soon. Come on Thursday if you want to see me at work! http://www.artinstitutes.edu/atlanta/AboutUs/Creations_Dining.aspx
Y’all, we are not in pastry anymore. That’s basically a quarter of a pig that the chef fabricated for us yesterday. It’s interesting, but not something I see myself doing a whole lot of.
In other news, I was asked to work in the school restaurant this quarter. I’m flattered, because Chef Ward only picked a few people, but it does mean my schedule will be even busier. Guess y’all will all have to come eat at Creations (I’m working Thursdays) if you want to see me!
Hey guys!
Still on break until Monday. Had a great Christmas, went skiing, and am now sort of bored and definitely ready to start classes again. Had some cooking successes and some cooking failures (don’t make pasta by hand for 12 people if you don’t have a rolling pin), but I wanted to share a recipe! In honor of our little winter wonderland, I made hot chocolate last night, based loosely on the recipe in the Barefoot Contessa Family Style cook book. It was awesome, but extremely rich/filling. I’m drinking leftovers right now! I didn’t measure anything, so these are my best guesses. It made enough for two full mugs of hot chocolate, although we each drank about half of a mug last night.
Heat equal parts milk and heavy cream (maybe a cup and a half of each) in a saucepan. When it’s almost boiling, turn off the heat and add a small handful each of semi-sweet and milk chocolate chips. Allow them to melt. Turn the heat back on and add a couple teaspoons of sugar (adjust to taste), a teaspoon of vanilla, and half a teaspoon of instant coffee (I wasn’t sure about this part, but it actually added a really nice flavor, and I don’t drink coffee. If you like coffee, I’d probably add more).
I served it last night with some fresh whipped cream, which is one of my favorite things in the world: heavy whipping cream + confectioner’s sugar, whipped to medium peaks. I like my egg beaters for this job, but you could use a stand mixer if you really like doing lots of dishes. Or beat it by hand, if you’re really bored and want a good forearm workout. This morning, though, I followed the recipe and whipped the hot chocolate itself with the egg beaters. She promised that it would get a cappuccino-like foam on top. I think that’s a bit of an overstatement, but it got a little foamy, and it was nice. I liked the whipped cream better, personally. Watch out, though— cool whipped cream over super-hot hot chocolate can be deceptive. Aaron and I learned that lesson last night. Anyway, I should probably not ramble so much when I give recipes, sorry. It’s hot chocolate, y’all. You can’t screw it up. So go buy some heavy cream and chocolate chips, Atlantans. You (and those keeping warm with you) will be glad you did.
Here are the pictures of the products from my pastry final! (I also made a pie, but I kept messing with it after I had already put the filling in, so it turned out weird. Important lesson, guys: when it’s good enough, just walk away!) But I liked the eclairs, I gave half of them to Bill and half to Ethan, who runs my bootcamp class. And I turned the cake into a Hanukkah cake! I was a little worried because it was just iced with whipped cream, but the cake itself was really rich, so it was actually pretty good. And Bill and I made latkes! School’s over now, and I know I said I would post more, but right now, I have the flu. (Boo.) Thanks to Abby for the Hanukkah pictures!
(I didn’t intend for this to be about shopping, but that’s where it went.)
Okay, this is me attempting to do a better job of blogging. Hopefully I’ll do better once this quarter ends, but I’m pretty sure I thought that last quarter, and let’s be honest, it’s December. So… what is there to write about?
Ooh first of all, speaking of December and shopping and such, for those of you living in Atlanta, Cooks Warehouse is totally awesome. This: https://www.cookswarehouse.com/ClassReg/Public/location.asp (for some reason it’s not letting my hyperlink) is a link to their class schedule, which includes everything from knife skills to wine pairings. I have no idea how good they are, but they have Linton Hopkins (executive chef at Restaurant Eugene/Holeman and Finch, also a Westminster graduate, apparently) teaching one, and that’s pretty awesome. So if anyone would like to join me for a wine pairing or something, let me know. Oh and they also have great stuff, a good variety and less cutesy (and generally less expensive) than Williams-Sonoma. Don’t get me wrong, I love the cute stuff at WS, but if you’re more interested in function than form, check out Cooks Warehouse. (Really they should pay me for this.)
Also speaking of shopping, if you ever want to feel like a rock star, borrow my chef uniform and go to Publix. Seriously it was the weirdest thing, people were approaching me, asking questions about the produce (no, I don’t know how to pick a good pomegranate. Yes, I made it up), chatting with me about school, et cetera. It was weird! But kind of fun, although I definitely haven’t done it since. I did find out, though, from the ladies at the cash register, that Publix will pay for culinary school if you work there. (Or pharmacy school, apparently). I thought that was pretty cool.
Guess I’ll stick with the shopping theme. So obviously I have asked for a ton of culinary stuff for Christmas, although that’s nothing new for me. I’m probably the only person you know who only owns six plates but has literally thousands of dollars worth of cooking equipment. So: I already know what I want, but in case you are still working on your personal Christmas lists (or shopping for others), I figured I would give some suggestions of culinary things that I find particularly useful that you might not have.
So maybe you aren’t as much of a cooking dork as I am and don’t want these things for Christmas, but I would consider picking them up for yourself. I’m sure I could come up with a lot more, but that is enough for today, especially since I just finished my pastry practical. (It went alright, I got good scores, so that’s good.) Pictures to come.
