Yeahhh.....So Much for Extra Time

I'd originally thought that this mod I would have more time to blog and communicate with people from home and such because I only have one class. Not so much. My second week was great, I was planning on blogging every day, but then I got a visitor! Mary came to visit me and stayed until Friday, so I was more than happy to postpone my blogging to hang out with her. Lazy, I know. But anyways, we had a great time until she left and then I got back to the daily grind. And now, the bread.

Monday we had off because of the made up holiday known as President's Day, but I didn't complain: I got my laundry done. Tuesday, we made pain au lait, which is French for bread with milk. We shaped it into various knots that we will have to do for our practical exam. I actually bought some play dough to practice with, and I made the three knots that I will have to make for the practical. The red clay is an example of the figure eight knot, the smaller one is the single knot. Lastly, the green is the double knot. Because I really like it, I also did the single braid, which is my favorite, in blue.  Wednesday, we worked with more pain au lait dough to make more knots, in addition to making baguette dough. Thursday and Friday we made baguettes and epi's. An epi is the trick that bakers use to fix their bread. When you have a loaf of baguette that for any reason doesn't shape right, you make it an epi and no one will know! The epi is cut to look like a wheat stalk, with scissors!!! I just thought it was so fantastically simple, it felt like cheating. We also mixed tortilla dough but didn't get to it today because we were too busy making fougasse which is really cool! Essentially, its a really watery dough that you roll out and cut shapes out of. I made a whale!

We also prepped focaccia dough for tomorrow and used our knives for the first time in weeks because we chopped herbs, onions and garlic. I really had no idea what to do with all this bread, so I froze it and took it to Lunch at my pastor's house on Sunday and gave the rest to friends: as a result, my friend Tim said he would take all of the bread I don't want. Typical guy. It works out well though, because I can't eat six plus loaves of bread a week without gaining fifty pounds.  

  

Weekly Bread Facts:

• All purpose flour, the one you usually have at home, is a mixture of bread (or patent) flour and cake flour, so that you can just keep one bag in your pantry. In the bakery, we don't use it.
• Always dust your table for kneading with patent flour, because it clumps less.
• You can proof your bread at home without taking the entire day!! I forgot how, so I have to ask Chef.

Any questions about bread, let me know, not because of my own wealth of knowledge (HA!) but because my chef is the bread Einstein. He knows everything, and I'm not exaggerating, about bread. So ask away.

P.S. I also made Student Council.

I Survived!!!

It's truly a miracle that I made it through my first week of class, not because it was hard, but because I was so busy!!! I not only had class every day at 6:30, as usual, but I also had a cake order for 100 people due on Friday and work at the cafe. With no cake pans or supplies, it was pretty difficult. I managed though, and it was safely transported to Pastor Brett Mahlen's ordination on Friday night.

This week we learned the basics of bread making and how not to screw it up. We made first a white pan loaf, which was pretty great, and then a whole wheat dough which we split and shaped into boules (french for balls,) and took the rest and shaped it into a regular loaf filled with almond paste. It was really sweet and delicious. I didn't taste the boules because I sent them home to my dear family. Hopefully they were decent. We also prepped pain au lait dough, which is milk dough.Pain means bread, au lait means with milk. So instead of water, we used milk. But here are some pointers for bread making:

• Keep your water the temperature in the recipe, and don't add more or use less
• Proof your bread at around 70 to 90 degrees internal temp. So an air temp of 100 or 110 wouldn't be a problem, because the dough is very dense.
• When making a whole wheat dough by hand, aka not in the mixer, don't add more flour. This may make it easier to handle, but it also dries out the dough.
• When buying flour, instead of all purpose, use patent or restaurant flour, this is what the professionals use, because it doesn't clump. All purpose is a mixture of patent and cake flour. So its not a terrible thing to use in general, but its not great for baking.
• Always dust your table with patent flour. When a recipe says dust, it doesn't mean sprinkle the entire surface with flour, as I'd originally thought. It means take a pinch of flour in your hand and throw it at about a 45 degree angle at the table, so that it fans out. Like skipping a rock.
• Most cooking times are difficult to tell depending on what kind of oven you have or the pans that you use, so the best way to cook your bread is to put it in the oven, rotate it once one side is brown, and when the top of the bread is a dark golden brown, check the temperature by sticking a thermometer into the side of the loaf. Its should reach 180 degrees.

That's all I have for now,

     M

FINALLY!!!! We BAKE!!!!

:D I'm so happy about this mod. Today I started my Introduction to breads course, and I'm so excited for it. I <3 bread. Good thing it's a food group. I also got my new textbook for most of my baking courses so that's exciting. Breads is my only class this mod which is nice, because now my nights can be filled with things other than studying. Like cleaning and sleeping and....making cakes for my own business. I have just decide to start my business so I am very excited. I am in the process of making business cards and a facebook page for it. I'd design a real website, but I'm not tech savvy enough for that. So I already have a few orders for cakes between now and spring so I'm encouraged.

Since it was our first day in class, Chef Hooker mainly went over the syllabus and proper procedure for class and such. But we did measure flour so that's something. There are also many different types of flour, which was our homework, to read about flour. We also we memorizing different conversions of weight and volume measurements. For example, if you've ever heard the saying "A pint is a pound, the world around," which I never did, it actually kind of makes sense. I say kind of because its not always true, and I don't understand the "world around" part. The saying refers to how sometimes, a pint is equal to a pound. This is only true with water, milk, eggs, and fruit juices. (Not fruit concentrates, because they are mostly sugar syrups).

I'm going to try and make this blog also a site for my cake business Margo's Kakes, but I'm gonna need some serious tech help. So until tomorrow...
M

Finals Week

There is a good reason I haven't posted all week: I've been too busy studying. This week through yesterday I had all of my final exams for my first mod classes. I felt pretty prepared, but I was still a little nervous. But by the grace of God, I got A's across the board. So my GPA is a 4.0, which makes me very happy. Hopefully I will be able to maintain it while I'm in school here.  I had different tests on each day this week except for Monday, which was mostly review in all of my classes. So, here's a rundown of my week in terms of kitchens and exams.
Monday = Pancaked!
The pancakes we made were pretty standard...nothing too special. I would have taken a picture, but I was so hungry, I just slathered them in mango butter and syrup and ate them.
Tuesday is now waffle day!
We made buttermilk waffles, which is a bit difficult to do because you have to whip the egg whites until soft peaks form, then add sugar, then beat until stiff peaks form, then slowly fold in the yolk and dry ingredient mixture until just mixed.  After cooking them in a lightly greased waffle iron, we topped them with a triple berry compote that we made out of blueberries, strawberries and Melba sauce, which is a sauce made from at least two different kinds of berries. Its was phenomenal. We actually had so many waffles that we gave some to the class next door. After we finished our waffles we took the our final exam. I found out later that I got a 96, which is great! In sanitation, we also had our final exam, which I no longer remember the score of, but I got an A, so that's good enough for me.
Wednesday: Omelets and Exams
 Most of our time in kitchens was occupied by taking the knife skills practical exam, which was difficult. Any other day, I can do it fine, but I spent so much time making sure my julienne and brunoise cuts were right, I didn't have enough time to properly cut my battonet and small dice. Overall, I got an 83, which put me 4th highest in my class, so it wasn't bad. I knew I could've done better though. I just didn't want to spend the money and buy 10 lbs of potatoes to practice on. I felt better after I ate an omelet with bacon, ham, sausage, white wine mushrooms, basil, cheddar cheese, and sourdough toast covered in butter.After kitchens we reviewed the sanitation test and prepared for the ServSafe Exam.
Thursday: THE END!
In kitchens we didn't have anything to do yesterday, so we cleaned, made more omelets, oatmeal and got our final grades. I got a 93.5%. So I survived. After kitchens we had our final strategies exam, which i got an A on, but beyond that I don't know. Following our strategies exam, We had our ServSafe exam, which I also passed. So I'm now ServSafe Certified!

Today I'm cleaning my room, because I didn't have the energy with finals week and working. Also Mom surprised me with a visit on Tuesday night! We went out to eat dinner and had a nice time with Liz, Sam, and Ron. They stayed in town until the following afternoon when they came to see me at work and then went home. Tomorrow, I'm helping Chef Price teach a Valentine's Day Enthusiast class on chocolate. She hasn't decided exactly what we're making, but I'm excited! I <3 Chocolate!!!
Mk

FRIDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

Annnddd itssss FRIDAYYY!!!!!!!  YAY!!!!!

This means that I don't have to get up at the crack of dawn, and this makes me happy.

Today in kitchens we made root vegetable hash with corn and pepper custard. Corn and pepper custard was mixed with red, yellow and green fine julienned  peppers, and jalapeno brunoise cut peppers went into a 4 oz ramekin and cooked for 20 minutes. Then it was put on top of a 4 inch cake made of the root veggie hash. Plating with some roja  sauce finished it off. It was absolutely tasty. And  now, back to your regular programming, aka strategies, sanitation, work, and sleep. Ta ta till Monday!!!

M

Work, Work, Work

Well today was pretty good, except now I'm SUPER tired. (it just took me three times to spell tired correctly) Got up at 4 as usual, but also because the police were banging on the front door to get my landlords to move their car because apparently a water main had burst. Thankfully, it didn't affect me.

This morning in kitchens we made french toast and huevos rancheros. It was delicious, and I would've taken a picture of it, because it looked cool, but I ate it too fast. Huevos rancheros is Spanish for "rancher style eggs". Essentially, its two fried eggs, on top of a tortilla, then topped with salsa roja (red salsa) and white Mexican cheese and an herb i don't remember the name of. But it was delicious. Many of my classmates were intimidated by flipping eggs in the pan for the first time, but my first time flipping an egg was when I was something like 10. So I'm pretty much used to it now.  The french toast was just regular french toast, just delicious.

At work today, I started out on dishes, then did dining room, then breaded chicken and pounded out some pork. It was exciting. And now I'm exhausted. Also, the skate with stuco was a huge hit: my knee is the size of a grapefruit from the people who I was helping skate that pulled me down, and my ankles are rubbed raw from my jeans. Overall, it was a blast, and it was free, which is magical.

Time to go home and do laundry now.
M

Plated Pictures

 Here are some of the things I've made thus far:

These are the salads. Starting on the top left and going clockwise, we have citrus and fennel salad, then chicken salad,  french potato salad, and finally regular potato salad. All were delicious.


Here is the Middle Eastern Plate, which was PHENOMENAL!!!  The green blob looking thing is tabbouleh, with black olives next to it, then a tomato and cuke mix, and the beige colored blob is babaganouj, the rosette with the purple bunny ears is hummus with onion petals, the falafel is in the center on top of the yogurt tahini sauce, and at the very bottom is a sprig of baby endive and feta.

This is the Nicoise Salad, with eggs, Yukon potatoes,

 anchovies, tuna, parsley, mixed greens, tomatoes,

black olives, green beans, and green olives.

And finally, the eggplant parm, it was fantastic and addicting. Sadly, my camera stinks. But its fried eggplant, Parmesan cheese, mozzarella cheese, basil, and marinara sauce. De-Lish.

Well...At Least I'm Busy

Busy doesn't even begin to describe my week. So I feel a little bit guilty for not blogging. I really am gonna keep up doing it at least every two days, even though I start work soon. So here's a rundown of my week with the exceptions of the exams which we had nearly every day.

Wednesday we made a Niçoise salad, which is....interesting, to say the least. It contains cooked Yukon potatoes, tomatoes, anchovies, tuna, eggs, green beans, and green and black olives. I tried it, just to see what it tasted like, it was very salty and fish-like, but it was good. Thursday was my favorite day this mod, more so even than deep fry day. On Thursday we  made Middle Eastern foods like falafel, which is ground chickpeas that are rolled into a ball and fried; we put that on top of a yogurt tahini sauce and served it with hummus, Babaganouj, pita slices, and tabbouleh. Its was AMAZING!!!!! Friday we made some more mayonnaise based dressings and did a zucchini practical. Monday we made chicken salad, french potato salad, regular potato salad, and citrus and fennel salad. My personal favorite was the chicken salad. A really basic recipe, but it was great! Today we made a fruit salad, but before you get a picture in your mind, let me show you. Ours was really different from the usual fruit salad. We also made Caesar salad, with a Caesar dressing made with anchovies...it was a little fishy tasting to me, but c'est la vie.

And thus a wrap up of my week in kitchens. Friday night we had a gallery crawl where we provided cheap food for the general public to buy, and I appointed myself on crowd control, which worked out fairly well. Saturday morning, I had agreed to help Chef G with an enthusiast class on Italian food, which was a lot of fun. Sunday, Grace did a lunch for the college and career age people, which was a lot of fun, then to evening service, laundry and school. I start working in Cafe 18 tomorrow, so I'm excited for that. Pray for me getting around in this crazy weather!!!

M