One Potato, Two Potato, Three Hundred Potatoes

I have cooked so many carbs in the past 2 weeks, Atkins just threw up all over himself.

I definitely got used to my new schedule this week. It goes something like this:
Go to bed too late.
Get up too early.
Do far too much during the day.
Keep doing too much.
Repeat.

But it's FUN!

I wouldn't be getting up at 5am everyday if I didn't totally love this. Wouldn't you get up that early if you knew there was tons of food involved?

This was a week of sauces and potatoes. So many potatoes. Potatoes all over my fridge and tupperware.

The sauces weren't outrageously exciting because they are considered "mother sauces." That means that, except for Hollandaise, they are unseasoned, leaving them numbingly bland but promising as far as their possibilities go! We learned how to make Bechamel, Veloute, Espagnole, Tomato & Hollandaise sauce. The joy of ROUX also fell into our lesson plans. As if we weren't already on a healthy balance of starch and carb - we put flour and butter together to make roux magic!

Sauces aside, we learned almost every gorgeous variation the spud can handle. From cooking it in oil, butter, cheese, more butter, some cream, and maybe some more butter - I know how to cook a potato!


Here's my POMMES ANNA that I moronically burned my first go. Not as easy as it looks (and hopefully it DOESN'T look easy). You have to cut and layer these potatoes a certain way, douse them in butter and seasoning and then hit them with a HIGH flame to brown the bottom of the pan. But if there isn't enough butter, they BURNNNN! Like MINE! Lesson learned. During our exam today I do believe I did those POMMES ANNA justice.


This is POMMES DAUPHINOISE. A beautiful dish where potatoes, gruyere cheese, cream and garlic can live together in subtle harmony. Similar to scalloped potatoes, this dish is ooey gooey layers of potatoes and gruyere cheese soaked in cream. Ridiculously good.


And the terror - RISOTTO. Oh yes, we all love risotto. And wouldn't you think it would be easy to make? It's like pasta, but smaller! But no my friend, it is not easy to make. At least not the traditional French way. Those damn French want you to stand over a HIGH FLAME (over the flamethrower stove) and stir your friggin' risotto for AT LEAST 17 minutes. Meaning, you do not walk away from that risotto until it is DONE. So far I've only lost 2 top layers of skin to this dish. The first two times I made this dish in class, the risotto just totally collapsed on me. You have to constantly add chicken stock to it so it will stay "au sec" or almost dry. And if the starches don't release from the Arborio rice, you're screwed and end up with chicken stocked weird grains of rice. For the exam today, I spoke sweet, sweet words to my risotto and it came around. Thank god.

Next week it's on to FRESH PASTA! And hopefully items that aren't all brown themed! (See above pictures).