Eat until you're happy

BAKING!

Aren't you excited?! Have you ever made bread from scratch before?

Neither have I!

(By the way, putting this all in perspective, I can't believe I get to wake up every morning and make things like baguettes, sourdough loaves and pastries and get "stressed" about it. It almost seems silly! But I love it).

My first week of class I brought home a ridiculous amount of bread. I mean, I love bread just as much as the next person. But my parents and I could not keep up! You can only eat so many sandwiches. So we ended up sharing some of that beautiful bread with other members of my family. (So far we haven't been very good about sharing anything). :)

We made baguettes, whole wheat dinner roll, sourdough and sourdough rye bread. And then I made the baguettes and rolls AGAIN for testing! YIKESSOMUCHBREAD!

Then we moved on to really sugary, really buttery breads - i.e. the good stuff.

--Brioche--

That lovely, golden - and phallic - looking bread is called Brioche. The phallic looking shape is called "a tete," which means "with head" in French.

Yeah, it just keeps getting more and more suggestive.

BUT it actually is supposed to represent a solder hiding in the trenches. So get your filthy minds out of the gutter and feel bad about yourself for thinking that "tete" looks like "tit". These breads were made to honor soldiers, not anatomy!

The loaf sitting behind it was a magical cinnamon sugar brioche loaf. It had beautiful swirls of cinnamon-y goodness and made AMAZING French toast!

PIZZA DAY :/

Not my finest moment. Clearly my pizzas are awkward and small. I had a mini-nervous breakdown while rolling out my pizza dough.

We make most of our doughs in advance - that way we have time to make sure everything can get baked off in the oven. So I believe we made our pizza dough on a Friday and came back after the weekend to roll it out and bake it.

Now, okay - I could have sworn that we were supposed to put olive oil around the dough to keep it moist over the weekend. However, mine were a little too moist. They kept sticking to the table and my rolling pin and my hands and just about everything they got near. So the dough wasn't stretching out to a decent pizza shape and the more I kept trying to stretch them, the more they ripped and fell apart.

After tears had welled up in my eyes because my stupid PIZZA DOUGH wasn't working for me, I stopped and thought - pardon my language - "F*ck it, this is just stupid pizza dough anyway. They're gonna be small and that's the end of that."

I rolled out my gnome-like pizza doughs, decorated them, baked them perfectly and presented them. After all my worries and woes, the teacher said, "Well aren't they cute little pizzas?"

. . .

As if the size didn't matter all along! I exhaled a huge sigh of relief and dug into my version of a meat lover's pizza. And it was excellent.

Danishes

One of my favorite days. They were gorgeous and amazing. Ya can't get danishes like this at Starbucks. These were sinfully delicious. (Oh, and that's a Brie en croute in the upper right corner. Brie wrapped in puff pastry and baked in the oven. mmmMMMMmmmmm).

Fruit Tart

Probably one of the most beautiful and presentational pieces we have made yet. (The resolution isn't that great here because I used my iPhone to take the picture. My old camera died because it got drowned in vegetable oil.)

As I was saying - one of the most presentational pieces we've made yet. Which is why it was SO awesome when I DROPPED my tart as soon as I got home.

I suppose this wasn't the WORST thing that could happen. It had been graded, I had taken some so-so pics on my phone and, when I dropped it, it still remained in the tupperware and didn't hit the ground.

HOWEVER, I tantrumed like no child has tantrumed before.

I couldn't believe that my first real piece of art had just suffered a 9.0 earthquake and would never be the same again. Plus I was tired, hungry and hot - never a good combination.

In order to recover from this terrible fate, I did what any level-headed 25-year-old would do:

throw your keys across the room, slam your knife kit into the nearest chair, rip off your chef coat, undo your hair, kick off your shoes, toss your glasses and start crying...and then slowly pick up your shattered tart and eat it. And I ate and ate that tart until I calmed down and felt better.

Looking back now, I wish I had taken a before and after picture of The Great Tart Disaster. But that would have meant having a sense of humor about things - which CLEARLY was not happening.

So let's remember the tart the way it was...happy and all in one piece...

Food so good you stop eating all the other crap you thought was good

Herb Gnocchi with Asparagus and Hotel Butter

Hungarian Goulash with Spaetzle

Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

Lamb Chops with Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes & Spinach

Chicken Roulade with Pommes Vapeur

Coq au Vin!

Shrimp & Chicken Sausage Gumbo

Roasted Pork Tenderloin with Roasted Fingerling Potatoes & Beets

Sauteed Salmon with Ratatouille & Creamy Lentils

Grilled Pork Chop with Braised Red Cabbage & Pommes Dauphinoise

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These are samplings of the beautiful traditional French food I have made in class. I think my favorites have been the handmade Gnocchi, the Goulash and the Coq au Vin.

You haven't had Gnocchi until you've had it made from scratch, browned in butter and covered in more butter. It was music to my mouth! We made the Gnocchi from scratch with fresh potatoes and herbs - beautiful. Then we par-cooked them until they held together nicely. THEN...we sauteed them in butter until they were browned and crispy on the outside and MELT IN YOUR MOUTH on the inside. Then we added sauteed asparagus and covered the whole dish with hotel or compound butter - BUTTER combined with lemon zest, shallots and herbs. YUM, GORGEOUS, AMAZING.

The Goulash - brilliant. Cheap chuck braised until it's beautiful. Brown it in some paprika then set it in the oven and forget it. That is, until you eat it and realize you have eaten beauty.

And the Coq au Vin.
Need I say more?
Chicken braised until it falls off the bone, in a gorgeous brown sauce. Garnished with blanched pearl onions, bacon pieces and sauteed mushrooms. Forget Koo Koo Roo, El Pollo Loco and whatever excessively-voweled-name-chicken-place you can think of...THIS is how you eat chicken. With BUTTER, FAT, SALT and GORGEOUSNESS.

Sadly, my time in this lovely class is up. My final - which is the bottom picture that has the heart ramekin - was to make Vegetable Pasta Soup for starter, Sauteed Salmon with Ratatouille & Creamy Lentils (pictured) for an appetizer and Grilled Pork Chop with Braised Red Cabbage & Pommes Dauphinoise (pictured) for the main course. Can you imagine that being YOUR final exam? Strangely enough, it was extremely stressful. But it was TONS of fun to pull off.

Now I'm starting my BAKING journey in culinary school. Tune in, sign on, tweet, toot or read about my next blog where I talk about the joys of...

YEAST.

(Yeah, I know, it's actually not that exciting).

Mount with butter

On to the proteins!

I have moved past my first intro culinary course into my...wait for it...SECOND intro culinary course. Movin' at the speed of light here, people!

Actually, literally, it feels like the speed of light. A month ago I was learning how to heat a pan hot enough to saute a vegetable. Now I'm learning how to roast, pan-fry, grill and poach meats PLUS make sauces for them PLUS make side dishes to go with them. And we make multiple versions of these meats in one day. In less than two hours. My head is spinning. Constantly.

One of my favorite things - every time we finish a sauce, we are to "mount" it with butter. As if we didn't already have enough fat in or dishes, we finish sauces off with butter to give them texture and shine. Gotta love it.

Wanna see pictures?? Okay!!


DUCK!

Okay, stop ducking. I mean, I COOKED duck! I don't even know if I've eaten duck before, but I cooked it! And it was positively delicious. Pictured above, you see Sauteed Duck Breast with Dried Cherry Pan Sauce along with Rosemary Roasted Potatoes. Is your mouth watering yet? It should be.

For this, you saute your duck breast in its own luscious fat until it's cooked medium rare (duck is a red meat). Use that duck fat to make a beautiful red wine and dried cherry sauce. Meanwhile, roast some red bliss potatoes in the oven and coat with rosemary and desired spices. Piece of cake, right?



BEEF!

Yup, beef tenderloin, my friends. The beauty of meat. Lovingly coated with olive oil, salt and pepper and grilled to perfection. Alongside it, a twice baked potato. One bake: in the oven and whole. Scoop everything out of the potato and combine with sour cream, regular cream, cheese and salt & pepper. Place back in potato skin. Two bake: top with cheese and bacon and place her in the oven. Twice baked and twice as delicious!



Another twice baked potato! And some Marinated & Grilled Flank Steak. (I cut them the wrong way which is why they look like pruney meat lady fingers). But it tasted delicious.



The beautiful thing about the class I'm in now: we make amazing things. Behold, fish and chips. (Homemade tartar sauce not pictured). Yeah, we made tartar sauce from scratch. NOT an easy task. Mainly because tartar sauce has a mayonnaise base...and we MADE our mayonnaise. Mine didn't come out totally perfect. But how many mayonnaises have you made today??

This next dish is not for the faint of heart. Or for anyone who dislikes seafood...



Trout Almondine. The prettiest of the pretty fish. Look, she's mugging for you! This lovely fish is covered in brown butter sauce with almonds. Underneath the fish is braised chard and pommes parisienne (potato balls). Can't say it was one of my favorites...but technique-wise, good to learn.

**Just to give you an idea of how crazy these classes can be**

One day we had to make Chicken Marsala, Crispy Snapper, Grilled Salmon, Grilled Vegetables & Lentils. In two hours. I nearly lost my mind. AAAAND we had to have them in between certain times.

From 9:15-9:30 we had to turn in our chicken marsala. Great. Good. I got straight to work on it because it was first up. So there I am diligently working away on my chicken to get it turned in by 9:15. So I turn it in at 9:15 and realize I haven't done ANYTHING to further my other dishes. I manically start pan-frying my striped bass and COMPLETELY burn the poor thing. Once I saw that sad, charred bass sitting there, I just lost hope for everything else I was doing. The bass was due between 9:30 and 9:45 and there was just no hope for it or its cream sauce. Our salmon and lentils were due from 9:45 and 10:00 (yes, in the A.M. We get there early). My salmon was undercooked and my spirit was crushed.

I was so pissed that day that I swore the food would no longer be the boss of me. The next day, I took down the duck, beef tenderloin AND flank steak all within two hours. TAKE THAT!!

It is awesome to be working with meats and learning all of these neat techniques. So far I haven't blown myself up or cut a finger off. Knock on wood. Now on to more complicated French cookery!