Culinary School Update: End of semester wrap up

So, I have to start this post by telling everyone how incredibly sorry I am for waiting so long to post again!  It has been a long, rough, past few weeks, so again, I have to apologize for how I've fallen off with the blog.

That being said, I owe you guys a culinary school update. Its the end of the semester, and I have exams all week long. I can't believe my first semester is already almost over!  But I do want to pick up where I left off with the school updates.

A couple weeks ago, we played with fresh pasta dough in cooking class.  First, we made ravioli with mushroom duxelles.

Then, we made fettuccine alfredo.

We also made orzo with creamed leeks.

~

We didn't have baking class that week, so I'm moving on to the following week. The next cooking class we had, we worked on grains.  We were really busy that week. 

We made grits,

risotto,

fried polenta, 

and red beans and rice.

 ~

The past couple weeks in baking class, we've been decorating the sponge cakes we baked a while back.  They were frozen immediately after we baked them.  Here is the chiffon sponge with oreo whipped cream frosting that we decorated 2 weeks ago:

Last week, we decorated the walnut genoise cake. We made a Swiss buttercream icing to go with it.  This was really hard to decorate!  The meticulous, nit-picky side of me struggled with trying to perfect the cake, but I really enjoyed the process.

Cross section: the bottom layer was spread with raspberry jam.  I loved this cake- the ground walnuts added a nice texture to the cake.

~

Finally, we had breakfast week in cooking class.  I didn't really think anything was photo-worthy except the eggs benedict I made.  Obviously, we didn't have any Canadian bacon, so I just used regular bacon. I wanted to practice making hollandaise sauce because its on the final next Monday.

Whew! That was a lot of catching up to do! So, I'm off to my baking final to make pate a choux. Wish me luck!

Shrimp Scampi

I start culinary school tomorrow!  I'm really excited.  I'm taking Principles of Food Production and Bakeshop Production, and online I'm taking Nutrition, Safety and Sanitation, and Intro to Baking Science.  So, a pretty basic first semester. I'll keep you posted on how classes go.

I chose to make this shrimp scampi the other night because its easy and delicious. A good school-night recipe, perhaps :)  This is adapted from one of my mom's recipes:

Shrimp Scampi

 

2 pounds fresh jumbo shrimp

1 medium onion, finely chopped

7 cloves garlic, minced

1/2 cup butter

zest and juice from one lemon
1/4 cup white wine
1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon

1/2 teaspoon steak sauce

1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce

1/4 teaspoon Tabasco

1 pound hot cooked fettuccine

chopped fresh parsley, about 1/4 cup

Peel and devein shrimp.  Melt butter in large skillet.  Add onion and garlic, and saute over medium heat, stirring constantly, about 4 minutes.
 

Add lemon juice, zest and next 5 ingredients.  Adjust flavors to your liking.  Bring to a boil; add shrimp.

Cook shrimp, stirring constantly, 3 to 5 minutes or until shrimp turn pink.  

Season with salt and pepper and adjust lemon juice if desired.  Add parsley.  Toss with cooked fettuccine.

Chicken Pasta Soup

The last few weeks of '09 have not been very kind to me.  I've had food poisoning, a root canal, and now I've come down with some kind of yucky flu-ish illness.  So, I'm kind of depressed because I haven't really felt like eating like usual.  Nothing really strikes me, but I need energy because these next couple days are the busiest days of the year in the food and bev industry.  Even if I wanted to call in sick, there would be no one to cover the shifts for me!  Plus, I'm broke, and its all about the mon-ay.


So, I buckled down and made some feel-good chicken and pasta soup. This is my Aunt Loralee's recipe, which I fell in love with when I was like 10 years old.  I only tend to make it when I'm feeling really crummy, or have someone sick to care for.  It's super easy, and you can use any old vegetable-bin staples you have laying around.  There's no specific measurements- just a dash of this, pinch of that, little bit of this, handful of that, so you can tailor it to your liking.  Her recipe called for green beans, which I didn't have on hand, so I added a diced potato for some additional starchy energy.

Loralee's Chicken Pasta Soup

Rotisserie Chicken

2 or 3 bay leaves

Garlic/Cumin/Sage/Crushed Red Pepper/Salt & Pepper

Veggie Bouillon (2 or 3 squares, dissolved in soup broth)

Carrots, finely chopped

Celery, finely chopped

Potato, diced

Tomatoes (one can or a couple of fresh, finely chopped)

Dry White Wine

Soy Sauce

Worcestershire Sauce

Tabasco

Orzo, Pepini Noodles, or other pasta of your choice

Boil chicken in large soup pot of water.  (It doesn't have to be a full chicken- you can eat some for lunch and use the rest for the soup).  I let the chicken boil while I diced the rest of the veggies.  Take chicken out and cool in colander, keeping broth in pot.  While chicken is cooling, add remaining ingredients, except for the pasta, to the broth.  Pull chicken off bones and tear or cut into bite size pieces and add back to soup.  Let simmer for 1-4 hours, tasting and adding additional spices as desired.  

Twenty minutes before serving, turn up heat to boiling.  Once boiling, add pasta *I used half a box of orzo.*  Enjoy!

Have a happy new year!  Be careful tonight!