Day 23:
When I got to school today I started taking my chapter 5 test. It the test on yields and price charts, etc. It is not my favorite and it took me a while to get through it. It also took so long because I was talking to people and then someone came in and told us about a food show at Lee's that we can participate in if we would like to. I'll go into that more in a minute. So I get to the last question on my test and it is a chart that I need to fill in. I had to convert a recipe made for 24 portions at 8 oz each to something like 60 portions 8 oz each and 48 portions 6 oz each. I looked at it and almost just submitted my test without it but I tried it and I figured it out and I am pretty positive I got it all right. After I took it I found out that the chart is worth 18 points so it was probably a good thing I filled it out. I have to pass every test with at least 90% or I have to continue to take them until I get 90%.
The Lee's food show is something I guess they do right before Thanksgiving every year, people set up a little table and hand out appetizers to up to 1,500 people! It sounds like fun and I'm debating if I should participate in it. I want to, I just don't have a clue what I would make and serve in that large of quantities. I'll have to keep thinking.
Anyway after my test was finished and I headed into the kitchen to find something to do. We had a lunch to serve that day so I helped with that and was put in charge of it. I didn't make any of the food, just assembled and served. We served a simple spinach and red leaf salad with thin slices of red onion and some croutons with a red wine vinaigrette. In the middle of plating all the salads, out of nowhere I got a splitting headache right above my right eye to the point my vision went blurry and I couldn't see out of it very well. I also started to get a little tipsy and started to trip over things and run into things more. It was really really odd! My headache just kept getting more and more intense until I finally decided to go find my glasses in hopes that they would help my eyes focus a little better and my headache started to calm down a little. I plated up the chicken cordon bleu with rice and a veggie and we took them out and served the lunch. For dessert Craig made a chocolate and caramel sauce and we put it over ice cream with a banana, whipped cream and a cherry. It turned out to be a really good lunch and everyone seemed to like it. After lunch I stayed and cleaned it all up and had a little bit of the leftover rice.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Day 22 - October 22, 2009
Day 22:
When I got to school today I sat in the high school group and watched a demo on Chicken Cordon Bleu. I have only had it once and I really liked. This method was a little strange compared to the way I had had it and looked really good. This way the cheese is formed into a small log, rolled up in the ham slice and then the chicken is wrapped around the log so when you cut into it, there's a big cheese pocket on the inside. After that, I headed into the kitchen to start my own project.
I volunteered to prepare some flank steaks for lunch and a catering event for next Monday. Today I started all the prep work on the steaks. I needed to trim all the fat and silver skin off the meat and then get it in the marinade so they could start soaking up all the goodness.
I pulled out two big packages of the flank (each package has 6 steaks in it). They are starting to get to the point where we need to use them now our they will go bad so we were making a little extra. I got all set up to start trimming. John had come over to show me what to do and I was ready to get started. About 5-6 steaks in and my knife hits my fingertip and I start to bleed. I was thoroughly annoyed and headed to the sink to start cleaning it up and put a bandage, and a glove on. When I got to the sink, I noticed that I had two spots that were bleeding and realized that I must have cut it twice without realizing I had done it one of the times. I washed up, put on a band aid and a glove and headed back to my station. A couple minutes later I cut through my glove and decide that I should probably put a finger cover over my band aid in case this happens again. So I go get a little latex rubber cover for my finger and then put on a glove and go back again. About 5 minutes later, I hit the knuckle on my thumb and it starts to bleed as well! I head back to the sink and wash up again, bandaging two different fingers this time, two finger covers and another glove. When I went back this time, I couldn't even get a grip on the meat or the fat to start cutting it off. With two layers on my fingers I couldn't feel anything. I was going crazy! I couldn't believe I had cut myself 3 different times while trimming up this steak. I told Rex and John that if I cut myself one more time while I was working on this, I was going to trade someone jobs and they could finish my last 4 steaks. Luckily I finished them all without any more cuts and I was able to start on my marinade.
I had picked two different marinades for the steak. The first one was a garlic, shallot, rosemary marinade and the second was a garlic chili marinade. John looked them over and told me to do the garlic chili.
The recipe I have is for 1 flank steak, so I had to times it by 12. I ended up with an entire can of chipotle chili in adobo, 12 jalepenos, and over a pound of minced garlic. Crazy! I thought it was going to burn my face off when I tasted it, but it was really really good. I put them all into the marinade and cleaned up.
I wanted to try it out at home to see how it turned out so I bought one of the steaks from the school (we had plenty to spare) and brought it home and cooked it for dinner. It turned out really good and I was happy with the recipe.
When I got to school today I sat in the high school group and watched a demo on Chicken Cordon Bleu. I have only had it once and I really liked. This method was a little strange compared to the way I had had it and looked really good. This way the cheese is formed into a small log, rolled up in the ham slice and then the chicken is wrapped around the log so when you cut into it, there's a big cheese pocket on the inside. After that, I headed into the kitchen to start my own project.
I volunteered to prepare some flank steaks for lunch and a catering event for next Monday. Today I started all the prep work on the steaks. I needed to trim all the fat and silver skin off the meat and then get it in the marinade so they could start soaking up all the goodness.
I pulled out two big packages of the flank (each package has 6 steaks in it). They are starting to get to the point where we need to use them now our they will go bad so we were making a little extra. I got all set up to start trimming. John had come over to show me what to do and I was ready to get started. About 5-6 steaks in and my knife hits my fingertip and I start to bleed. I was thoroughly annoyed and headed to the sink to start cleaning it up and put a bandage, and a glove on. When I got to the sink, I noticed that I had two spots that were bleeding and realized that I must have cut it twice without realizing I had done it one of the times. I washed up, put on a band aid and a glove and headed back to my station. A couple minutes later I cut through my glove and decide that I should probably put a finger cover over my band aid in case this happens again. So I go get a little latex rubber cover for my finger and then put on a glove and go back again. About 5 minutes later, I hit the knuckle on my thumb and it starts to bleed as well! I head back to the sink and wash up again, bandaging two different fingers this time, two finger covers and another glove. When I went back this time, I couldn't even get a grip on the meat or the fat to start cutting it off. With two layers on my fingers I couldn't feel anything. I was going crazy! I couldn't believe I had cut myself 3 different times while trimming up this steak. I told Rex and John that if I cut myself one more time while I was working on this, I was going to trade someone jobs and they could finish my last 4 steaks. Luckily I finished them all without any more cuts and I was able to start on my marinade.
I had picked two different marinades for the steak. The first one was a garlic, shallot, rosemary marinade and the second was a garlic chili marinade. John looked them over and told me to do the garlic chili.
The recipe I have is for 1 flank steak, so I had to times it by 12. I ended up with an entire can of chipotle chili in adobo, 12 jalepenos, and over a pound of minced garlic. Crazy! I thought it was going to burn my face off when I tasted it, but it was really really good. I put them all into the marinade and cleaned up.
I wanted to try it out at home to see how it turned out so I bought one of the steaks from the school (we had plenty to spare) and brought it home and cooked it for dinner. It turned out really good and I was happy with the recipe.
Day 21 - October 21, 2009
Day 21:
Today I worked on making a shrimp bisque with my leftover shrimp from the composed salad and my shrimp stock I made that day as well. I had never made a bisque before so that was kind of fun. I had to start of by making a shrimp veloute. It is really similar to a bechamel, but instead of using milk you use a stock (I used shrimp) and then you don't add nutmeg at the end. While that was working I chopped my carrot and onion into a brunoise cut (tiny uniform cubes, these are not mine but some I found on the internet).
A brunoise (broo-nwahz) cut:
I addded the vegetables, some spices and herbs the tomato paste and some brandy and wine. I diced my leftover shrimp and set it aside until I was ready for it. I added my veloute sauce when it was finished and some remaining stock. Brought it up to a simmer added the shrimp and some heavy cream and salt and pepper.
It tasted pretty good. I had never had it before so I wasn't sure what to expect. I did make a mistake at the end and forgot to strain out the veggies before I added my shrimp. This time it was no big deal but if I had made it the way I was supposed to which was so simmer the shells in there as well and forgot to strain those out it would have been a problem. Since my shrimp were leftovers they had no more shells so the veggies were fine.
I guess a traditional bisque is supposed to be thicker than the one I made, I'm not sure where my mistake was made...maybe it was with the veloute sauce and I didn't let it get thick enough. I'm not sure. Besides that, I think I did pretty good.
It's not a very attractive soup to photograph, I had to get a spoon to show the shrimp in it since it all sinks to the bottom.
Today I worked on making a shrimp bisque with my leftover shrimp from the composed salad and my shrimp stock I made that day as well. I had never made a bisque before so that was kind of fun. I had to start of by making a shrimp veloute. It is really similar to a bechamel, but instead of using milk you use a stock (I used shrimp) and then you don't add nutmeg at the end. While that was working I chopped my carrot and onion into a brunoise cut (tiny uniform cubes, these are not mine but some I found on the internet).
A brunoise (broo-nwahz) cut:
I addded the vegetables, some spices and herbs the tomato paste and some brandy and wine. I diced my leftover shrimp and set it aside until I was ready for it. I added my veloute sauce when it was finished and some remaining stock. Brought it up to a simmer added the shrimp and some heavy cream and salt and pepper.
It tasted pretty good. I had never had it before so I wasn't sure what to expect. I did make a mistake at the end and forgot to strain out the veggies before I added my shrimp. This time it was no big deal but if I had made it the way I was supposed to which was so simmer the shells in there as well and forgot to strain those out it would have been a problem. Since my shrimp were leftovers they had no more shells so the veggies were fine.
I guess a traditional bisque is supposed to be thicker than the one I made, I'm not sure where my mistake was made...maybe it was with the veloute sauce and I didn't let it get thick enough. I'm not sure. Besides that, I think I did pretty good.
It's not a very attractive soup to photograph, I had to get a spoon to show the shrimp in it since it all sinks to the bottom.
Day 20 - October 20, 2009
Day 20:
Today we attempted mozzarella again. This time Rex helped me along the entire time and we used a double boiler instead of the steam kettle. Both of those things I think played a big part in the cheese working out much better this time around. Using the double boiler we were able to get the temperature correct within about an hour instead of about 5. It didn't take long at all, thank goodness. We got everything to the right temperatures, cooled it and then added the rennet to curdle the milk. It already looked better at that point then it did in the steam kettle. After we poured out the leftover whey there were a lot more curdles than yesterday. We put them in a bowl with 170 degree water over the top and hoped that they would start to melt. It did!
While we were working with the mozzarella hoping it would melt, we started on the ricotta. When you make ricotta you use fresh whey that is no longer than 2 hours old. It was perfect to make with the leftover whey from the mozzarella. The ricotta turned out really good as well! It was really creamy, probably the best ricotta I've ever had. It was so bland it made my mouth super dry so I started adding the salt a little at a time. It still wasn't improving so I decided to add the entire amount the book called for. Yeah, it ended up too salty. It was good, just over salted. It ended up being used in a lasagna on Thursday.
As for the mozzarella, after we worked with them and got it all stringy and looking nice, we shaped them and tasted. It was also super bland. John suggested that we roll them in salt, which made a huge difference. Then he told me to roll them in salt, soak them one last time to make them melted enough to reshape and then on to the ice bath. The salt must have reacted funny with the cheese because the texture started to change. They would no longer hold their own shape in a little ball, instead we ended up having to make little round discs. When they came out of the ice bath, they were like little rubber hockey pucks. Disappointing for sure, but at least they were stringy at one point. They tasted alright and they were also used in the lasagna.
We started to wonder if maybe we overworked the cheese too much. I'm pretty sure that Rex and I will try again and see if we can get it right.
And now for my blonde moment of the day:
In the back of the kitchen we have some doors that lead outside to a receiving lot where we get all our shipments in. The door is always locked so they just ring a doorbell of sorts and someone goes to let them in. After I finished my ricotta I had a bucket full of whey with vinegar in it, so it was something we couldn't use again. John didn't want me to dump it down the drains, it is bad for the septic tank. He told me to go outside and dump it in the dumpster or on the asphalt out there because there were no chunks left in it. I had only been out there once to help load a truck and that was it, so I headed back to find the dumpster. I went out and found it and dumped all my liquid out and turned around to go back inside. I had locked myself out! So I rang the doorbell so someone would come and get me and a minute later Rex comes walking back with a super confused look on his face showing something like "I'm not expecting any shipments right now, who's ringing the bell?" and then he saw me standing there and broke out into a huge grin. He opened the door and I told him I locked myself out. He started laughing. From that point on every time the bell went off that day he would look for me first before he went to get the door.
Today we attempted mozzarella again. This time Rex helped me along the entire time and we used a double boiler instead of the steam kettle. Both of those things I think played a big part in the cheese working out much better this time around. Using the double boiler we were able to get the temperature correct within about an hour instead of about 5. It didn't take long at all, thank goodness. We got everything to the right temperatures, cooled it and then added the rennet to curdle the milk. It already looked better at that point then it did in the steam kettle. After we poured out the leftover whey there were a lot more curdles than yesterday. We put them in a bowl with 170 degree water over the top and hoped that they would start to melt. It did!
While we were working with the mozzarella hoping it would melt, we started on the ricotta. When you make ricotta you use fresh whey that is no longer than 2 hours old. It was perfect to make with the leftover whey from the mozzarella. The ricotta turned out really good as well! It was really creamy, probably the best ricotta I've ever had. It was so bland it made my mouth super dry so I started adding the salt a little at a time. It still wasn't improving so I decided to add the entire amount the book called for. Yeah, it ended up too salty. It was good, just over salted. It ended up being used in a lasagna on Thursday.
As for the mozzarella, after we worked with them and got it all stringy and looking nice, we shaped them and tasted. It was also super bland. John suggested that we roll them in salt, which made a huge difference. Then he told me to roll them in salt, soak them one last time to make them melted enough to reshape and then on to the ice bath. The salt must have reacted funny with the cheese because the texture started to change. They would no longer hold their own shape in a little ball, instead we ended up having to make little round discs. When they came out of the ice bath, they were like little rubber hockey pucks. Disappointing for sure, but at least they were stringy at one point. They tasted alright and they were also used in the lasagna.
We started to wonder if maybe we overworked the cheese too much. I'm pretty sure that Rex and I will try again and see if we can get it right.
And now for my blonde moment of the day:
In the back of the kitchen we have some doors that lead outside to a receiving lot where we get all our shipments in. The door is always locked so they just ring a doorbell of sorts and someone goes to let them in. After I finished my ricotta I had a bucket full of whey with vinegar in it, so it was something we couldn't use again. John didn't want me to dump it down the drains, it is bad for the septic tank. He told me to go outside and dump it in the dumpster or on the asphalt out there because there were no chunks left in it. I had only been out there once to help load a truck and that was it, so I headed back to find the dumpster. I went out and found it and dumped all my liquid out and turned around to go back inside. I had locked myself out! So I rang the doorbell so someone would come and get me and a minute later Rex comes walking back with a super confused look on his face showing something like "I'm not expecting any shipments right now, who's ringing the bell?" and then he saw me standing there and broke out into a huge grin. He opened the door and I told him I locked myself out. He started laughing. From that point on every time the bell went off that day he would look for me first before he went to get the door.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Day 19 - October 19, 2009
Day 19:
Today was mozzarella day. I was really excited about attempting to make some fresh mozzarella today and, well, it was definitely an attempt.
I started off by putting 1 gallon of fresh cow's milk in the steam kettle. I needed to bring the milk up to 162 degrees and then let it cool off to 88 degrees. It took probably a good 30 minutes to an hour to get it that hot (we wanted it to go slow so it didn't scorch the milk) and then I had to figure out how to get it to drop temperatures quickly. That was the trick. I shut off the kettle and just hoped it would drop, but it wasn't. Around the same time as the temperature switch I got a call from Kacean telling me that she got called into work about 3-4 hours early for the day, somebody didn't show up...again. She was loading Ethan at that moment into the car to take him to Ber's house. Ber has a hurt knee and would have a hard time chasing him around for several hours and I knew it wouldn't go well so I started calling around to find someone else who could watch him instead. Traves said he would watch him on Monday's but I could not get a hold of him and Kace couldn't get a hold of him. I got a hold of my brother Ty and he agreed to watch him until he had to leave for work. That was good for the moment, but I was not convinced that I would be finished by then to pick Ethan up. I called around again. My mom was busy, Traves still didn't answer so I called Mart. He left work 3 hours early and came to school to switch me cars because he didn't have the carseat and he was off to pick up Ethan. All the while I was rushing to cool off my cheese in case I had to get going right then. I put a frozen tube thing in the milk to help bring down the temperature really quickly and once it hit 88 degrees it was time to add the rennet tablets and the citric acid. At that point it was supposed to sit for 15 minutes.
15 minutes later I was to bring the cheese to 98 degrees and hold it at that temp for 15 more minutes while it curdled. Stressing over a babysitter while making cheese is not a good combination. I was focusing more on the babysitter issue and not as much on the thermometer and the milk and ended up cooking the cheese at too hot of a temperature making it so the cheese reacted funny and it didn't work properly. We pulled out the curds, drained them and tried to work them into balls but the cheese just wasn't stringy or sticking together. It was more like ricotta cheese curds than anything. We soaked it in hot water to cook the cheese and it still didn't do anything. Bummer.
After fiddling around with it for a while, we knew it just wasn't going to work and it was pointless to keep trying and we settled for trying to make ricotta out of the whey from the mozzarella. Yeah...that didn't work either. Rex just started dumping ingredients into the pan and added the vinegar too early causing it to curdle before it reached temperature. Cheese #2 didn't work either. *Sigh*
Tomorrow we will try again using a double boiler instead of a steam kettle. The good thing about tomorrow is Kacean doesn't have to work so I shouldn't have to stress about a babysitter during crucial temperature points of the cheese. I hope she doesn't get called in again!
Today was mozzarella day. I was really excited about attempting to make some fresh mozzarella today and, well, it was definitely an attempt.
I started off by putting 1 gallon of fresh cow's milk in the steam kettle. I needed to bring the milk up to 162 degrees and then let it cool off to 88 degrees. It took probably a good 30 minutes to an hour to get it that hot (we wanted it to go slow so it didn't scorch the milk) and then I had to figure out how to get it to drop temperatures quickly. That was the trick. I shut off the kettle and just hoped it would drop, but it wasn't. Around the same time as the temperature switch I got a call from Kacean telling me that she got called into work about 3-4 hours early for the day, somebody didn't show up...again. She was loading Ethan at that moment into the car to take him to Ber's house. Ber has a hurt knee and would have a hard time chasing him around for several hours and I knew it wouldn't go well so I started calling around to find someone else who could watch him instead. Traves said he would watch him on Monday's but I could not get a hold of him and Kace couldn't get a hold of him. I got a hold of my brother Ty and he agreed to watch him until he had to leave for work. That was good for the moment, but I was not convinced that I would be finished by then to pick Ethan up. I called around again. My mom was busy, Traves still didn't answer so I called Mart. He left work 3 hours early and came to school to switch me cars because he didn't have the carseat and he was off to pick up Ethan. All the while I was rushing to cool off my cheese in case I had to get going right then. I put a frozen tube thing in the milk to help bring down the temperature really quickly and once it hit 88 degrees it was time to add the rennet tablets and the citric acid. At that point it was supposed to sit for 15 minutes.
15 minutes later I was to bring the cheese to 98 degrees and hold it at that temp for 15 more minutes while it curdled. Stressing over a babysitter while making cheese is not a good combination. I was focusing more on the babysitter issue and not as much on the thermometer and the milk and ended up cooking the cheese at too hot of a temperature making it so the cheese reacted funny and it didn't work properly. We pulled out the curds, drained them and tried to work them into balls but the cheese just wasn't stringy or sticking together. It was more like ricotta cheese curds than anything. We soaked it in hot water to cook the cheese and it still didn't do anything. Bummer.
After fiddling around with it for a while, we knew it just wasn't going to work and it was pointless to keep trying and we settled for trying to make ricotta out of the whey from the mozzarella. Yeah...that didn't work either. Rex just started dumping ingredients into the pan and added the vinegar too early causing it to curdle before it reached temperature. Cheese #2 didn't work either. *Sigh*
Tomorrow we will try again using a double boiler instead of a steam kettle. The good thing about tomorrow is Kacean doesn't have to work so I shouldn't have to stress about a babysitter during crucial temperature points of the cheese. I hope she doesn't get called in again!
Friday, October 16, 2009
Day 18 - October 16, 2009
Day 18:
Today I helped with the lunch special again. Nobody had signed up to do it and Rex was going to end up doing it. After I found out something about him, I was really really glad that I did it instead of Rex. Today's lunch special was a composed shrimp salad. That just means a salad that is arranged pretty on a plate. When he first told me what we were doing, I was completely confused. I thought we were putting all the lettuce in one huge hotel pan and then dishing it up when someone ordered it so I couldn't figure out how he wanted me to decorate a huge pan so that it was functional to scoop out at the same time. Rex on the other hand was super confused why I was so confused about decorating a plate. When I finally just had him show me what he wanted me to do, he looked confused but agreed and started decorating a plate. I finally understood what he meant and told him that I thought we were decorating the entire hotel pan and that's why I was confused. It finally made sense to him why I was so confused about the whole project.
Anyway, today the salad had 3 (in the picture it only has 2, but I added 1 more each at the end) ginormous shrimp on it! I think Rex guessed they were 16/20 count which means there are only 16 shrimp per pound. We made 5 pounds of shrimp and only had 63 shrimp. Crazy! It had some fresh corn (blanched), celery, tomato, avocado, a lemon and lime wedge and then some cocktail sauce. They were just going to get the dressing from the salad bar.
After we started peeling and de-veining the shrimp I found out that Rex was allergic to shrimp! That's why I was really glad that I was the one who worked on it instead of him. To show me how to do one he had to put a mask on and some gloves. I made sure to clean up around me as I went so I didn't leave anything shrimp around for him to touch.
I ended up making 20 salads. I took them out to the cafeteria line and got them all set up, put the rest in the walk-in to chill and headed back to my station to sanitize everything. 15 minutes later I walked back up to look for someone and they had sold half of them already! That's really really good for the special. I refilled the tray with the remaining in the fridge and left. I guess today was a slow day and they ended up with only 7 or so plates left. That's really not bad for such a slow day they told me.
After I finished the salad and cleaned up everything I made a shrimp stock with the shells from peeling them. Shrimp stock only has to simmer for 30-45 minutes so it's a quicker process than say Turkey stock. I let that simmer while I started reading chaper 4. When it was finished, I strained it and chilled it in a water bath and then I had to leave. Kacean was called into work a couple hours early and I needed to get out on time.
Mozzarella is on the schedule for Monday. This time it's going to happen. It should be fun.
Today I helped with the lunch special again. Nobody had signed up to do it and Rex was going to end up doing it. After I found out something about him, I was really really glad that I did it instead of Rex. Today's lunch special was a composed shrimp salad. That just means a salad that is arranged pretty on a plate. When he first told me what we were doing, I was completely confused. I thought we were putting all the lettuce in one huge hotel pan and then dishing it up when someone ordered it so I couldn't figure out how he wanted me to decorate a huge pan so that it was functional to scoop out at the same time. Rex on the other hand was super confused why I was so confused about decorating a plate. When I finally just had him show me what he wanted me to do, he looked confused but agreed and started decorating a plate. I finally understood what he meant and told him that I thought we were decorating the entire hotel pan and that's why I was confused. It finally made sense to him why I was so confused about the whole project.
Anyway, today the salad had 3 (in the picture it only has 2, but I added 1 more each at the end) ginormous shrimp on it! I think Rex guessed they were 16/20 count which means there are only 16 shrimp per pound. We made 5 pounds of shrimp and only had 63 shrimp. Crazy! It had some fresh corn (blanched), celery, tomato, avocado, a lemon and lime wedge and then some cocktail sauce. They were just going to get the dressing from the salad bar.
After we started peeling and de-veining the shrimp I found out that Rex was allergic to shrimp! That's why I was really glad that I was the one who worked on it instead of him. To show me how to do one he had to put a mask on and some gloves. I made sure to clean up around me as I went so I didn't leave anything shrimp around for him to touch.
I ended up making 20 salads. I took them out to the cafeteria line and got them all set up, put the rest in the walk-in to chill and headed back to my station to sanitize everything. 15 minutes later I walked back up to look for someone and they had sold half of them already! That's really really good for the special. I refilled the tray with the remaining in the fridge and left. I guess today was a slow day and they ended up with only 7 or so plates left. That's really not bad for such a slow day they told me.
After I finished the salad and cleaned up everything I made a shrimp stock with the shells from peeling them. Shrimp stock only has to simmer for 30-45 minutes so it's a quicker process than say Turkey stock. I let that simmer while I started reading chaper 4. When it was finished, I strained it and chilled it in a water bath and then I had to leave. Kacean was called into work a couple hours early and I needed to get out on time.
Mozzarella is on the schedule for Monday. This time it's going to happen. It should be fun.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Day 17 - October 15, 2009
Day 17:
Today I was in charge of the lunch special. On the menu today was Roasted Chicken with a Sage Vermouth Sauce, roasted cauliflower and sour cream and chive mashed potatoes. I started off in a hurry to get everything prepped so when the time came I could get it all cooked off and in the cafeteria by 11. After I had everything prepped and ready to go, I was standing around waiting for cooking time. I had about 30 minutes to an hour to kill. I went to help get the salad bar ready. After that, I started cooking. I put my cauliflower in the convection oven, my potatoes were already coming to a boil and my chicken was rinsed (it was in a brine bath), trimmed to get all the fat off, seasoned with pepper and put into the convection oven to sear and seal in the juices. As soon as the chicken was ready, I was to start on my sauce with the chicken drippings...well the chicken came out of the oven, with no drippings...
I started my sauce without them and was doing really good, until I looked at the clock and realized I was late with the chicken. My cauliflower and potatoes were already out ready to go, but I was just waiting for my sauce. It didn't want to reduce down quickly enough and all I could do was wait. It started to get thicker and it tasted good so we poured it over the chicken, I topped it with a sage chiffonade and put it in the cafeteria. I walked back to my station to start cleaning up and saw that I forgot the butter in the sauce! That's a key ingredient in making sauces glossy, thick and it something else I honestly forgot. I was not very happy about it. I melted the butter and just poured it over the chicken in hopes that it would at least help a little. The sad thing was, that after that incident, I was annoyed with myself for being so prepared to get everything done that I forgot something sitting right in front of me. Oh well, I guess that's just life.
After that was over and I cleaned up I helped finish getting everything ready for a catered lunch for 50 that was in the second half of our classroom. It all looked really really good. I served everyone dessert (I don't think there was a single empty seat, and it was so squishy!) and then went back to help with whatever else I could help with. After that I became a partial waitress until Rex closed the seperator in our room so they could have their meeting. Everytime I checked to make sure everyone had a dessert someone would ask me for more water, etc... so I grabbed some pitchers and just left them on their table and left them alone. One guy tried to send me with his plate, but we weren't collecting plates until they were finished.
Everyone who was in the kitchen got to have some of whatever was leftover for our lunch. There was a creamy lime/chili/chicken something or other which looked really good, but I didn't eat. Alfredo, a mixed veggie, salad, marinated mushrooms and some homemade baguettes. It was all really good.
After that I was getting ready to head out and talked to Rex about the plan for tomorrow and he didn't have anyone helping him with lunch so I volunteered to help. We are making a composed shrimp salad. It just means a nice looking salad with shrimp as the meat. I need to come up with ingredients to go on it and what type of dressing to use. We are also still looking into the mozzarella, Rex was able to get fresh cows milk that we will use. If we have time, we will make that tomorrow, otherwise it will probably be on Monday.
Today I was in charge of the lunch special. On the menu today was Roasted Chicken with a Sage Vermouth Sauce, roasted cauliflower and sour cream and chive mashed potatoes. I started off in a hurry to get everything prepped so when the time came I could get it all cooked off and in the cafeteria by 11. After I had everything prepped and ready to go, I was standing around waiting for cooking time. I had about 30 minutes to an hour to kill. I went to help get the salad bar ready. After that, I started cooking. I put my cauliflower in the convection oven, my potatoes were already coming to a boil and my chicken was rinsed (it was in a brine bath), trimmed to get all the fat off, seasoned with pepper and put into the convection oven to sear and seal in the juices. As soon as the chicken was ready, I was to start on my sauce with the chicken drippings...well the chicken came out of the oven, with no drippings...
I started my sauce without them and was doing really good, until I looked at the clock and realized I was late with the chicken. My cauliflower and potatoes were already out ready to go, but I was just waiting for my sauce. It didn't want to reduce down quickly enough and all I could do was wait. It started to get thicker and it tasted good so we poured it over the chicken, I topped it with a sage chiffonade and put it in the cafeteria. I walked back to my station to start cleaning up and saw that I forgot the butter in the sauce! That's a key ingredient in making sauces glossy, thick and it something else I honestly forgot. I was not very happy about it. I melted the butter and just poured it over the chicken in hopes that it would at least help a little. The sad thing was, that after that incident, I was annoyed with myself for being so prepared to get everything done that I forgot something sitting right in front of me. Oh well, I guess that's just life.
After that was over and I cleaned up I helped finish getting everything ready for a catered lunch for 50 that was in the second half of our classroom. It all looked really really good. I served everyone dessert (I don't think there was a single empty seat, and it was so squishy!) and then went back to help with whatever else I could help with. After that I became a partial waitress until Rex closed the seperator in our room so they could have their meeting. Everytime I checked to make sure everyone had a dessert someone would ask me for more water, etc... so I grabbed some pitchers and just left them on their table and left them alone. One guy tried to send me with his plate, but we weren't collecting plates until they were finished.
Everyone who was in the kitchen got to have some of whatever was leftover for our lunch. There was a creamy lime/chili/chicken something or other which looked really good, but I didn't eat. Alfredo, a mixed veggie, salad, marinated mushrooms and some homemade baguettes. It was all really good.
After that I was getting ready to head out and talked to Rex about the plan for tomorrow and he didn't have anyone helping him with lunch so I volunteered to help. We are making a composed shrimp salad. It just means a nice looking salad with shrimp as the meat. I need to come up with ingredients to go on it and what type of dressing to use. We are also still looking into the mozzarella, Rex was able to get fresh cows milk that we will use. If we have time, we will make that tomorrow, otherwise it will probably be on Monday.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Day 16 - October 14, 2009
Day 16:
Today was a bit of a long day for me. I didn't get a whole lot of sleep, so I started to get tired only an hour or two into the day. Tomorrow for lunch I am in charge of the special. I am making roasted chicken with a sage vermouth sauce. I also found out as I was walking out the door that I need to do a starch and a veggie as well...I'm in for a very busy morning tomorrow.
I started the day off by doing a test run of the recipe as I had never made it before. It helped me to figure out what I will be doing tomorrow and to taste test it out. While I sat waiting for my chicken to thaw, I made some bran and craisin muffins. They turned out good. Sometimes bran muffins are really bland and not sweet at all, but these ones had a little bit of brown sugar making them much better. The craisins added a lot to them as well. I will post the recipe tomorrow.
After that, I started on my chicken. I seared both sides of the chicken and then put the pan directly into the oven to let it roast and finish cooking. When the chicken finally decided to be finished I pulled it out of the pan and let it sit while I made the sauce. I made the sauce in the same pan to use the chicken drippings, added my veggie stock with some chicken base in it (we didn't have chicken stock), some dry vermouth and sage leaves and shallots. When the sauce reduced down enough I added some butter to smooth it out and make it more of a sauce. I picked out the sage leaves and topped it with a chiffonade of sage. (sort of like sage confetti). I had a piece for John and a piece for Rex. John said it was good, his only complaint was that it was a little salty (from the chicken base, I didn't add any salt at all) and the chicken was a little dry (I had some major issues with my thermometer and it not reading correctly). Other than that, it was good.
Rex said it was good and that he honestly recommended that I at least taste a little bit of it so I know what I made. I told him I came into this class with the impression that I would of course have to taste things I made, but that I would just taste it and spit them out so I didn't get too sick. I had a small piece of the chicken with the sauce, and it really was good. After spitting it out and I tried to flush my stomach out a bit with water to maybe help with my stomach ache that would come later. I did get a pretty bad stomach ache within an hour or so which lasted about 3 hours. It could've been a lot worse, so I'm glad that it wasn't.
So last week Rex and I got to talking and I found out that the kitchen at BATC doesn't have any granite for chocolate work. Granite is something I can get my hands on very easily, especially cutting board sizes. Rex and I talked about working out a trade granite for something I might want. I kept thinking about ingredients or something like that ... but Rex mentioned my knife kit. I was pumped about that! Mart got to work and made three really really nice boards. Two large ones for the school kitchen and one for Rex's home kitchen. I also had purchased some ingredients for us to make the mozzarella and they added that to what they owed me as a trade and it made it so I got my kit for a whopping ... $18!! Definitely worth it! I really wanted to use my grant money to buy some killer nice knives, but I won't be getting any of it until later on this year or even next spring so I would have had to wait until then to get some. For $18 I can get a knife kit to use until then and then I will have two differnet kits...which I am perfectly okay with.
Today, I brought the boards in and Rex and I traded. I honestly feel like I got the way better end of the deal and I felt bad about it all day long. He told me at the beginning of the day that I did get the better deal, but he was okay with that. After feeling bad about it and not even looking through my kit all day just because of feeling bad I finally talked with him again to make sure he didn't want me to pay any extra and he told me no he was fine with our deal unless I just wanted to pay him extra because. :) He said if he would have gone to a granite shop the boards would have costed him more than we traded for so he thought it was pretty equal. That made me feel better about it so I came home and tried them out.
They are really decent knives for not a ton of money. They will definitely last me as long as I take care of them.
Here they are, my Mercer forged knife kit:
It has 22 pieces (I think that's what I read)
The case
A thermometer
A peeler
A melon baller
A cut ruler
A pastry bag and some tips
A boning knife
A paring knife
A chef knife
A bread knife
A carving fork and a carving knife
A steel
A pastry spatula
Covers for all my knives
And I think that's it.
I'm pretty excited! I feel more official with my own complete knife kit rather than a couple of my mom's old (but really good) knives I took in Kacean's old knife bag.
Today was a bit of a long day for me. I didn't get a whole lot of sleep, so I started to get tired only an hour or two into the day. Tomorrow for lunch I am in charge of the special. I am making roasted chicken with a sage vermouth sauce. I also found out as I was walking out the door that I need to do a starch and a veggie as well...I'm in for a very busy morning tomorrow.
I started the day off by doing a test run of the recipe as I had never made it before. It helped me to figure out what I will be doing tomorrow and to taste test it out. While I sat waiting for my chicken to thaw, I made some bran and craisin muffins. They turned out good. Sometimes bran muffins are really bland and not sweet at all, but these ones had a little bit of brown sugar making them much better. The craisins added a lot to them as well. I will post the recipe tomorrow.
After that, I started on my chicken. I seared both sides of the chicken and then put the pan directly into the oven to let it roast and finish cooking. When the chicken finally decided to be finished I pulled it out of the pan and let it sit while I made the sauce. I made the sauce in the same pan to use the chicken drippings, added my veggie stock with some chicken base in it (we didn't have chicken stock), some dry vermouth and sage leaves and shallots. When the sauce reduced down enough I added some butter to smooth it out and make it more of a sauce. I picked out the sage leaves and topped it with a chiffonade of sage. (sort of like sage confetti). I had a piece for John and a piece for Rex. John said it was good, his only complaint was that it was a little salty (from the chicken base, I didn't add any salt at all) and the chicken was a little dry (I had some major issues with my thermometer and it not reading correctly). Other than that, it was good.
Rex said it was good and that he honestly recommended that I at least taste a little bit of it so I know what I made. I told him I came into this class with the impression that I would of course have to taste things I made, but that I would just taste it and spit them out so I didn't get too sick. I had a small piece of the chicken with the sauce, and it really was good. After spitting it out and I tried to flush my stomach out a bit with water to maybe help with my stomach ache that would come later. I did get a pretty bad stomach ache within an hour or so which lasted about 3 hours. It could've been a lot worse, so I'm glad that it wasn't.
So last week Rex and I got to talking and I found out that the kitchen at BATC doesn't have any granite for chocolate work. Granite is something I can get my hands on very easily, especially cutting board sizes. Rex and I talked about working out a trade granite for something I might want. I kept thinking about ingredients or something like that ... but Rex mentioned my knife kit. I was pumped about that! Mart got to work and made three really really nice boards. Two large ones for the school kitchen and one for Rex's home kitchen. I also had purchased some ingredients for us to make the mozzarella and they added that to what they owed me as a trade and it made it so I got my kit for a whopping ... $18!! Definitely worth it! I really wanted to use my grant money to buy some killer nice knives, but I won't be getting any of it until later on this year or even next spring so I would have had to wait until then to get some. For $18 I can get a knife kit to use until then and then I will have two differnet kits...which I am perfectly okay with.
Today, I brought the boards in and Rex and I traded. I honestly feel like I got the way better end of the deal and I felt bad about it all day long. He told me at the beginning of the day that I did get the better deal, but he was okay with that. After feeling bad about it and not even looking through my kit all day just because of feeling bad I finally talked with him again to make sure he didn't want me to pay any extra and he told me no he was fine with our deal unless I just wanted to pay him extra because. :) He said if he would have gone to a granite shop the boards would have costed him more than we traded for so he thought it was pretty equal. That made me feel better about it so I came home and tried them out.
They are really decent knives for not a ton of money. They will definitely last me as long as I take care of them.
Here they are, my Mercer forged knife kit:
It has 22 pieces (I think that's what I read)
The case
A thermometer
A peeler
A melon baller
A cut ruler
A pastry bag and some tips
A boning knife
A paring knife
A chef knife
A bread knife
A carving fork and a carving knife
A steel
A pastry spatula
Covers for all my knives
And I think that's it.
I'm pretty excited! I feel more official with my own complete knife kit rather than a couple of my mom's old (but really good) knives I took in Kacean's old knife bag.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Day 15 - October 13, 2009
Day 15:
Today I got to school and it was pretty empty ... again. More than half my class has not been there for the last week or two, which is really odd. The few people that did show up where all heading out to SLC with John to the food show. Adrienn and I were the only ones who stayed behind.
Today I slowly reheated my broccoli cheese soup base so I didn't separate the milk and when it was warm I added the cheese until it was melted and then added the broccoli. I tasted it and it was good, but it was missing something. Turns out that something was ... dry mustard! It helped a lot. I also learned that soup has to be at least 165 degrees to serve and preferably between 180-190 degrees to serve it so I just waited for it to finish getting hot and took it out to the line for lunch.
After my soup was finished, I decided to make my vanilla pudding cinnamon rolls for Rex because he's been harassing me over the pudding part of them so I decided to make them for him. After baking my own recipe today, I swear I will never again bake my own recipes at school again!! Everything kept going wrong and it drove me crazy.
My dough started out a little strange, and maybe it was because they had regular cook vanilla pudding instead of instant... but maybe that wasn't the reason at all. I finished the dough (after getting harassed for using the paddle instead of the dough hook...I know, pretty bad), let it rise, rolled it out and put in the filling. I did learn a trick for the filling. Instead of just spreading room temp. butter all over the dough and sprinkling the topping, you mix them all together into a paste and smear the paste on the dough instead. It will keep the layers together better. Also, tuck the tail of the rolls under the bottom to keep them from sticking out funny.
After those starting rising, Rex showed me how to make a homemade caramel sauce for the topping instead of a store bought one. It was really really good and super easy.
Quick homemade caramel sauce:
1 pound butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup corn syrup
1 can sweetened condensed milk
Combine everything in a nonstick pan and stir constantly in small figure 8's on medium heat until it combines and reaches the color, taste and thickness you are going for. The longer you cook the caramel for and the darker the color gets, the harder your caramel is going to be. Because I wanted a sauce to drizzle over, I probably cooked mine for about 10 minutes or so.
I also prepped my cream cheese frosting and it didn't turn out right either. There wasn't enough cream cheese, so I just added extra and it tasted better. I finally baked off my cinnamon rolls, and overcooked them a tiny bit. I put my frosting on and waited for it to melt over the rolls and it was taking forever so I just popped them back into the oven for a second. After they came back out we drizzled the caramel over the top. The caramel made a huge difference! It was really really good. The rolls turned out alright, not as good as when I make them at home. I joked with Rex that I can't bake under pressure.
He kept commenting that they were pretty good, but that he didn't like the pudding flavor in the rolls. He also said that I did it all without using a single baking technique. =) He likes to harass me I think.
While I was working on my cream cheese frosting, I opened a sealed back Rex thought might have been cream cheese, after smelling it I knew it wasn't cream cheese. It turned out to be goat cheese. I had never tasted it before, so I had a small taste. Man, it is really strong but it tastes really good in small portions. Rex told me that if you mix a little bit of goat cheese into cream cheese frosting it adds a bit of earthiness to the background. I wanted to try it, so I mixed a tiny bit in a small bowl on the side and added the goat cheese. It really was good, not at all what I expected. It's good to know and keep in mind for the future. He said a good way to use that kind of frosting would be to make dough and roll lemon into the middle instead of cinnamon and possibly add some poppy seeds and then top with a cream cheese and goat cheese frosting. I may just have to try that one of these days.
That was about it for my day. It was really empty, which I like in the kitchen so I was fine with it. Monday I told Rex something I've been wanting to try so tomorrow we are going to make fresh mozzarella! I'm very excited and I hope it turns out really good.
Today I got to school and it was pretty empty ... again. More than half my class has not been there for the last week or two, which is really odd. The few people that did show up where all heading out to SLC with John to the food show. Adrienn and I were the only ones who stayed behind.
Today I slowly reheated my broccoli cheese soup base so I didn't separate the milk and when it was warm I added the cheese until it was melted and then added the broccoli. I tasted it and it was good, but it was missing something. Turns out that something was ... dry mustard! It helped a lot. I also learned that soup has to be at least 165 degrees to serve and preferably between 180-190 degrees to serve it so I just waited for it to finish getting hot and took it out to the line for lunch.
After my soup was finished, I decided to make my vanilla pudding cinnamon rolls for Rex because he's been harassing me over the pudding part of them so I decided to make them for him. After baking my own recipe today, I swear I will never again bake my own recipes at school again!! Everything kept going wrong and it drove me crazy.
My dough started out a little strange, and maybe it was because they had regular cook vanilla pudding instead of instant... but maybe that wasn't the reason at all. I finished the dough (after getting harassed for using the paddle instead of the dough hook...I know, pretty bad), let it rise, rolled it out and put in the filling. I did learn a trick for the filling. Instead of just spreading room temp. butter all over the dough and sprinkling the topping, you mix them all together into a paste and smear the paste on the dough instead. It will keep the layers together better. Also, tuck the tail of the rolls under the bottom to keep them from sticking out funny.
After those starting rising, Rex showed me how to make a homemade caramel sauce for the topping instead of a store bought one. It was really really good and super easy.
Quick homemade caramel sauce:
1 pound butter
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup corn syrup
1 can sweetened condensed milk
Combine everything in a nonstick pan and stir constantly in small figure 8's on medium heat until it combines and reaches the color, taste and thickness you are going for. The longer you cook the caramel for and the darker the color gets, the harder your caramel is going to be. Because I wanted a sauce to drizzle over, I probably cooked mine for about 10 minutes or so.
I also prepped my cream cheese frosting and it didn't turn out right either. There wasn't enough cream cheese, so I just added extra and it tasted better. I finally baked off my cinnamon rolls, and overcooked them a tiny bit. I put my frosting on and waited for it to melt over the rolls and it was taking forever so I just popped them back into the oven for a second. After they came back out we drizzled the caramel over the top. The caramel made a huge difference! It was really really good. The rolls turned out alright, not as good as when I make them at home. I joked with Rex that I can't bake under pressure.
He kept commenting that they were pretty good, but that he didn't like the pudding flavor in the rolls. He also said that I did it all without using a single baking technique. =) He likes to harass me I think.
While I was working on my cream cheese frosting, I opened a sealed back Rex thought might have been cream cheese, after smelling it I knew it wasn't cream cheese. It turned out to be goat cheese. I had never tasted it before, so I had a small taste. Man, it is really strong but it tastes really good in small portions. Rex told me that if you mix a little bit of goat cheese into cream cheese frosting it adds a bit of earthiness to the background. I wanted to try it, so I mixed a tiny bit in a small bowl on the side and added the goat cheese. It really was good, not at all what I expected. It's good to know and keep in mind for the future. He said a good way to use that kind of frosting would be to make dough and roll lemon into the middle instead of cinnamon and possibly add some poppy seeds and then top with a cream cheese and goat cheese frosting. I may just have to try that one of these days.
That was about it for my day. It was really empty, which I like in the kitchen so I was fine with it. Monday I told Rex something I've been wanting to try so tomorrow we are going to make fresh mozzarella! I'm very excited and I hope it turns out really good.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Day 14 - October 12, 2009
Day 14:
Today I arrived at school and had the assignments of making a cream soup and crab salad. I picked through my book and decided on cheddar broccoli soup because it's one of my favorites.
We changed the recipe a little bit, using a bechamel sauce for the base instead of thickening some stock. I simmered the broccoli stalks, celery, onion and mushrooms in the sauce along with a couple bay leaves. When it was finished, I pureed the entire thing, seasoned it with salt and pepper and chilled it. I also blanched some broccoli florets and tomorrow when we get ready to serve the soup, we will add the shredded cheese and broccoli. The base was really good and I'm excited to try it out tomorrow. As soon as it's finished, I will take a picture and add it to today or tomorrows post.
I also made the crab salad. It's fills one of my requirements for a bound salad (something held together with mayo that's creamy, like a fruit salad or potato salad.)
The crab salad had imitation crab, half a purple onion, celery, cubed cheese, mayo, sour cream, salt, pepper and old bay seasoning. I had my doubts at the beginning, but it ended up tasting WAY better than I thought it would.
That honestly was about it for my day. I think I took my time on my soup to make sure I got it right. I tend to mess up if I don't pay attention. I liked the base of that soup so much, I think that's what I'm going to go home and make for dinner tonight.
Today I arrived at school and had the assignments of making a cream soup and crab salad. I picked through my book and decided on cheddar broccoli soup because it's one of my favorites.
We changed the recipe a little bit, using a bechamel sauce for the base instead of thickening some stock. I simmered the broccoli stalks, celery, onion and mushrooms in the sauce along with a couple bay leaves. When it was finished, I pureed the entire thing, seasoned it with salt and pepper and chilled it. I also blanched some broccoli florets and tomorrow when we get ready to serve the soup, we will add the shredded cheese and broccoli. The base was really good and I'm excited to try it out tomorrow. As soon as it's finished, I will take a picture and add it to today or tomorrows post.
I also made the crab salad. It's fills one of my requirements for a bound salad (something held together with mayo that's creamy, like a fruit salad or potato salad.)
The crab salad had imitation crab, half a purple onion, celery, cubed cheese, mayo, sour cream, salt, pepper and old bay seasoning. I had my doubts at the beginning, but it ended up tasting WAY better than I thought it would.
That honestly was about it for my day. I think I took my time on my soup to make sure I got it right. I tend to mess up if I don't pay attention. I liked the base of that soup so much, I think that's what I'm going to go home and make for dinner tonight.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Day 13 - October 9, 2009
Day 13:
Today I started off by finishing the 50 pounds of Au Gratin potatoes that needed to be done for Saturday's event. We peeled and diced the potatoes. Chopped 5 more pounds of onions and mixed them all up.
After that, I helped Rex finish up what he needed to get done for a lunch we were catering. We just covered everything in plastic wrap and filled up containers of ranch, etc.
When that was all finished, I went to work on a turkey noodle soup with my leftover turkey stock and turkey chunks from my tetrazzini.
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It turned out pretty good (so I heard). I also learned that sage and thyme go well with turkey and oregano goes better with chicken so to jazz the soup up a little I added some ground sage and thyme leaves to the soup.
I also took all of our onion, carrot and celery scraps and made a vegetable stock. I added a sachet to the stock to give it a little more flavor. Normally you use cheese cloth with a bunch of herbs and/or spices in it, and tie it up with butcher twine and just let it steep in the liquid, but at school we just use coffee filters instead. In my sachet I used parsley stems, a few bay leaves and some whole white and black peppercorns.
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I also learned that for vegetable stock, you don't want to over cook your vegetables or the sulfur will start to come out. You only need to simmer for about an hour and a half. (Don't stir, it will make the stock cloudy).
After it was finished, we took everything out and strained it. My stock was bright orange! We had way too many carrot scraps and it just dyed the whole thing. Also when we tasted it, it tasted like carrots. I'll have to try it again, with less carrots.
When everything was finished, I just cleaned for a little bit and that was about it for the day.
Day 12 - October 8, 2009
Day 12:
This weekend we had a party for 400 people that we needed to prepare for. My job was the Au Gratin potatoes. Two of the high school students helped me and together we made 110 pounds of potatoes. . . which wasn't enough. We plan on making 50 more.
I started the day off by making 1 gallon of bechamel sauce and learned how to make an onion piquet. For the sauce, you start with a roux (butter and flour) and warm the milk in a separate pan. Once your roux has reached the blonde stage, add a cup or two of the milk to temper the milk and then dump the roux into the milk. The onion piquet is there to flavor the milk while it simmers and while the sauce thickens. All it is is an onion cut in half (leave the root end on to hold it together but cut off the string part) put a bay leaf in the middle of one half of the onion and pin it to the onion with two whole cloves. All it will do is soak in the milk and be tossed when the sauce is complete.
We also needed 15 pounds of diced onions for the potatoes so I learned how to use the buffalo chopper. It saved me from a lot of tears. :)
At the end of the day after we weighed the potatoes and found out we only had 110 pounds and needed to make 50 pounds more the next day, we just put more potatoes in the oven to be baked and I made another gallon of sauce.
That was about it for my day.
This weekend we had a party for 400 people that we needed to prepare for. My job was the Au Gratin potatoes. Two of the high school students helped me and together we made 110 pounds of potatoes. . . which wasn't enough. We plan on making 50 more.
I started the day off by making 1 gallon of bechamel sauce and learned how to make an onion piquet. For the sauce, you start with a roux (butter and flour) and warm the milk in a separate pan. Once your roux has reached the blonde stage, add a cup or two of the milk to temper the milk and then dump the roux into the milk. The onion piquet is there to flavor the milk while it simmers and while the sauce thickens. All it is is an onion cut in half (leave the root end on to hold it together but cut off the string part) put a bay leaf in the middle of one half of the onion and pin it to the onion with two whole cloves. All it will do is soak in the milk and be tossed when the sauce is complete.
We also needed 15 pounds of diced onions for the potatoes so I learned how to use the buffalo chopper. It saved me from a lot of tears. :)
At the end of the day after we weighed the potatoes and found out we only had 110 pounds and needed to make 50 pounds more the next day, we just put more potatoes in the oven to be baked and I made another gallon of sauce.
That was about it for my day.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Day 11 - October 7, 2009
Day 11:
Today I got to school and finished prepping and assembling my turkey tetrazzini. I had to make the sauce and saute my mushrooms and infuse them with lemon zest and just mix it all together and bake it.
I had some major issues with my sauce that needed correcting. I found my recipe on the internet and changed it based on several reviews about the recipe itself. I ended up with too much roux for my sauce and it was basically gravy instead. We had to thin it out with water, turkey and mirepoix base to keep the flavor. After several minutes, we finally got it to the right consistency. I mixed it all together, sprinkled my fresh breadcrumbs and parmesan on top.
I covered it with foil and baked it off. I didn't ask Rex if I was doing it right because there were 20 high school kids running around like chickens with their heads cut off demanding his attention and I didn't want to bother him.
I put it in the convection oven to cook it more quickly ... first mistake.
After checking on it, it was getting really brown and drying out the noodles ... second mistake.
I should have asked Rex before I baked it, but I didn't.
Trick I learned at school:
If you want to bake something and keep it moist at the same time, cover the pan with plastic wrap and then with foil. The plastic will trap the moisture in.
I should have covered my noodles with plastic first, and didn't so they were a little dry. I also should have used the regular oven instead of the convection because it had too much heat circulating around it.
I learned a trick or two and will hopefully not make the same mistake next time. It turned out pretty good considering my mistakes.
I also proofed and baked my second tray of rolls, and this one turned out better than yesterdays. Yesterdays were a tiny bit overcooked. That was about it for my day.
Today I got to school and finished prepping and assembling my turkey tetrazzini. I had to make the sauce and saute my mushrooms and infuse them with lemon zest and just mix it all together and bake it.
I had some major issues with my sauce that needed correcting. I found my recipe on the internet and changed it based on several reviews about the recipe itself. I ended up with too much roux for my sauce and it was basically gravy instead. We had to thin it out with water, turkey and mirepoix base to keep the flavor. After several minutes, we finally got it to the right consistency. I mixed it all together, sprinkled my fresh breadcrumbs and parmesan on top.
I covered it with foil and baked it off. I didn't ask Rex if I was doing it right because there were 20 high school kids running around like chickens with their heads cut off demanding his attention and I didn't want to bother him.
I put it in the convection oven to cook it more quickly ... first mistake.
After checking on it, it was getting really brown and drying out the noodles ... second mistake.
I should have asked Rex before I baked it, but I didn't.
Trick I learned at school:
If you want to bake something and keep it moist at the same time, cover the pan with plastic wrap and then with foil. The plastic will trap the moisture in.
I should have covered my noodles with plastic first, and didn't so they were a little dry. I also should have used the regular oven instead of the convection because it had too much heat circulating around it.
I learned a trick or two and will hopefully not make the same mistake next time. It turned out pretty good considering my mistakes.
I also proofed and baked my second tray of rolls, and this one turned out better than yesterdays. Yesterdays were a tiny bit overcooked. That was about it for my day.
Friday, October 9, 2009
Day 10 - October 6, 2009
Day 10:
My neighbor gave me a huge bag of tomatoes the night before the gardens froze for the winter. I had so many tomatoes that I didn't know what to do with all of them before they went bad. I talked with Rex and he told me to bring them in and we could do something with them so that I could freeze them for the winter. Today I brought them in and we cut a little x in one end, blanched them, put them in an ice bath to stop the cooking, peeled them, diced them and then stewed them for about an hour and a half to reduce the liquid down. After that we put them in a vacuum bag and sealed them so I could keep them in the freezer. I had thought about making spaghetti sauce and just freezing the sauce, but with the tomatoes just plain I can use them for whatever I wanted, which is most likely going to only be spaghetti sauce anyway.
After that I pulled out my turkey and carved it and diced all the meat and started prepping ingredients for my turkey tetrazzini for Wednesday. After I finished that project, I proofed and cooked 1 sheet of my herb rolls to taste them and started my turkey stock for the tetrazzini as well.
For stock, save everything that comes off the turkey that you don't use except the liver. The gizzards, the heart, the bones, etc. Add any mirepoix scraps that you have or just cut some up if you don't save the scraps and fill the pot until it just covers the bones and vegetables. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Do not stir the stock, it will make it cloudy.
Once it is finished, put in a large pan/bowl/bain marie and put into an ice bath to cool it quickly so it doesn't sit in the food danger zone for very long.
That was about it for my day, the turkey kept me busy for quite a while, as I was really careful not to leave any gross pieces in my meat cubes.
My neighbor gave me a huge bag of tomatoes the night before the gardens froze for the winter. I had so many tomatoes that I didn't know what to do with all of them before they went bad. I talked with Rex and he told me to bring them in and we could do something with them so that I could freeze them for the winter. Today I brought them in and we cut a little x in one end, blanched them, put them in an ice bath to stop the cooking, peeled them, diced them and then stewed them for about an hour and a half to reduce the liquid down. After that we put them in a vacuum bag and sealed them so I could keep them in the freezer. I had thought about making spaghetti sauce and just freezing the sauce, but with the tomatoes just plain I can use them for whatever I wanted, which is most likely going to only be spaghetti sauce anyway.
After that I pulled out my turkey and carved it and diced all the meat and started prepping ingredients for my turkey tetrazzini for Wednesday. After I finished that project, I proofed and cooked 1 sheet of my herb rolls to taste them and started my turkey stock for the tetrazzini as well.
For stock, save everything that comes off the turkey that you don't use except the liver. The gizzards, the heart, the bones, etc. Add any mirepoix scraps that you have or just cut some up if you don't save the scraps and fill the pot until it just covers the bones and vegetables. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Do not stir the stock, it will make it cloudy.
Once it is finished, put in a large pan/bowl/bain marie and put into an ice bath to cool it quickly so it doesn't sit in the food danger zone for very long.
That was about it for my day, the turkey kept me busy for quite a while, as I was really careful not to leave any gross pieces in my meat cubes.
Monday, October 5, 2009
Day 9 - October 5, 2009
Day 9:
I was up until 2am cleaning my house. It was a disaster and driving me crazy. Needless to say, 6am came really early. If John would have been the only one there today, I probably would have went back to bed no problem, but Rex was supposed to be back so I got myself up and headed to school.
I have never been more happy to see an instructor come back to school, seriously!
I can honestly say I was busy from the minute I got to school until an hour after I was supposed to get off. It was awesome!
I started off the day by making a mixed wild rice, white rice and brown rice pilaf. I also learned today that a pilaf is just the cooking method. Rex commented on restaurants that put on the menu "rice pilaf" because it just shows that they don't really know what they are talking about.
I did equal parts wild rice (which I found out isn't actually rice, it's just a grain), white rice and brown rice. Wild rice is a black long grain, that is really good mixed with other rices.
Wild rice takes twice as long to cook and more water so it needs to cook separately from the white and brown. The white and brown can be cooked together.
Wild rice is a 1 to 3 ratio. I did 2 cups of each type of rice to serve about 25 people. I put 2 cups wild rice and 6 cups water to simmer on the stove. I also added a mirepoix (meer-pwah = celery, carrots and onion) base to the water to flavor the rice while it was cooking. The white and brown rice was rinsed and soaked in cold water for 10 minutes. After it was finished soaking, you saute it with butter and either a small diced onion or pine nuts or something like that (that's what makes it a pilaf). I chose to use an onion with mine. The butter is what keeps your rice from turning into sticky rice and leave the grains seperate. That is what a pilaf is...not some fancy flavored rice. Just the method. After they were sauteed I put the 4 cups rice in with 8 cups water and some more mirepoix base and brought them to a boil. When they were boiling, the wild rice had started to blossom and become soft so it was ready to take off the stove. I combined all the rice and all the water that hadn't absorbed yet (which was quite a lot) in a pan, covered it with plastic wrap and then tin foil over the plastic and put it in the oven to finish. The plastic wrap keeps the water in and keeps the rice moist while the foil protects the plastic from melting and traps the heat in. I didn't know that, I had never cooked rice in the oven before.
After my rice was finished, I moved onto my whole 20 pound turkey that I needed to roast for lunch on wednesday. I was in charge of Turkey Tetrazzini. I pulled out my thawed turkey (I pulled it out of the freezer and left it in the walk in fridge on Friday), removed all the inside stuff and Rex showed me how to cook it way faster than a traditional turkey. We cut out the spine (but saved it, I'm going to make a stock with it) so the turkey would lay flat instead of rounded up taking longer. If the turkey lays flat, the heat can reach more areas of the turkey and in turn cook it faster. I seasoned it with some thyme under the skin (the tetrazzini recipe has thyme in it) and just some chicken and poultry seasoning. I put it in the convection oven on a cooking rack (similar to a cooling rack) with two drip pans beneath it containing a mirepoix for flavor. I also roasted the spine and all the insides for my stock at the same time.
My turkey took a whopping ... 2 - 2 1/2 hours for a 20 pound turkey! That normally takes anywhere from 8-10 hours in a conventional oven. It was awesome. Poultry needs to be cooked to 180 degrees, but you pull it out at 170 and let it rest for a minimum of 15 minutes to let the juices redistribute and continue cooking. That will bring it up to temperature. Rex tasted it and said it was pretty good. We let it rest and I started on some Herb Rolls to serve with it on Wednesday.
My herb rolls smelled amazing! We won't cook them off until Wednesday but the dough looked really really good. Here is the recipe:
(Everything we make is measured by weight and volume, and not by cups...so I will try and convert my recipe so it can be made at home without a scale. Also, it's a huge batch and can easily be cut in half)
Conversions:
1 lb=16oz
8 oz=1 cup
1 oz=2 Tablespoons
Herb Rolls
5 lbs 2 oz flour = 10 1/2 cups
1 oz dry yeast (double if using fresh yeast) = 2 Tbs dry yeast
3 lbs warm water = 48oz = 6 cups
8 oz sugar = 1 cup
1 1/4 oz salt = 2 1/2 Tbs
4 oz powdered milk = 1/2 cup
8 oz room temp butter (or shortening) = 1 cup
3 Tbs dried basil leaves
2 Tbs dried oregano leaves
1 Tbs dried thyme
1 Tbs garlic powder
Add water to yeast to let it activate
Combine the flour, dry ingredients and butter. Mix well. Add yeast to dry ingredient mixture then mix until it forms a smooth dough. Let rise until it doubles in size. Knead and form into 2 oz rolls (a small golf ball size). Let rise again utnil doubled in size. Bake for approximately 10 minutes at 350.
Yield 5 1/2 dozen.
I didn't bake mine off today, they are in the walk in chilling so they don't rise until Wednesday. When I bake them off, I will add pictures.
I was up until 2am cleaning my house. It was a disaster and driving me crazy. Needless to say, 6am came really early. If John would have been the only one there today, I probably would have went back to bed no problem, but Rex was supposed to be back so I got myself up and headed to school.
I have never been more happy to see an instructor come back to school, seriously!
I can honestly say I was busy from the minute I got to school until an hour after I was supposed to get off. It was awesome!
I started off the day by making a mixed wild rice, white rice and brown rice pilaf. I also learned today that a pilaf is just the cooking method. Rex commented on restaurants that put on the menu "rice pilaf" because it just shows that they don't really know what they are talking about.
I did equal parts wild rice (which I found out isn't actually rice, it's just a grain), white rice and brown rice. Wild rice is a black long grain, that is really good mixed with other rices.
Wild rice takes twice as long to cook and more water so it needs to cook separately from the white and brown. The white and brown can be cooked together.
Wild rice is a 1 to 3 ratio. I did 2 cups of each type of rice to serve about 25 people. I put 2 cups wild rice and 6 cups water to simmer on the stove. I also added a mirepoix (meer-pwah = celery, carrots and onion) base to the water to flavor the rice while it was cooking. The white and brown rice was rinsed and soaked in cold water for 10 minutes. After it was finished soaking, you saute it with butter and either a small diced onion or pine nuts or something like that (that's what makes it a pilaf). I chose to use an onion with mine. The butter is what keeps your rice from turning into sticky rice and leave the grains seperate. That is what a pilaf is...not some fancy flavored rice. Just the method. After they were sauteed I put the 4 cups rice in with 8 cups water and some more mirepoix base and brought them to a boil. When they were boiling, the wild rice had started to blossom and become soft so it was ready to take off the stove. I combined all the rice and all the water that hadn't absorbed yet (which was quite a lot) in a pan, covered it with plastic wrap and then tin foil over the plastic and put it in the oven to finish. The plastic wrap keeps the water in and keeps the rice moist while the foil protects the plastic from melting and traps the heat in. I didn't know that, I had never cooked rice in the oven before.
After my rice was finished, I moved onto my whole 20 pound turkey that I needed to roast for lunch on wednesday. I was in charge of Turkey Tetrazzini. I pulled out my thawed turkey (I pulled it out of the freezer and left it in the walk in fridge on Friday), removed all the inside stuff and Rex showed me how to cook it way faster than a traditional turkey. We cut out the spine (but saved it, I'm going to make a stock with it) so the turkey would lay flat instead of rounded up taking longer. If the turkey lays flat, the heat can reach more areas of the turkey and in turn cook it faster. I seasoned it with some thyme under the skin (the tetrazzini recipe has thyme in it) and just some chicken and poultry seasoning. I put it in the convection oven on a cooking rack (similar to a cooling rack) with two drip pans beneath it containing a mirepoix for flavor. I also roasted the spine and all the insides for my stock at the same time.
My turkey took a whopping ... 2 - 2 1/2 hours for a 20 pound turkey! That normally takes anywhere from 8-10 hours in a conventional oven. It was awesome. Poultry needs to be cooked to 180 degrees, but you pull it out at 170 and let it rest for a minimum of 15 minutes to let the juices redistribute and continue cooking. That will bring it up to temperature. Rex tasted it and said it was pretty good. We let it rest and I started on some Herb Rolls to serve with it on Wednesday.
My herb rolls smelled amazing! We won't cook them off until Wednesday but the dough looked really really good. Here is the recipe:
(Everything we make is measured by weight and volume, and not by cups...so I will try and convert my recipe so it can be made at home without a scale. Also, it's a huge batch and can easily be cut in half)
Conversions:
1 lb=16oz
8 oz=1 cup
1 oz=2 Tablespoons
Herb Rolls
5 lbs 2 oz flour = 10 1/2 cups
1 oz dry yeast (double if using fresh yeast) = 2 Tbs dry yeast
3 lbs warm water = 48oz = 6 cups
8 oz sugar = 1 cup
1 1/4 oz salt = 2 1/2 Tbs
4 oz powdered milk = 1/2 cup
8 oz room temp butter (or shortening) = 1 cup
3 Tbs dried basil leaves
2 Tbs dried oregano leaves
1 Tbs dried thyme
1 Tbs garlic powder
Add water to yeast to let it activate
Combine the flour, dry ingredients and butter. Mix well. Add yeast to dry ingredient mixture then mix until it forms a smooth dough. Let rise until it doubles in size. Knead and form into 2 oz rolls (a small golf ball size). Let rise again utnil doubled in size. Bake for approximately 10 minutes at 350.
Yield 5 1/2 dozen.
I didn't bake mine off today, they are in the walk in chilling so they don't rise until Wednesday. When I bake them off, I will add pictures.
Day 8 - September 30, 2009
Day 8:
After the last two days, I knew I was in for another boring day at school. I spent the morning finishing my reading on chapter 3 and took my test on it. It was just on the equipment we would use like the different ovens, stoves, knives and utensils. It was pretty easy.
After that, my only job for the day was to prep condiments for a hamburger cookout the autobody class was having that afternoon.
I learned how to use the huge slicer by slicing...2 onions. It wasn't worth the effort of using it and taking it all apart to clean it and put it back together for just 2 onions, but I think John wanted me to know how to use it. Maybe he was trying to kill time too.
I also sliced tomatoes, shredded lettuce and just put pickles in a jar and cheese on a platter. Then I got the mayo, mustard and ketchup together.
After that I just wandered around seeing if anybody else needed help, but they were all in the same boat as me.
Amy was making a Southern Dill Potato Salad and so I talked with her while she worked on that. I had a taste when she was finished and it was really good. I normally don't like potato salad, but I would make that one again with a few adjustments.
I ended up leaving an hour early again, just like I did the last 2 days.
After the last two days, I knew I was in for another boring day at school. I spent the morning finishing my reading on chapter 3 and took my test on it. It was just on the equipment we would use like the different ovens, stoves, knives and utensils. It was pretty easy.
After that, my only job for the day was to prep condiments for a hamburger cookout the autobody class was having that afternoon.
I learned how to use the huge slicer by slicing...2 onions. It wasn't worth the effort of using it and taking it all apart to clean it and put it back together for just 2 onions, but I think John wanted me to know how to use it. Maybe he was trying to kill time too.
I also sliced tomatoes, shredded lettuce and just put pickles in a jar and cheese on a platter. Then I got the mayo, mustard and ketchup together.
After that I just wandered around seeing if anybody else needed help, but they were all in the same boat as me.
Amy was making a Southern Dill Potato Salad and so I talked with her while she worked on that. I had a taste when she was finished and it was really good. I normally don't like potato salad, but I would make that one again with a few adjustments.
I ended up leaving an hour early again, just like I did the last 2 days.
Day 7 - September 29, 2009
Day 7:
As I figured out yesterday, I didn't think I would be much of a fan of just having John as an instructor. It turned out that I would have next to nothing to do today as well, and most likely for tomorrow.
I showed up today and again waited about an hour to an hour and a half before John even came looking for us. All he had for us was lunch..and someone was already in charge of the main part leaving basic sides for us to do. I quickly volunteered to clean, slice and sautee 5 pounds of mushrooms to go with a brown sauce, seared tri tips (beef) and mashed potatoes. If I hadn't volunteered for that, I would have just ended up sitting around the entire 6 hours.
I took my time with my task and spent as long as I possibly could cleaning and slicing my mushrooms.
The proper way to clean mushrooms: (I already knew this, so it wasn't even new information)
Do not submerse in water, mushrooms are very absorbent and will absorb all the water if you soak them making them rubbery. Just take a damp cloth and wipe the tops off. They are no longer grown in compost that contains manure so there isn't a huge need to get them super clean anymore.
I then sliced them and was ready to saute them.
I was told to saute them to the dry stage.
Dry stage for mushrooms: As I just said, mushrooms are very absorbent and so when they are cooking, they release a lot of water. After they release all their liquids and they absorb them back up again you've reached the dry stage.
I sauteed my mushrooms in a little bit of butter with lawrys seasoned salt and some minced garlic. Once I hit the dry stage, I added a little more butter and sauteed it for a few minutes longer. They were very good.
After I finished my mushrooms, which didn't take very long I helped Skyler with his mashed potatoes and then julienned an onion to go with the beef, mushrooms and brown sauce.
That was pretty much my entire day. I spent the rest of the day reading chapter 3.
As I figured out yesterday, I didn't think I would be much of a fan of just having John as an instructor. It turned out that I would have next to nothing to do today as well, and most likely for tomorrow.
I showed up today and again waited about an hour to an hour and a half before John even came looking for us. All he had for us was lunch..and someone was already in charge of the main part leaving basic sides for us to do. I quickly volunteered to clean, slice and sautee 5 pounds of mushrooms to go with a brown sauce, seared tri tips (beef) and mashed potatoes. If I hadn't volunteered for that, I would have just ended up sitting around the entire 6 hours.
I took my time with my task and spent as long as I possibly could cleaning and slicing my mushrooms.
The proper way to clean mushrooms: (I already knew this, so it wasn't even new information)
Do not submerse in water, mushrooms are very absorbent and will absorb all the water if you soak them making them rubbery. Just take a damp cloth and wipe the tops off. They are no longer grown in compost that contains manure so there isn't a huge need to get them super clean anymore.
I then sliced them and was ready to saute them.
I was told to saute them to the dry stage.
Dry stage for mushrooms: As I just said, mushrooms are very absorbent and so when they are cooking, they release a lot of water. After they release all their liquids and they absorb them back up again you've reached the dry stage.
I sauteed my mushrooms in a little bit of butter with lawrys seasoned salt and some minced garlic. Once I hit the dry stage, I added a little more butter and sauteed it for a few minutes longer. They were very good.
After I finished my mushrooms, which didn't take very long I helped Skyler with his mashed potatoes and then julienned an onion to go with the beef, mushrooms and brown sauce.
That was pretty much my entire day. I spent the rest of the day reading chapter 3.
Day 6 - September 28, 2009
Day 6:
This week is a short school week. We only have school until Wednesday. Also Rex, one of my instructors is off for the week so we just have John.
I got to school today and looked at our board with our daily assignments on it and my first clue that it wouldn't be a fantastic day was that it hadn't been updated since last week. That's when we found out Rex was gone. We all waited for an hour and a half before John came in to try and get us started on something. None of us had anything specific to do so we were supposed to just find something to do. That morning we had received a huge shipment of nectarines and he asked us to find something to use them in, so Stefani and I paired up and decided to make a nectarine and pineapple trifle. (Okay, Stefani wanted to do nothing and originally picked french toast ... I wanted something to do for longer than 30 minutes so I picked the trifle)
It was supposed to be an orange and nectarine trifle but we were out of oranges so we decided to switch to pineapple instead.
The cake itself had some whole wheat flour in it which made me nervous. I didn't know what it would do to the texture of the cake. It was a simple cake with a pineapple juice/puree in it making it really sweet. It tasted pretty good, but as I thought it had a funky texture and wasn't very pretty.
Also trifles are traditionally really creamy and this weirdo recipe didn't have any cream it in at all. It was layered with cake, fresh pineapple and nectarine slices and an orange meringue for the cream.
About halfway through, Stefani decided that she didn't feel well and headed home leaving it to me to finish. I was perfectly fine with that as she didn't seem to want to do anything and just stood around and I like to move while I'm there...
Anyway, we refridgerated the trifle and tasted it, and honestly it tasted fine, but nothing special. I would probably not make it again.
All in all, today was pretty pointless. All I hoped for was a better rest of the week.
This week is a short school week. We only have school until Wednesday. Also Rex, one of my instructors is off for the week so we just have John.
I got to school today and looked at our board with our daily assignments on it and my first clue that it wouldn't be a fantastic day was that it hadn't been updated since last week. That's when we found out Rex was gone. We all waited for an hour and a half before John came in to try and get us started on something. None of us had anything specific to do so we were supposed to just find something to do. That morning we had received a huge shipment of nectarines and he asked us to find something to use them in, so Stefani and I paired up and decided to make a nectarine and pineapple trifle. (Okay, Stefani wanted to do nothing and originally picked french toast ... I wanted something to do for longer than 30 minutes so I picked the trifle)
It was supposed to be an orange and nectarine trifle but we were out of oranges so we decided to switch to pineapple instead.
The cake itself had some whole wheat flour in it which made me nervous. I didn't know what it would do to the texture of the cake. It was a simple cake with a pineapple juice/puree in it making it really sweet. It tasted pretty good, but as I thought it had a funky texture and wasn't very pretty.
Also trifles are traditionally really creamy and this weirdo recipe didn't have any cream it in at all. It was layered with cake, fresh pineapple and nectarine slices and an orange meringue for the cream.
About halfway through, Stefani decided that she didn't feel well and headed home leaving it to me to finish. I was perfectly fine with that as she didn't seem to want to do anything and just stood around and I like to move while I'm there...
Anyway, we refridgerated the trifle and tasted it, and honestly it tasted fine, but nothing special. I would probably not make it again.
All in all, today was pretty pointless. All I hoped for was a better rest of the week.
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