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.