Week 8: SAUTEING

Here's a picture of Chef Pierre Demoing how to make the Chicken Chardonnay. We each had to make this but didn't really have a recipe so it was important to pay attention

Here's where the week got amazing. We got to work with a top sirloin. We were all surprised when we saw that PRIME stamp on the meat. Guess the Art Institute finally decided not to be cheap this time. It was delicious.




Here's my attempt at the Chicken Chardonnay. It was really delicious. I'm not much of a mushroom person but the sauce totally made it. I definitely will be cooking this for my family in the near future. I LOVED IT!

Here's our Southern Fried Chicken, Sauteed Green Beans & red peppers, and risolle potatoes (basically a cubed potatoes sauteed in butter and sprinkled with parsley) It was also very yummy!

AND THE GRAND FINALE....
Here's the yummy prime top sirloin with garlic mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, and sauteed Brussels sprouts. Mmm...We had a left over plate of this (We have to plate everything for 4 but only had 3 people in our group that day) so i took it home to my dad and he gobbled it all up.

Week 7: ROASTING!

Week 7 was roasting week. We're finally making it into the menus where we don't have to eat dinner because we're cooking it in class. We made Roasted Sirloin, stuffed tomatoes, pommes anna (basically a big hasbrown but the potatoes are in slices and layered in the saute pan), broccoli hollandaise, winter squash soup, and of course dessert...chocolate mousse (pictured above)....Mmmm!

Week 6, Day 2: PASTA, RICE, & POLENTA!

More starches....I swear I'm going to gain 100 pounds by the time I'm done with school. We definitely had a little more fun on this day since we got to mix it up and didn't just do potatoes. On the very top left you have our fresh noodles. We made the dough and rolled them out and everything. Very time consuming but fun. Definitely makes me appreciate what i buy in the store a little more haha. Beside that is the Spaetzle. Basically you make some dough and get a pot of water boiling, then you drop little pieces in the water and let them cook a little. It reminds me of the shells in mac and cheese kinda. In the middle you have the rice. Mmmm. From left to right: Risotto, Steamed Rice, and Rice Pilaf....i know i know you're probably thinking what's the difference. I was actually surprised when i made the pilaf because he had us simmer the rice for a little bit and then put it in the over to finish. I usually just make it on the stove top but this way is easy too. On the bottom from left to right: Rosti potato (basically a big hash brown), Polenta, and my favorite spaghetti alla carbonara. I think i ate more than just a bite of each other these. I'm really glad we're making things that can actually be considered dinner. I think I'm going to save a lot of money for the rest of the semester now since i wont be buying dinner anymore haha. Overall a fun week. We also learned how to fabricate a chicken but i obviously didn't take any pictures of that since my hands were all over a chicken at the time. It was pretty hard to break the bones and not feel bad but i'm sure it will get easier with time.

Week 6, Day 1: POTATOES!

It's potato day! I absolutely loved this day but when it came time to eat i couldn't eat it all haha. On the top left (the ones that look like ice cream) you have the Duchesse potatoes. To the right of that, on the same 4 plates, you have the Gnocchi on fresh tomato sauce. Different than i expected but very good. Directly below the duchesse you have the Croquette potatoes (basically a fried potato stick). On the bottom from left to right you have Pommes Natural, Pommes Angliasse, and Lyonnaise potatoes. The first 2 is where those tournes come in (the 7 sided football shaped potatoes). I spent most of the time in class trying to perfect this but no such luck. I probably waisted 4 perfectly good potatoes hehe. Nonetheless i know how to make potatoes any kinda way you can imagine. I love potatoes but this was just too much all at once. I only took one bite of everything.

Week 5: VEGETABLES!!!

As you can see we did vegetables this week. We did glazed beets and carrots, ratatouille, brussel sprouts, squash & zuchini noodles, pan-fried zuchini, and cauliflower au gratin. I actually really enjoyed this week because i think it's important to learn how to make a good side dish or even main dish for you vegetarians. My favorite was probably to pan-fried zuchini...wish we had some ranch to dip it in. The caulifower was a close second though. Basically all you do for the cauliflower is boil it and let it cool and drain then make your Bechamel sauce (which is one of the mother sauces we did in week 1) and then cover the cauliflower complete with sauce and parmesan cheese....MMMMMmmm! my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Week 4 --- Breakfast and MIDTERM!

This week we did every kind of breakfast foods you can think of. The picture above is Chef Pierre demonstrating how to make a crepe. I have to say i was most excited to learn this because i heard they were difficult. We made several things including: pancakes, french toast, omelets, crepes, quiche, and every different kind of eggs you can think of. Here are how my crepes turned out....

We also did some grilling. We made a london broil only with lamb instead of flank steak. We also grilled some shrimp kebabs. I definately enjoy this class but i have to say there is a major annoyance that i just can't get past. My teammate, who just happens to already be a chef so naturally he knows everything, likes to critique everything i do and likes to take charge like he's the professor. It's quite annoying and the fact that he uses the F-word every other word just makes it that but worse. I finally asked him one day to stop and he said, "Just get used to it, this is kitchen talk." I'm going to try really really hard to let it go. I've asked Chef Pierre if we can switch teams soon so hopefully we will soon!

Chef Pierre demonstrating how to do a rolled omelet. YUMMY! We also had our midterm this week on the second day. We had to make Consumme soup, bechamel sauce, mayonnaise, and hollandaise sauce. All of my cooking part of the midterm turned out very well. Chef Pierre said i seasoned everything very well and as you know that's what makes the difference. We had to do some knife skills also. We had to julienne a carrot, and celery. We had to segment an orange. We had to remove the skins and chop a tomato. We had to dice an onion, and we also had to batonnet a potato (pretty much julienne just a little bigger). Next week is Veggies..should be fun!