TEXAS WEEK!!

As you know, Texas is a region all on it's own. That's why we're so prideful here haha. Above we have Crab quesadillas with salsa (made my chef instructor). I didn't know if I'd like crab in a quesadilla but WOW. so good! Last week i made my own version of this recipe with bacon instead of crab.

How can you be a true texan and not like BBQ? Here is our wonderful brisket that we made. It smoked in this awesome smoker we have at school for a couple hours and then went in the oven for another couple hours. It was delicious. There were no leftovers to take home on this day obviously.

Our chef instructor told us we could do a potato salad or coleslaw so my team chose potato salad. This is a "healthier" version on the potato salad made by my teammate Brian. It was really delicious and it went perfectly with the brisket since it was a little lighter dish.

Did you know that the fruit of Texas is the grapefruit? A man from A&M actually came upon it when he created the hybrid fruit now known as the Ruby Red Grapefruit. The instructor gave us a bunch of fruit and said put whatever you want in it to make a fruit salad as long as it has grapefruit so i literally put in every fruit he gave us. It was delicious and i saved some for my lunch the next day. I'm a big fruit person. I could eat it everyday and allday. Rocky Mountain region coming up next.

MIDTERM!!!

Midterms time again...
This is quite a plate, that meat is a piece of chicken in case you couldn't tell haha. We liked its strange shape and thought we could display it well...looks like a flame kinda.. It's a little over the top, you can't really see the rest of the plate from this angle but with it is roasted potatoes, brussel sprouts and spaghetti squash.

Here's my pride and joy. It's a cucumber, tomato, and egg salad with a really awesome vinegarette. I tried my best to give the salad some height but with flat lettuce leaves it's kinda hard but all in all it was a good display.

Here's that famous cream of tomato and basil soup. Sorry you're seeing some of the same things but that's what we do for midterms. We got to pick what recipes we wanted to make that we had already discussed so this is what we picked. Overall we did a great job i think. we got a 96 and i am just fine with that!

Central Plains Week

For those of you that don't know the central plains region includes: Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, North & South Dakota, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri.


Here we have our lovely rack of ribs that have been smoked for a couple hours and then slathered in BBQ sauce and put in the oven to roast. Talk about fall off the bone deliciousness. We made these "Kansas city style," which means lots of molasses as a sweetener in the sauce. They had just the right amount of tangy and sweet.




Here's our delicious completed ribs with some wonderful Mac & cheese. I'll include the recipe for the mac & cheese below because it is too good not to share. Right after I took this picture i devoured the plate in probably 2 minutes. Needless to say there were no leftovers to take home....sorry mom & dad.




Deep-dish "Chicago-style" pizza. Mmmmmm this is before i went in the oven. Chicago style pizza is supposed to have sauce on top but as you can see we neglected to do that. This pizza has pretty much anything you can think of on it, cheese, Italian sausage, pepperoni, bacon, jalapenos, green onion, white onion, morel mushrooms (very expensive by the way), fresh mozzarella, and the awesome sauce my teammate brian made. It was truly to die for!



This is the corn & wild rice cake with sauteed spinach and mushrooms underneath. This makes a great vegetarian appetizer or in our case meal because there were 2 cakes. I was shocked at how good they were. We used fresh corn kernels, cooked wild rice, onion and some cream to hold the cakes together. If any of you are of have a vegetarian in the family let me know if you want the recipe. They were amazing!

On the right you have the pork medallions with port/red wine sauce, roasted potatoes, and sauteed Brussels sprouts with mushrooms & bacon (of course we have to add the bacon). Needless to say a nice and full dinner for the evening. I'm glad one of my teammates loves Brussels sprouts as much as i do.

MAC & CHEESE RECIPE (makes 6 servings)

8 ounces uncooked elbow macaroni (or whatever pasta you prefer)

2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese

1 cup heavy cream

1 cup chicken stock to desired texture (we used chicken stock instead of milk because the milk will curdle)

1/4 cup butter

2 & 1/2 tablespoons all purpose flour

1/4 cup minced onion

2 tablespoons butter (for doting at the end)

1/2 cup bread crumbs (we used panko)

1 pinch of paprika

also: we added a pinch of cayenne and some bacon but you don't have to)

1. cook mac according to the package directions and drain.

2. in a saucepan, melt butter slowly over medium heat. Add onion and saute 2 minutes. Stir in enough flour to make a roux. Add stock and cream to roux slowly, stirring constantly. Stir in cheese and cook over low heat until cheese is melted and the sauce is a little thick. Adjust thickness with stock if too thick. Add mac to the cheese mix and stir well.

3. Sprinkle the top of the mac & cheese with breadcrumbs. Dot with butter.

4. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until the mix is bubbling and the breadcrumbs are browned.