Baking day!

Our Yummy French Rolls

Spritz Cookies w/ raspberry preserve in the middle

My delicious Blueberry Muffins....MMMmm!

The pumpking pie...before it went in the oven

Hors D'oeuvres & Mini Sandwiches

My favorite day of Garde Manger so far....

Here we have to Gravlax Mignonette. (Gravlax is a cured salmon)

Here's the Shrimp Canapes with fish eggs & chives for garnish



Here's the Ham Mignonette with dill butter & french pickle on top

My personal favorite...The cucumber cup with corn salsa & carrot handle


Close second: Celery boat with blue cheese filling & sprig of dill and red pepper diamond for garnish

The Finished Platter

The Mini Sandwich platter. It has tuna salad sandwiches, roast beef, ham, and chicken salad (on the cute little muffins that my team made)

Sausage Making Day!!

First Step: Place the tin foil circle in the bottom of the "d" machine, and put gloves on for sure!!


Second Step: Place Casing on the "d" machine and inspect for holes

Third Step: Fill the casing with the sausage, use toothpick to punch a couple holes and tie up the ends.

Fourth Step: Twisting the sausage into links

Last Step: Place the sausage in the "hot box". In the bottom of the box there's wood chips, you then activate the hot box on the oven top for 5 minutes then place in oven, and repeat this activation step up to 3 times

Salads Galore!!

Last week we worked on 4 different salads and being able to make 10 of each in a responable amount of time. It was fun yet hectic. We make these salads in this class and then they are sent downstairs to our deli/caterteria to be sold...can you see how smart the Art Institute is....having students making things for their profit...it's all part of the program though. Students are learned the importance of Product, Quality & Production....still feels a little odd paying to be a little work horse hehe.

Here's the Grilled Chicken Caesar Salad with croutons & dressing

Here's the lovely spread of cobb salads

Here's the whole spread of Chef salads

Last but not least...my personal favorite...The Greek Salad!

Fall Quarter = BUSY BUSY BUSY!!!

This quarter of school is extremely busy. I'm taking 2 lab classes: Garde Manger & Baking. Garde Manger is also known as "cold kitchen." We make all types of salads (tuna, chicken, greek, chef etc), sausage, any kinda of appetizer you can think of basically that doesn't require cooking. It's pretty awesome. My chef instructor in this class is so silly and i feel like i can totally joke around with him. My baking class is also amazing. The chef instructor is strict but also jokes around. He's into the science of food and he's big into culinary math, which i like because i'm a big math person too. He suggested a book for me to read so i'll have to check it out...when i have extra time of course...ugh what's free time haha? I'm also taking a "classroom" class called Management by Menu. In this class we basically get to lay out our plan if we were to open up a restaurant. It's a great class because once we're done and if that is the path you choose to go down, you could absolutely just walk into a bank and be like i need a loan for this and just hand over ur plan. I'm not sure that's the route i want to go but the whole management of a restaurant might be something i'm interested in. I've always been the one to be bossed around so obviously the thought of me bossing someone around and having people do things my way just sounds amazing but we'll see...let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet haha....

now for the good stuff....pictures!



Here we have just a simple salad. We thinly sliced carrots lengthwise and marinated them in the dressing so they'd hold that ring shape. We made some tomato petals, and that wonderful cheese crisp you see..it was quite tricky, because we got little explanation on the procedure haha. The dressing is an emulsified vinaigrette and the darker garnish dressing is just a balsalmic vinegar reduction. So the point of this class is to take cheap ingredients and turn them into this wonderfully looking expensive salad. CHA CHING!

Belgian Endive Salad. We had to taste several different types of lettuce and let me tell ya this was my least favorite. So bitter and just yuck! you have to have a great dressing to go along with this one for sure. Needless to say i didn't taste this salad but it looks pretty haha.

Here's the yummy banana nut bread we made in the first day of baking. It was great. I'm in awe of all the amazing equipment in this kitchen. The huge oven, the stacked ovens, the proof box, and i just love the wood work tables. I think wood makes me feel more at home. The only bad thing is the way you have to clean it but ehh i can overlook that.

Well that's all the pictures I took during week 1. Week 2 is over but i can only do a little at a time. I'm practically a zombie monday thru wednesday but I'll try to be a little better about updating.... : D