Oh my god! The last 2 weeks have been amazing. We are finally in a kitchen, and we are all stressed out and having fun, and cooking our butts off ( I sweated off close to 4 pounds). The class size is a little to big, and we don't get the attention we need (let alone are paying for), but we are learning how to hold our knife correctly, and make consistantly sized chops of veggies, and other more intricate, time consuming cuts such as a tournet (french for giving certian vegetables a regular shape using a knife). We did this to new potatoes on friday, it's more like a specialty skill, than a regular cut....maybe I will perfect it. And brunoise are fun! I need to work on consistancy. You try cutting a carrot into a cube and get back to me on how easy it is to be consistant....try making a 1/16 x 1/16 x 1/16 fine bruniose for consomme. Which brings me to the soup edidtion of this post.

Consomme is delicious! I love it. I will make it agian soon. Maybe next week. It is time consuming, but I have never had it before, and, well, it will be a regular feature at my restaurant I am sure. My potato leek puree was okay, a little to oniony, and the puree form of the soup was not pureed enough. Oh well, now I know.

Here are some pics of homade meals from the last couple of weeks.

This dinner was delicious! Al made Warm Cabbage Salad with Bacon and Gorgonzola Cheese (cabbage never had it so good), and I made Herb (italian flat leaf parsley, chive and dill) and Panko Crusted Pan Fried Tilapia with Red Pepper Coulis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WOW!
This one was a winner. All the flavors blended well, and stood out on their own. We also had a lovely sav blanc, by clos de bois, that finished the meal nicely (light and fruity, with hints of melon, not so dry, great room temp, even only minutely cold). And for desert...the piece du resistant...kit kat bars and peanut butter cups. ...yumm yumm yumm!

The very next night was "Make what you made in school night." So dinner consisted of Ratatouille, with and add on of grilled shrimp. I did the prep work for the ratatouille while Al did the grilling. See my consistantly sized medium diced eggplant, and squash, and the lovely minced garlic? I ommitted the bell peppers, and I couldn't find shallots at the local grocery store, but it all came together nicely in the end.

Here are my rough chopped tomatoes, tomato concasse to be exact...that's a fancy french word for peeled, seeded, and diced. By the way, tomato seeds are the enemy. They are bitter. You must always get rid of them! Bad Tomato seeds, BAD BAD BAD!

Here we have the assembled product, simmering away...just enough time for the veggies to be tender.

Wahlah!

Ratatouille with Grilled Shrimp! Once agian, another steller meal. Not to filling (we don't need to feel like we have food comma), and super good for you (only the smallest amount of olive oil was used to sautee the onions, and coat the shrimp for grilling.

Here I am all decked out in my school/chef gear....love the coat...hate the pants!!!!!!! Oh yeah, it's 7 am!

Well that's all for now folks. Be sure to stay tuned for my final week of Basic Skills 1 class. Where we will be frying zucchini, grilling portobello's, making risotto, and making eggs in several different ways...I was told that egg day includes bacon and toast, YIPPEE!!!!!

chow for now.