Whip that cream!

Culinary Arts1 students made Creme Chantilly by whipping their fresh cream by hand. Their extra effort paid off by using to finish their Pavalovas they started yesterday.

Tatum amazing her fellow students with her skills!

Success by Cassie and Ashlea

Skylar says mmmmmmm.

Heading to a fine finish with a Culinary trip to Denver!

Chadron Culinary Arts 2 students pose with past Chadron High Culinary student Derek Ray at his restaurant, Earls. He currently is managing the Cherry Creek restaurant in Denver.

After a semester of fundraising by cooking and baking a variety of goods, the Culinary Arts 2 students met their goal and was able to make the Denver Culinary Field Trip on April 28-29. In just a short 36 hours, students, instructor and a dedicated chaperone, Marleta Hastings, made a trip to be remembered by all. Sunday morning, two vans were filled with excited students and headed south. 

Our first stop was a tour and dining at the Cheesecake Factory Restaurant in downtown Denver.  Students were guided by the general manager through the restaurant and discussed history and daily operations of the beautiful establishment. 

Dinner was then ordered and devoured by a group that made sure they had room in their bellies for this delicious meal.  No disappointment happened here! Especially when it was dessert (CHEESECAKE) time!

To walk off our wonderful meal, we treated ourselves with tickets to the Denver Aquarium. Such a fun and relaxing atmosphere. A couple of hours were spent watching the many species of fish, reptiles and birds. Some were lucky enough to go into the back with an employee to see the otters up close. Others fed and petted the stingrays. But there was disappointment by all when the sleeping tiger - well - just kept sleeping!

Our Sunday evening ended at our hotel, full and exhausted. 

Monday morning we were all up and ready to go on our next adventure! Our first stop was a tour of the International Culinary Art Institute - this place was so awesome and interesting that the photographer forgot to take pictures! oops ....

At the last minute, contact was made with a past Chadron High culinary student, Derek Ray. Derek manages an upscale restaurant in the Cherry Creek shopping area of Denver. He invited us to his restaurant, Earls, to show share his restaurant history and operations and to eat lunch. Chadron culinary students were right in the alley of the kitchen, in the coolers and prep areas with Derek to see up close, top notch equipment and ingredients being prepared. We were very impressed with not only the restaurant, but also with Derek. It was great for current students to see a past culinary arts student in such a prestigious and successful role. We were seated amongst the beautiful decor of this upscale dining facility. The food and service were wonderful and once again we left full and satisfied.

Our tours ended with a sweet tour of Happy Cakes Cupcake shop. This little shop was voted as #8 in the top 10 cupcake shops by The Today Show. The tour included a wonderful story of how the business came to be. This story gives hope to young entrepreneurs that would love to have a small business some day. The tour ended with a mini cupcake treat for everyone, mmmmm.... but we couldn't stop there, almost everyone on the tour had to buy one more, well maybe two .... or three? So many flavors and so much success all in one place. It was great to visit after one of our biggest fundraisers for this trip was selling gourmet cupcakes - and we thought a total of 400 cupcakes were a lot to make - they make 100 to 400 cupcakes a day, depending on the day and outside orders.

Almost exactly 36 hours later, we arrive back in Chadron. Fast and furious? yes. Educational and delicious? priceless!

Yummmmm......Cheesecake Factory!

Use the following link to answer the Cheesecake Factory Scavenger Hunt questions found on quia.com.  Answers can be found on this official site. The links to videos up above are for your viewing pleasure :) So excited for Cheesecake Factory!!!!

Scavenger Hunt Link

Cakes, Cookies and Candy Assignment

All your relatives are gathering for a big holiday meal. You have been asked to bring two types of dessert.

Describe how you will prepare two recipes for cake, cookies, pie, or candy for this occasion.

• How will you use cakes, cookies, pies, and/or candies to add variety to your family’s meal? 

 (Answer the question, describe and place recipes and any pictures available on your blog)

Me and Julia

“Find something you're passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.” 

― Julia Child

A culinary icon, America's favorite chef and cooking teacher, Julia Child. After watching the video Julie and Julia, you should have a better understanding of the impact Julia has made in the culinary world.  Using the link below, go to the website "5 Healthy Lessons Julia Child Taught Us" and choose one of the five lessons to focus on.  Write a paragraph summary on your blog of your thoughts and reactions to the chosen lesson.  Support your summary with what you have learned about Julia Child and how it relates to you as well.  

Follow up your reaction with a Julia Child recipe that you have researched, found and would be willing to make in your home.  Give support as to why you chose this recipe and why it would be a recipe you would like to try.  

Link to 5 Healthy Lessons Julia Child Taught Us

Stocks and Sauces Review Link

Stocks and Sauces Review Link

Cupcake Frenzy!!!

Our first fundraiser of the semester to help earn money for our Denver field trip at the end of April was to make and sell four types of gourmet cupcakes. It was a huge success!!! Cupcake recipes were researched, each recipe was cost out for profits and then put into the test kitchen to make any adjustments. A school wide order form was prepared and sent out to all faculty and staff.  Excitement was everywhere in anticipation of these yummy cupcakes being delivered.  Overall, 500 cupcakes were sold, a nice profit was made and requests have come in to do it again for those that missed out.  Our next fundraiser is a St. Patricks day theme meal that is being prepared this week and orders will go out March 14th.  Watch for this fundraiser post and for more details on future fundraising events.


Types of cupcakes sold:

Andes Mint Cupcake

Peanut Butter and Jelly Cupcake

Salted Caramel and Chocolate Cupcake

Apple Pie Cupcake

This Is Not Your Ordinary Spaghetti Sauce

From Left to Right - Italian, Sugu and French Tomato Sauces

Entering the middle phase of our sauce unit, students learned and prepared 3 different categories of tomato sauces: Italian, French and Sugu.  The purpose of this lab was for the students to see number one, how easy it is to make a sauce from scratch. Two, how much better a homemade sauce can taste without the preservatives and added sugars. And three, the difference in taste by using the common ingredients that classify it as that category of tomato sauce.  This class seemed to lean towards the sugu sauce as their favorite (personally the Italian will always be mine). Great comments and participation came from this lab.

Roasted Italian Tomato Sauce

French Tomato Sauce

Arabiatta Sauce (Sugu)

Students then followed the tomato sauce lab with preparation of beef and chicken stock from scratch.  Bones and scraps were gathered, roasted and simmered, strained and simmered into a rich, flavorful stock.  The stock will be used in a future lab of Espagnole sauces and soups. Stay tuned :)

Sushi

In combination with the sandwich, hors d'oeuvre and salad units, we had a guest speaker, Sharon Bartlett, who is of Japanese decent come in and show us how to make sushi!  Sharon uses her expertise in sushi making, as well as her equipment, to show students how to create a sushi roll.

Students prepping sushi fillings

Sharon demonstrating how to assemble a sushi roll.

A lot of students had never tried sushi, let alone make it.

Maggie about to roll!

We were told by Sharon that a sushi roll should be filled with an odd number of ingredients. It is bad luck if you don't.  So students chose combinations of 3, 5 and some 7.  Ingredients to choose from included: smoked eel, imitation crabmeat, Japanese scrambled egg, simmered vegetables (celery & carrots in soy sauce), pickled ginger, avocado, shiitake mushrooms and of course seasoned rice. Ingredients were then rolled up in a toasted nori sheet (dried seaweed sheets), sliced and devoured. There were no leftovers in this lab :)

Larissa making sure she has an odd number of ingredients

Another delicacy was shared, Bean Curd.  A bean curd pocket was carefully opened and stuffed with the seasoned rice, then dipped into soy sauce.  Mmmmm .. It was tasty. 

A sushi roll and bean curd pod.

We would like to thank Sharon for her time and expertise. She even made the day more special for certain students by giving them a rolling mats and all students received a really nice set of chopsticks.

Thank you Sharon!

Sandwich Competition!

During the sandwich unit, students researched and found a recipe for hot open and closed sandwiches and the cold open and closed sandwiches.  They were then randomly put into groups of 3 and told to pick their favorite recipe in each group of the four categories brought to the group. The challenge was then on.  Each group picked out of a hat what type of sandwich they would be assigned and had to cost it out to bet $1.50 or less per sandwich. Not to surprising, but we ended up with a lot of vegetarian sandwiches!  Once a sandwich was chosen and met the competition requirement, students made out their market lists and awaited anxiously for the competition to be done the next day. They are a very competitive group and love competitions!  And the winner was ..............

Sandwich C!!!  An avocado cream cheese garlic spread with red pepper, red onion, lettuce, and cucumbers, all on a bagel.

Great job to all groups - all sandwiches were unique and delicious!

One Quarter Down, One to Go!!

As we end the 1st quarter of Culinary Arts II, I am reflecting on what we have accomplished and have yet to accomplish before all these seniors are set free!

The homemade ricotta cheese and homemade crème fraîche lab was a first for me and turned out very impressive.  Students made 3 batches of each and there were no leftovers!!  The students surprised their taste buds by trying their homemade goods in different recipes.  The first recipe was Lemon Ricotta Biscuits.  These biscuits were a winner! Delicious!! I must make these at home! (and yes they are biscuits, even thought they look like muffins) :)

The biscuits were used with the crème fraîche to make Strawberry Shortcakes.  The students gobbled them up!

The lab that followed the next day then utilized both the ricotta cheese and crème fraîche to make sure we had no waste.  Students experienced making Cheese Blintzes.  Although they have had a lot of experience with making crepes, blintzes posed a little different skill by only browning one side of the crepe, filling it with ricotta cheese, rolling it with the uncooked side exposed and then browning the rolled crepe in butter.  The blintz was finished off with crème fraîche and fresh cut strawberries.  The evaluations of this finished product was a little more mixed, a lot of students were expecting a real sweet crepe like dessert and this was not it.  The result was more of a creamy, tangy dish.  Overall this was a great experience for the class in making and tasting new items.

Blog #2 Assignment January 17, 2013

After completing week 3 of Culinary 2. Reflect back to what you have learned and experienced in class.

Comment on my blog by completing and answering the next few questions:

1. Write a reflection on your experience in class this week.
2. Go to the following website: http://blog.hostelbookers.com/travel/best-breakfast/
3. Review the “50 World’s Best Breakfasts”. Make sure you scroll thru them all before you answer the following questions.
4. Which 3 are your favorite, most inviting breakfast and why?
5. Submit your answers, they will be awaiting moderation until I release them to be published.