Will I get out of the snow?

So the snow has been craaaaazy for Portland just this last weekend.  Luckily I got my last two days of school in, because if we had school this week it would for sure be canceled!  The last two nights the city has been shut down to any cars that do not have chains.  I had problems when I came home on Saturday evening with not being able to get back into my garage because there was too much snow on the driveway my car couldn't go up it.  The manager and office people have not been able to come into work, so I am not sure what is going on.  Currently, my car is parked on the street side where I do not have a permit for, but what else am I supposed to do at this point?  I just watched this morning, three cars unsuccessfully try to leave their parking spots on the side of the road, they just spin out the snow.  The street corner to the back of my apartment is a snow trap and I've watched one car, two big guy trucks, and even a tow truck get stuck there!  And I just watched (and took pictures because I am bored and tired of watching movies) of two couples trying to get their cars off the top of the parking deck. 

I think these poor people were just visiting and friend and got stuck.  They were in the visitors parking spot long before their car got snowed in. 

Luckily, they're friend they were visiting was nice enough to let them borrow their cutting board to dig their car out with - how sweet!

The cutting board was soon chucked into the snow because your hands just sometimes work better with large chunks of snow.

At the same time, this couple decided they would come dig their car out too.  They were smart and left their wipers up so they wouldn't ice to the car - smart people.

Their weapon of choice for the ice was a dust pan.

It seemed to work better on the soft snow than the cutting board, but not as well on the ice.

At one point, it looked like couple #2 was going to give up and head back inside, but I think they were motivated at how couple #1 was doing with their car.

While couple #1 did indeed unearth their car from the snow, the man did even get in and turn on the car to warm it up and start the defroster, but then he close the driver door to finish pushing off snow and the door froze shut.  Put your shoulder into it!  He finally had to climb through the back seat and he managed to wrestle the door open from the inside.

Couple #2 was also having issues with the ice around the door as well.  Where is a good chisel when you need one?

Once inside, the man did make many good attempts to back out of the space, though none were working.  It seemed to me that once he got going, he would brake and get stuck in the snow, whereas he should've just keep on the gas and could've gotten further along, but he didn't.

Couple #2 watches couple #1 in their failed attempts to get their car to drive out of the snow.

The unsuccessful attempts were soon ended and couple #1 went inside to return the cutting board and (hopefully) have some cocoa.

Couple #2 was slightly more successful in their attempts to leave the parking deck, they got their car all the way out of the spot and turned so they could back towards the ramp.  I was very hopeful for them at this point!

But then something fell out from under the car (the guy in green is holding it in his hand).

I don't have a clue what it was, and I don't think they did either.

So they finally gave up as well and headed back in side to (hopefully) have some cocoa too.

I am not looking forward to having to dig my car out, but hopefully the weather reports of some high 30's temps will be true and the snow will melt just enough to make it drive-able since my mom is flying in on Christmas Eve.  The trains are working - sometimes - when the switches aren't frozen, so hopefully at the very least we can take the train from the airport.  One way or another, I'll make it to pick her up though!  And while the snow is yet again shutting down stores anywhere from 2pm on, I do still love watching it.

The street corner on the right is the one that is a snow trap.  This is where I watch many a car go spinning their wheels trying to drive up it.

The parking deck after I woke up - before the attempts to free the cars were made.

I do love me some pretty green trees with bright white snow!

I usually can see the lights from these houses at night from my window, but last night I couldn't see them at all and even the other buildings close by were cloudy in look from all the snow falling.

The same with these trees.  Though in the morning, I got to enjoy the beautiful trees covered in snow!

And here is a guy using what is currently the best (and safest) method of transportation here in town.  Obviously, I need me some skis.

I hope everyone else with snow is enjoying too!   :)

Pies (and other yummy desserts!)

So here are my pictures from foods on the last day of school.  The pies are super yummy and I'm trying to freeze some of them so my mom can try them when she comes up for Christmas.  The other desserts are some of the desserts we plate every night for the restaurant, though while to me they still look yummy, the look much yummier when they are all decked out with their pretty plates and scrumptious sauces!

This the caramel nut tart, which is usually served with decorative fruit sauces, caramelized bananas, and whipped cream.

From left to right, there are the brownies for the brownie sundaes, the chocolate dream torte (a flourless cake), and the cheesecake - which is actually a lunch dessert.

The apple pie.

The rhubarb pie.

Winter break time!

Well, we ended up having class yesterday and with it being the last class before break, things were quite busy.  Luckily, we only had one more item added to our "to-do" list and the rest of the time was just for us to (try to) catch up.  So we had a tiny lecture, a demo on pumpkin pie filling, how to roll out pie crust, and how to make a chocolate pie.  We got to taste the baklava that we had made on Thursday and then started on our own goodies.  I had come in early to try to get a head start on my pies, so I had scaled out all of the ingredients for both my apple pie and my berry pie - which I was making with rhubarb, which yes is not a berry but is able to be part of the berry pie pies.  So the pre-scaling was definitely helpful and I felt much more prepared for the day.  Since our group had to go plate desserts for the restaurant tonight, we also felt a little more pressure since we would be leaving early, but luckily Chef said we had until 10pm tonight (instead of the usual 8:15) to get things checked off, so that helped a lot! 

So I first started with my quiche because I had most everything ready to go from the day before and just had to roll out my dough and shape it into a tart pan and pre-bake it partially.  While my dough was baking, I started cutting up my apples for my apple pie as well.  Once my shell was out of the oven, I filled it with cheese and half of the quiche custard Michelle and I had pre-made, and got it started baking.  I finished up cutting all my apples and mixed up my cornstarch with some water so it would be ready to go.  I cooked up the apples, adding the sugar and spices (it smelled so yummy!), adding the cornstarch to thicken, and adding brandy and vanilla at the end.  Once it was all mixed up, I spread it in a sheet pan and put it in the fridge to chill.  My quiche had come out by then and it looked super yummy to me, though I need to put something else with the cheese next time, because all the cheese came to the surface and locked the quiche shell to the tart pan - a problem to take the quiche out to be sorted out later as I still had another pie to make! 

On to the berry pie.  My rhubarb had been thawing and draining by this point since before class started, so I then just needed to add a little extra juice to it because the rhubarb didn't give out that much juice.  I cooked up the juice with some sugar and then added a cornstarch-water mix to thicken it.  Once that got thick, I mixed it with the rhubarb fruit (this method keeps the shape of the rhubarb better than cooking the rhubarb with the juice) and then spread that mix on a sheet pan and placed it in the fridge to chill as well.  I then took out two pieces of dough and rolled them out to fill the bottom of two pie pans.  I set those back in the fridge to chill as well, and then rolled out one more to make the top of the apple pie.  I then filled one chilled pie shell with the apple pie filling, placed the top crust on, cut air vents, and pressed the edges together, and started it baking.  By now it was almost time to go to service, so things were getting rushed and we still had to clean, but I still to fill my berry pie and put a lattice top on it (like a basket weave) and get it started baking as well.

Well, we got all cleaned up and into service and luckily only had 15 people in the dinning room tonight.  That made things easy, since while Hannah was back to class, we were still missing Natalie and so things could be a little rush, but in the end, no caramel nut tarts were ordered, so we each had one dessert to concentrate on and it all was done smoothly.  Once we got the desserts set out, I set to work trying to pry my quiche from the pan.  With a little help from a solid toothpick, I managed to get it out, yay!  I then wrote my #'s 1 through 5 for my last chocolate filigree and went back to Chef Hall to get those checked off!  

Once we cleaned up the service kitchen and gave away all the extra desserts that wouldn't last through the break, I went back and helped clean up our regular kitchen since there was extra stuff to be done for the break, but I also had Chef look at my pies.  He checked off both of them, so that was great, and now I don't feel so behind!  When we come back, I will have to still make my chocolate pie, my crepes, and my whipped cream rosettes, but that doesn't sound as bad to me!  I think I am going to try to come in that weekend before class and start my chocolate pie and make my crepes, so I can just get them checked off when we come back in January.  But then it will still depend on the weather if the school is open that weekend either!

So pretty much I am on break for two weeks, so now I can ENJOY my snow!!!  :)  It has been snowing again since last night, and I have yet again become a pro at scraping off my car windows with a school id card (or a credit card), some thing I haven't done since cold college mornings.  But hopefully I will get to enjoy the snow over break and when I get back to school it will be back to the rain and no more ice on the sidewalks so I can walk to school again.  For now, I will just enjoy the snow and have fun with friends and family coming to visit over the holidays!

Time crunch!

So today was kind of crazy.  Since we missed class (again) yesterday, we were now short another day and still trying to play catch up from the first one we missed!  So we had a lecture, then a demo, and then were left to start our work.  On today's list of things to do was help with the class baklava, make in teams of 2 a quiche custard, and make on my own 2 types of pie dough, an apple pie, a berry pie, and a quiche, while also making a strudel and churning an ice cream with my group for the restaurant.  

Today I got the ice cream and the strudel done (since they were for the restaurant, we get them done first) and my 2 pie doughs made, annnnnd... that is it.  Aaaagh!  It is so hard to be trying to get so much done but knowing we are short on time and still need to get it all done!  But looking back on it now, I do feel pretty good about getting as much done as we did, because yesterday we were missing Natalie from our group and today we were missing both Natalie and Hannah, so I feel like Michelle and I did pretty good doing our group things with only two of us.  

So class started off with us starting the strudel fixin's that have to rest before it can be completely made up, so instead Michelle and I took the time to fight with the ice cream machine.  The ice cream base was already made, so we just added the coffee extract to it and went to churn it in the service kitchen, trying not to get in the culinary student's ways while they start to prepare for dinner.  Well, we got it all churned just fine and were in the process of cleaning it (which is more of a chore than the actual mixing of it) and one of the seals wouldn't seal right, then the front door wouldn't close right, but a culinary student who made a lot of ice cream last term was nice and helped us out!  

When we got back to our kitchen, Chef Hall helped us stretch the strudel dough though, because you really do need at least 3 people to help stretch it, so that was nice to have an extra set of hands helping.  I did get my pie doughs all mixed up and in the fridge though, so tomorrow (if it doesn't snow) hopefully I will get my pies done.  Michelle and I scaled out our quiche custard for tomorrow, so we can get started on that quickly we hope.  

So all I got checked off tonight were the oatmeal cookies I had baked off after class on Tuesday, but Tessa and I's cannoli's are still waiting to be filled - hopefully tomorrow.  Chef did say that tomorrow will mostly be a catch up day, so hopefully I can get a lot done before I have to go to service.  Hopefully the other two girls in our group will be back, or else Michelle and I will be on our own plating all four desserts, which is definitely doable, but I was hoping to work on my chocolate filigree and whipped cream rosettes during that time as well since it is the only thing we can really work on during service.  We'll see what I get to though.  As of tonight, we will not be shortening our break to try to make up the lost days, but we will be coming in early and staying a little late the week we come back to school, which will be helpful since we still have a bunch of things to get checked off before the end of term on January 12th.  It sounds so far off, but it will be here before we know it!

Snow Day x2

So no pies for me today, class was cancelled due to the snow and ice again.  It has been snowing on and off all day and I do love it but hope it stops soon.  While I remember loving snow days when I was at UNCA, these snow days just aren't as great.  Yeah, it's nice to have an extra day to myself, but the streets are crappy to drive on with people sliding all over the place and half the residential streets by me being blocked due to way too much ice plus a steep angle to them, half the stores are closing early due to the weather, plus this means that IF we have school tomorrow, the day will be crazy full of things to learn/practice/bake or else we'll have to make it up on a day most likely over break.  Classes only got cancelled just before noon, so I took advantage of the extra day off to get to the post office though, and while I expected it to have crazy long lines (since I decided to go at lunch time), I was surprisingly happy to find only one person in line and I was out of there super fast, yay!  

Well, hopefully I'll be back in school making yummy pies tomorrow since the snow is turning to ice too fast to make proper snowmen outside of my apartment and that is no fun!  :)

Yay for good snow tires!

So school was back on today, though the ice was still out in full force on the sidewalks and streets, so I choose to drive to school instead of sliding up and down hills on foot.  All I have to say is thanks to my dad for choosing good winter tires for me in MT and that I have them on my car now!  My tires did NOT slip and slide and I made it perfectly safely around town yesterday and to school today!  I hear all night long and listen all day long to cars spinning their wheels going up and down the street beside my apartment.  I've watched numerous cars, minivans, trucks, and taxi cabs trying to get up the street, while also watching random people trying to make snow angels in the parking lot behind my apartment as well.  :)

So class was a bit jumbled today after missing yesterday.  We had to catch up on a double lecture and a double demo (or try to) AND still do all of our own baking in one evening as best we could.  Plus, for my group, we were the bread group today and had to make most of our breads today for use today (instead of being able to prep them the day before in the special group as usual) and we were one member short, so that put us in a rush.  We didn't have time to proof certain breads (they proof for too long), so we decided to make olive rolls, whole wheat rolls, biscuits, corn muffins, and finish the cheese rolls made over the weekend.  We got them going and got them all out, though our baskets were a little late getting out, but at least they were all done correctly.  

Once we got the breads out, I paired up with Tessa from a different group because both of our groups had only 3 people in it and we had assignments to do in groups of 2, so we paired up together instead.  We got started on our cannoli dough, which we needed to let rest for an hour, and then we made the cannoli filling (which has marscapone cheese, powdered sugar, pistachios, lemon zest, and chocolate in it) that also needs to rest for an hour as well.  While all this stuff was "resting" I started the crepe dough to use for tomorrow.  Once the cannoli dough was ready, we got to put it through a pasta machine.  We press it thinner and thinner and thinner and as it gets thinner, it gets longer, so to keep it going by ourselves, we put the ends together like a fan belt (described as so by Chef Hall) and keep it going round and round and round.  That was as far as we got before it was almost time to clean up, so I worked on some chocolate filigree and got my initials checked off, so just one left to do!  Tessa and I decided to stay after class to cut out and fry our cannolis and we will fill them tomorrow to get them checked off.  

Tomorrow we are going to be doing a lot though - we will be making crepes, making a berry pie, a pumpkin pie, a pecan pie, an apple pie, a quiche, and we will make baklava as a class as well.  So much to do, let's hope we don't have anymore snow days, or we won't be able to keep up with all we need to do!

Snow Day :)

So school is cancelled today due to the snow and ice from yesterday.  It didn't seem like that much snow fell to me, but perhaps there was more than I thought, but the sidewalks and streets sure were icy last night when I walked to Walgreens around dinner time!  Cars were sliding all over the roads and not many storefronts had iced the sidewalks.  That was probably because most of the stores had closed around 4 or 5pm due to the weather.  I went out around 11am to go shopping and at that time stores already had signs up saying "If the weather does not get better, our store will be closing at 4pm" or "Due to the inclement weather, we will be closing tonight at 5pm" or such.  I didn't think the weather was that bad, PLUS it was the second to last weekend for holiday shopping so it shocked me that the would close early during the rush of shopping!  I thought there were still quite a few people out!  But today, there is no more snow falling :( though they are saying it might happen.  Instead it is just sunny but suuuuuper windy.  The ice has not melted any on the sidewalks either and I need to go to the grocery store, so perhaps I will venture out in my car... perhaps.

Happy nature!

So the other night, the sky was beautiful as the sun was setting.  The colors on the clouds was gorgeous to see out of my windows!

And then today, whoopee!  It snowed!  It was snowing when I got up, and he wind was crazy and blowing it all over the place.  Not a ton, ton of snow came down, but it was still nice to see snow since I thought I was going to miss it all back in MT.

Unfortunately now the streets and sidewalks are icy, so tomorrow I would have had to figure out how best to get to school, but I just looked for school closings and it looks like OCI is closed tomorrow!  I'll have to double check in the morning, but if that is the case then whew, that makes it one less thing to worry about!  Yay!

Tada! Food pictures!

Okay, so these aren't the best pictures, but I have finally gotten up pictures of (some) of the food I made the past two weeks!  And here they are...

Here is the yummy pizza that I made with Tessa the first week.  This is the bottom half of our Christmas Tree shape.  It was super yummy!

This is a mix of some of the foods I made this last week, though not all of them!  From what I did bring home, this is it minus the Toll House cookies - they were gone by the time I got around to taking the picture!

This is the leftover breads from bread night.  There are some baguettes, some butter braids, some biscuits, and some corn muffins.

This is half of a loaf of sourdough, which makes super yummy PB&J sandwiches!

These are the cranberry shortbread cookies.

And a close up - suuuuper yummy!

These are the almond biscotti.

And the coconut macaroons.

These are the PB cookies.

Here are the yummy pound cakes.

And lastly, the macadamia nut and cranberry scones!

So there are my yummy food pictures for now!  :)  Yummy!

The end of week 2!

And so the end of week two is here and while it seems to have gone by so fast, it was filled with me making almost 20 different things in the last five days - whew!  Today we were demo'd on frying quick breads, and I have to say, I am not a fan of it.  Not because of the unhealthiness of frying things, but because of the popping of the frying oil - I never seem to manage to fry things without being hit by the oil at least twice!  :(  Chef Hall was explaining to us that the use of fry oil can actually be healthier than imagined if used in moderation, so of course not at every meal.  But if the oil is fresh and most importantly hot enough, then it is not bad to eat fried foods once in awhile.  If the oil's temperature is too low, then the outer layer of the product (eg. doughnut) takes a long time to solidify and that lets too much oil seep into the whole inside of the food.  By using an oil at the correct high temperature, then the outer layer becomes a shell quickly, stopping the oil from penetrating the rest of the doughnut.  Then you just have to let the oil drain off completely before eating and it is okay to have.  :)  Still, I hate the popping oil, so if I don't have to fry anymore fritters or what not, the better for me!  But today I did fry apple and pear fritters (no, no deep fried twinkies this time around - though Chef did say they are best if the twinkie is fresh!), cake doughnuts, and beignets (aka churros) - though they were still nothing like the ones at Disneyland.  :(  I got all three of those checked off, along with my muffins too!

After frying up some goodness, my group went to service and today I got to plate the apple strudel.  It is a little hard to describe, but I got to make a hollow oval out of caramel with a stripe of caramel in the middle, then I filled the oval up with creme anglaise sauce and swirled the caramel stripe in the creme anglaise sauce to make it all swirly.  The strudel goes next to that with a whipped cream rosette and a couple pieces of mint and it is ready!  I had to do 10 tonight which was surprising, because I made more of those than the dream torte, which is unheard of!  But we got all the desserts ready and had to wait around because there were only two tables.  One of three people.  And one of 22 people!  Argh!  Why do we always get the huge tables on our service days???  It means we have to wait around until they are alllll done with their meal to put one scoop of ice cream on three plates before we can leave.  Sheesh!  Oh well, we got all the desserts ready minus the ice cream and were all cleaned up and so once the desserts went out, we were done for the night early!

And I even got a piece of pizza Chef Hall made for dinner and as I was eating it while walking home, my mouth started burning up.  I suspect there was a chopped up jalepeno in there, but he didn't mention it when we asked what was in it.  Hmm....  Oh, and before anyone asks, no I did not bring home any doughnuts, fritters, or beignets, but I did bring home 11 muffins (one was eaten, errr... destroyed, as it was checked off).  The muffins are healthier!

And so, I am going to try to get my homework done early and my uniforms washed early (because again, they are already dirty with chocolate and other stuffs) and hopefully be ahead of the game for the weekend!  :)

"Prep"

So I was hoping tonight wouldn't be nearly as crazy, but I was wrong!  Perhaps it is because it is still the first week and I am still getting used to things, but it was going, going, going all night long!  I started off by going into school early to bake off my coconut macaroons and my PB cookies, and those came out just before class started.  We had a short lecture and then got demos on muffins with streusel, pound cake, and scones.  

We then went to our tables and our group had make an apple strudel for service tonight.  We started on that, but the dough has to rest some and the apples have to sit and let the sugar draw out the moisture in the fruit, so while that was going on we all started on our individual items for check off.  I started gathering the ingredients for my lemon pound cake and it seems like I barely did that when it was time to stretch out the strudel dough - it takes at least 3 people, so our whole group had to try to be ready to do it at the same time.  Hannah was in the middle of a recipe so I just kept scaling out ingredients for my next item, scones, and when I as done with that it was just time to make the strudel.  For some reason, our dough was a lot stickier than it should've been by this point :( so we had to pull it onto the floured tablecloth and then let it rest a second time before starting to roll it out.  We finally got it rolled out and then we had to start stretching it almost paper thin.  You have to have at least 3 people stretch the edges out at the same time with one hand on top of the other, pulling ever so slowly trying not to break the dough!  The stretching takes the longest since it is a slow process trying not have any rips, but we go that done and then filled it with apples and other fruits and nuts and spices.  Then we rolled it up using the tablecloth to roll it (since it is at least 1.5-2 feet long and super fragile to touch) and placed it on a sheet tray with a butter and sugar coating to bake.  It came out perfect and just in time for service!  

I went back to my lemon pound cake and fiiiiinally got it all mixed up and into the oven to bake!  I then started on my scones, which I garnished with cranberries and macadamia nuts - super yummy!  Well, both of those came out and I only got a little tunneling in my pound cake (which is bubbles in the dough - bad - from over-mixing just a tad) and my scones were perfect, so I got both of those checked off along with both my PB cookies and coconut macaroons.  While the lemon pound cake is pretty darn yummy, it still is one of those foods that I never feel has enough lemon flavor to it!  I still liked MY lemon pound cake this summer for Kristen better for the flavor, though this one was so much easier to make, so perhaps I will have to find a way to meld the two recipes!  :) 

Since I still didn't get the oatmeal raisin cookies done and I didn't get to the muffins today, so tomorrow I am going in early again to try to get them done before class.  I did find out that I can go in on the weekends, so perhaps I will do that this weekend if I need to catch up still.  I also have my chocolate filigree to finish along with my whipped cream rosettes, but I am back in service tomorrow, so I can practice on them then.  But I did manage to take home 2 lemon pound cakes (and that was a half batch!), a dozen coconut macaroons (and there were a lot left to make in the batch), a dozen PB cookies, 4 scones, and almost brought home more bread, but luckily another girl took it home so I don't have an overload of breads in my kitchen - yet!  And tomorrow I'll get more as I think we have 4 diff things to make in class, sheesh!  :)

Well, I still have to do my homework (only 3 questions, yay!) so I should get to it.  I did manage to get pictures of all I made this week (minus the toll house cookies - already gone!) and I am going to try to put them up this weekend before my battery officially dies since I haven't managed to go searching for a power cord yet.  I'll get on it, I promise!

"Bread"

Whew!  Tonight was  C R A Z Y busy!  But still fun.  :)  We again had a short lecture on mixing methods and just going over homework.  We got our "to do" list for class and on for my group was 1. proofing breads from yesterday, then baking them for the restaurant tonight 2. mix and bake biscuits and corn muffins for the restaurant tonight 3. in pairs make a batch of brownies and 4. each of us make a full batch of coconut macaroons, a half batch of peanut butter cookies, and a half batch of oatmeal raisin cookies.  We got a demo of all the cookies and another demo of the brownies and off we went!  

I got out our butter braid from yesterday to proof (rise) before I bake it.  The baguettes were also taken out to proof and the extra baguette dough from yesterday was turned into cheesy herb breadsticks (the yummiest!).  The sourdough was also taken out to proof as well.  On we went to making the rest of the bread for tonight.  Natalie started on the corn muffins and Hannah on the biscuits, while Michelle made the breadsticks.  I got the task of folding napkins for the bread baskets (they have to look pretty for the diners!) and then started scaling out the ingredients for the brownies - attempting to get a jump start on the night's projects.  

Once the corn muffins were in the oven, Natalie and I knocked out the brownies super fast and were soon on our way to scaling out ingredients for the cookies.  BUT we then had to stop to top the butter braid with an egg wash and sesame seeds, check the inner temps of the breads, check our brownies, check the muffins, check the biscuits, AND about and hour before the dinner hour starts, we found out that the sourdough hadn't even been put in to bake yet!  It wasn't our dough so I hadn't been watching it, but now I know we're going to have to watch all the breads together, whether it is ours or not, or it gets done too late for the diners (which isn't all bad because we get to take it home, but still).  So between all of that, my measurements for my coconut macaroons were out and waiting to be made, but I didn't get to them for another 45 minutes because we then had to cut all the breads and make up at least 20-23 baskets, and place them all out for service tonight.  Once that time hit, it was non-stop going til the baskets went out, but at least they were full even without the sourdough loaves.  

So once the bread it out and we'd cleaned up all the bread crumbs, I thought it would be all good and I could get all three of my cookies done since they weren't all that time consuming types of cookies, buuuuuut no - that didn't happen.  I got the macaroons all mixed up and choose to let them sit the hour instead of babysitting them on the stove.  I thought it was the good choice, because while they were sitting and doing their coconut-y thing, I could start on one of the other cookie doughs, so I started scaling out the ingredients for the PB cookies.  I looked at the time and only had like a half hour, so I mixed up the PB dough and started scaling out the ingredients for the oatmeal raisin cookies for tomorrow.  I thought I was doing good and would at least get one batch done, but I forgot to put the fork marks into the PB cookies and they had already baked too long to do it, soooo I will have to redo those tomorrow.  ::sigh::  Oh well, it is okay.  I am going to go into class early and try to get all three cookies done before my class starts at 3pm, which should be do-able since none of the cookies have to bake all that long.  

So today I came home with a half a loaf of sourdough breads for my lunch sandwiches, a dozen yummy PB cookies (minus the fork marks), and a third of a gallon ziploc full of odds and ends from our breads today, so a little bit of baguette, a little butter braid, and a couple of corn muffins!  They'll go good with soup and stuff and I couldn't let it go to waste!

Well I have figured out that I definitely need one (if not two!) more chef jackets, because I am already washing my uniforms and I barely have any clothes to wash in general!  The pants are doing okay, but the jackets after being in the Special and Bread groups are just not staying clean.  I will have to find out from Chef tomorrow who to talk to about extra uniforms, because I just can't stand spending money to wash one load that is not completely full since I don't have clothes to fill it.  I was hoping to wear my uniforms at least twice before needing to wash, but an extra coat will just give me the extra day of wear before having to wash, which would be nice.  I have been using a Tide-to-go pen successfully so far to help me pre-treat some stains while at school or even to tend to my jacket if it is only one little stain, but I think I will just make up some good oxy-clean solution and use it with the pen once it runs out and hope that works since the pens are expensive and not refillable.  

I am off to switch my laundry and then hopefully get to sleep in an hour!

"Special"

So today we had a short lecture (yay!) and got straight to demo-ing cookies, yummy!!!  :)  So straight after the demos we got started in our groups and I was in the "Special" group today.  We got to make two chocolate dream tortes again (same as yesterday) because we are trying to stock the freezer with them since they are one of the desserts served at both lunch and dinner.  I was really wanting to try my hand at glazing it (you have to pour it all on in one try and smooth it out with two swipes, so it sounds hard but I want to try!), but we just made two more cakes instead, so that was okay too.  We also had to make the sourdough bread, the baguettes, and the butter braid for tomorrow (when we are in the bread group), so Natalie and I made the two tortes and Hannah started on the sourdough and Michelle started on the baguettes.  Once we had the tortes in the oven, Natalie and I started on the butter braid.  Room temp butter is best for us to work with, but sometimes we don't have a chance to let it warm up on its own, so we nuked our butter in the microwave and accidentally nuked it a tad too much, so we had to mix it a lot longer than normal to get all the butter incorporated.  We fiiiiinally got the dough made and let it rest for 90 minutes.  

We took the resting time to start on our cookies since we were supposed to make 3 kinds by the end of the night to get them checked off.  We started on our shortbread cookies since they had to chill in the fridge before they could be cut.  I made shortbread cookies with cranberries in them.  I need to work a little on rolling them into a slightly better circle (we roll them using a sheet pan to push them in the circle inside of parchment paper - hard to explain without seeing it), but otherwise it was okay.  So I put those in the fridge and the butter braid was still resting, so I started on my biscotti.  I made almond biscotti (the other choice was hazelnut), because I love the smell of toasted almonds!  That was actually easier to make than I had thought.  So I got started on scaling out the ingredients for the biscotti and had to stop to start rolling out the dough to braid.  

Well, Natalie and I decided to make a 5 strand braid (we have diagrams and instructions for 2, 4, 5, 6, and a star shaped braid), which was what Chef Hall had demoed in class last week, buuuuut the instructions on it are a little confusing to follow (even Chef Hall had trouble when he did the demo) and so Natalie and I got a little frustrated trying to braid it.  Chef Hammer gave us the okay to just braid it as we wanted to as long as it braided together and so Natalie and I tried to half follow the instructions and made the rest up as we went along.  You could tell we got the hang of it to the end, because one side of our braid looks... weird, while the other has a nice weave going on.   :)  We'll work on it for the next time!  So we just has to braid the bread and then wrap it for us to bake off tomorrow, so we jumped back into making our biscotti.  

Biscotti means twice baked, so I got my biscotti "log" into the oven with a light egg wash on top of it and started on my toll house cookies.  Yes, they are actually called toll house and are named after the inn where the recipe originated from, the Toll House Inn that is in Whitman, Massachusetts for anyone wondering.  See, I learn all kinds of things in my schooling, not just baking!  So the toll house cookies are as you are probably think, just chocolate chip cookies, and they were the last one for me to mix.  I only had a short time before I had to start cleaning, but I got it mixed, in the oven, and onto the cooling rack just as we started cleaning, so it was perfect.  I still needed to cut and bake the second time my biscotti and cut and bake my shortbread, but I was just going to stay after class for 10 mins and finish it up, because we all have to stop and clean as a class so we all can try to get out at the same time each night.  

Unfortunately, as cleaning was going on, my tray of toll house cookies got knocked on the ground before I got them checked off by Chef Hall, but it was okay.  Since I was already going to stay after, I had extra batter (we only had to bake off 12 of them from a half batch, which made 2.5 dozen) and just baked another dozen.  I also got my biscotti baked for the second round, and my short bread cookies baked as well and got all 3 items checked off, so yay!  I didn't want to wait til tomorrow to finish them, because we will have to make all the breads for the restaurant, make up the baskets for them, AND make 3 more new cookies, so I just wanted to get todays cookies out of the way!  Plus I still need to get checked off on my whipped cream rosettes and my numbers and initials with chocolate filigree (no time to do either today), so I have plenty to work on still this week!  

Well, it is late, I didn't get home until 10pm today since I stayed later, so I am off to bed!  And tomorrow my excess cookies go to the ladies at the gym and front desk.  I promise to make more to send to others who've asked for my "mistakes".  :)  Luckily I haven't had any horrible mistakes yet.  Oh, and I think I got a picture of the cookies on my camera - it has a little battery juice left it in, so I will try to get the pizza and cookie shots up soon!

"Service"

So after we went through the rest of the long ingredients lecture (cause there are a lot of them!), we also got a demonstration on how to properly sharpen our knives, and a demo on how far is just right when whipping cream.  From there we went to our specific groups and today I was part of the "Service" group which means we had to prep some desserts for tomorrow night and then go plate the actual desserts for the diners in the restaurant tonight.  First off we made a double batch of the chocolate dream torte, which is a flour-less chocolate cake.  We mixed it up and while it was baking we got to work on our chocolate filigree (which is basically drawing with chocolate).  The chocolate filigree is actually harder than it looks trying to make the same design look exactly the same (eg. lines are the same thickness, same size overall, no random extra drops of chocolate) and so it took me doing the same design at least 25 times before I got a check off for having done 3 similarly.  Making all the designs look exactly alike is kind of frustrating, but I really like the chocolate filigree work.  It's creative and fun to mess around with trying to draw with chocolate, though the chocolate kind of does its own thing sometimes too!  Depending on how hot the chocolate is depends on how easy it is to work with - too hot and it just flows anywhere it wants to, but too cool and it doesn't want to pipe out at all.  So I got one design checked off, but I have two more to do before the whole thing is checked off.  I did get my dozen cornets checked off - yay for having played with henna so much the last few years, I had the cone rolling down pat!  We also had to work on piping whipped cream rosettes, which I did some, but haven't quuuuuuite gotten it down yet, so I'll work on it some more tomorrow when I am not plating desserts and have more time to practice.  

So just after our dream torte came out of the oven to cool, we had a dinner of a veggie nacho type thing (rice, beans, veggies, guac, etc), which was yummy again (so far I like most all of Chef Hammer's dinners!).  My group had about 10 minutes to eat dinner before we had to be over in the T3 kitchen for dessert plating, so we quickly ate and gathered up the necessary items to take with us, mainly cornets for piping, the carmel nut tarts, and the torch.  We got to the kitchen and immediately had to start working on the 4 different desserts, starting with making whipped cream because all of the desserts have at least a little whipped cream on them.  We whip the cream by hand, and gosh my wrists are sure going to be strong after all the whipping we'll do!  We could do it with a mixer, but it comes out better if we do it by hand, but we make so much it seemed to take forever!  But we started that and took turns mixing while we prepped the rest of our plates.  

Each in our group took one dessert to prep - Michelle prepped the apple strudel, Hannah prepped the brownie sundae, Natalie prepped the chocolate dream torte, and I prepped the caramel nut tart.  For my dish, I started with cutting and caramelizing bananas.  The first batch I did didn't have enough sugar on them, so the sugar was absorbed into the banana and I pretty much char-grilled the bananas with only like 2 of them actually caramelizing.  Chef Hammer showed me how much sugar to coat them with and I cut some more for try #2.  The second try worked out and the bananas caramelized perfectly!  I had started prepping enough plates for 5 caramel nut tart desserts, but in the end only 3 were ordered so we ended up eating the rest of the bananas ourselves - though I don't think I did eat the caramelized one, but I did eat the other half of the regular banana cause I was still hungry!  :)  So I finished up my plates by putting a mango and a raspberry sauce together to form 3 fancy stars (a big dollop of mango sauce with a small dollop of raspberry in the middle and a star drawn out of the middle if you can picture that) and I put the caramelized bananas on top of the caramel nut tart and my dessert was ready to be served!  All of the desserts except for the brownie sundae can pretty much be made ahead of time, but the sundae has to be made right before it goes out or the ice cream melts.  

So we got most of the desserts plated ahead of time and then practiced some more whipped cream rosettes and other chocolate filigrees while we waited for our desserts to be called up by the servers.  In the end, we helped to serve the desserts (which I don't think we normally do) since one table had 18 people at it.  I wish I had pictures of the desserts, but I don't know when I would take the pictures.  The kitchen kept going from busy to a short down time then busy again then small down time again then busy again.  I guess you all will just have to come up here and have dinner at the restaurant and see them all for yourselves!  :)  Then I can make your dessert for you, yay!  Working in service was fun though.  I liked the plating. While we have to plate the same way each time, there is a little bit of fun to be had with each of them, a chance to be creative, so it was fun.  Tomorrow I think I will be in the "Special" group, which I think preps more desserts for the next nights and just gets to work on other regular class work to be checked off.  And so I am off to read my next chapter and then go to bed!  Nite!