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!  :)