Food Network Assignment Week 6

This week I chose to watch Cooking For Real. She made chili and red velvet cake. A couple of the tips she gave on how to prepare the food was to not over-mix the cake (gluten formation) and to let the chili simmer for an hour at least. The only word that I was unfamiliar with was "slurry". It was some kind of liquid mixture she put together when making the red velvet cake. She didn't pair any ingredients that didn't make sense; however she paired some interesting ingredients. She used cocoa powder in the red velvet cake, and she made the chili with out beans and with cinnamon. She did not really mention the flavor profiles specifically but she mentioned how much heat the jalapenos, chili powder, cayenne pepper, chorizo, and hot sauce adds to the chili. I learned that air must be incorporated into the cake batter in order to produce a fluffier cake. The chili itself looked really good. That is a recipe that could be easily incorporated in class. The chili didn't have beans, but it had chorizo and ground chuck. It was also light on the tomatoes.

Week 6 Monday and Wednesday

Monday:
Monday went well. All of the food smelled really good. The only thing I can think of that didn't go well was that I think one of the items wasn't quite finished when we set all of the food out for lunch. I didn't really learn anything new. We are getting used to the policies and everything around the kitchen. In order to improve for next class I could remember to record all of the temperatures when items are done cooking.

Wednesday:
We worked well together on Wednesday for it being a sort of "off" day. Nobody showed up to open the cafe that morning so we had to change our plans. We ended up making pizzas and marinated salads. I really enjoyed not having to follow a recipe. The pizzas looked really good except for the one that didn't make it :( I learned how to use the pizza oven and I learned that I now want one at my house! In order to improve for class next week I could practice coming up with easy recipes at the right scale in order to be prepared for another day like Wednesday.

Food Network Assignment Week 5

This week I chose to watch 5 Ingredient Fix with Clair Robinson. She gave several tips on how to use ingredients including: let the succotash steam before mixing and use the mayonnaise on the outside of the grilled pimento cheese sandwich rather than butter to keep it at 5 ingredients. She did use a technique that I was unfamiliar with--she peeled a lemon and put the rind in a simply syrup mixture. Some ingredients that were strange to pair together were ham and bacon in a succotash. I always thought that succotash was purely a vegetable mixture. She mentioned the flavors of mayonnaise and sharp cheddar and how they mix well together. She also mentioned that block sharp cheddar has more flavor than pre-shredded sharp cheddar. I learned that when making biscuit dough one should use cold butter to achieve the desired consistency. It wasn't really the most healthful meal so I wouldn't really suggest incorporating the recipes into class--It looked really good though :)

Week 5 Monday and Wednesday

Monday:
Monday went well. We got all the food out and ready on time and had time to clean a little before leaving. I got finished with with the carrot casserole very quickly so I was able to start on the salad bar sooner than normal.

The only thing that didn't go well on Monday was that I spilled nasty beets all over me. I don't think that I really learned anything new that day, other than I'm going to con someone else into opening the beets next time.In order to improve for next class I could just continue to practice cooking and prepping food items at home.

Wednesday:
I thought that today went pretty well too. Fran ran the lab today. We got all of the items finished but we didn't work as quickly as we should have.

I learned how to use the steam kettle. I used it to cook macaroni and cheese, which smelled really good. I guess in order to improve for next week I could continue to practice at home when I have time so that I can work more quickly in lab.