Weeks 13 and 14

Week 13 was a wash because I was sick for the week. (Of course it hits right as finals approach).

Week 14:

So I missed Basic since I was still pretty down and out from being sick. Luckily, it was only a practice day for our final presentations. So I didn't miss anything.

But I tell you....Basic Cookery has been a real test for me, of sorts. I appreciate our chef instructor's desire to make sure we learn. But wow...she is heading to CA for surgery on her back.

The doctors told her she would be down for a week, but she is adamant that she will be present for our practical final (after only 4 days rest).

I overheard a few of the other instructors discussing what will be happening with our instructor's classes...and they were perplexed at how things were arranged. Our instructor was not present for the practice day (so any questions and explanations of how our practical exam will be administered will not be answered). She has not been responding to emails...even before she headed out for surgery--so again, no questions getting answered. So basically, two-plus weeks of no communication, and then we take our practical final. A few weeks back, she even admitted and apologized to the class for the bumpy semester. I just wonder how things will pan out when everyone is confused on the day of the practical.

We'll Survive!

For Garde Manger, today was our team practical final. We were to do a platter presentation of basically anything we wanted. Because a teammate and I are latino, we created a presentation of shrimp quesadillas, sopes, and salsa.

For the shrimp quesadillas, we used a recipe from our text book which (although not traditional nor authentic) was extremely delicious.

I made fresh homeade tortillas. To that we added this tomatillo sauce with cumin to the tortillas before grilling. This sauce, to me, is pretty disgusting tasting. But I had experimented with this sauce a couple of weeks back and learned that once you add this sauce to the shrimp and quesadillas, WOW!!!! It was a perfect combination.

A problem arose when we learned that the school's purchaser had purposely given us hard jack cheese to use (since they were trying to use the left overs from other classes). Hard Jack Cheese for quesadillas is literally the equivalent of parmesan for quesadillas--it just ain't gonna happen!

Our instructor asked if he could get me to use another cheese. I said mozarella. He said they were out of that. I asked for colby. They had none of that. So we settled on cheddar.

The results were not as good as it would have been with jack, but still very tasty.

The mini-sopes were, originally, going to be topped with a dab of salsa or a dab of guacamole--that's all. But as we got cooking, thins just came together and we decided to top each sope with a combo of guacamole, shrimp, cheese, and cilantro--with the fresh salsa on the side. It was also VERY good.

Even with the last minute change of ingredients, the race against the clock, the presentation, the creating of the preparations for the day, etc.--it was all exhilarating.

Next week is our individual final. I am going to do a flight of crosstinis.

Below is a pic of our presentation. (ok...i just tried adding the pic to this blog, but again..I can only put a link and the thumbnail size. Sorry...but the link should take you to the full sized pic. Enjoy!)


http://www.cheftalk.com/photopost/sh...to=909&cat=522