five courses of happiness

I took a vacation from baking this week. My oven was not preheated for cookies, cakes or anything resembling a pastry (unless you count frozen Rhoades rolls - deliciously not baked from scratch by moi). Fortunately, I still have a taste of happiness to share with you. Five courses of happy tastes to be exact.

For our Saturday date night, Greg and I decided to clean ourselves up a bit and go out somewhere nice. Plus, he owed me dinner from a bet I won about a month ago, so I decided this would be the perfect time to visit than my Chef's restaurant in Broadripple. Chef talks about his restaurant sometimes during class and we are all eager to try it, but it's not somewhere you can go everyday because of the price tag. This Saturday in class he described a new dessert they just started serving: banana bread pudding with candied bananas and pecans on the side, fresh oranges and Grand Marnier on top, finished with crème anglaise and caramel sauce. And a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream. My mouth immediately started watering.

At the restaurant, we chose the three-course Chef's tasting, which includes wine pairings with each course. We had no idea what would be on the menu for us - he chooses the entire meal for you and brings items out to explain what's in every dish. Very cool. First up for us was a potato skin with lobster, herbs and sauce on top. Unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to describe the how, what, why and where every ingredient was used in these dishes, but be rest assured that everything tasted amazing. And the wine pairings went along with the dishes fabulously as well.

Second course: salmon with Granny Smith apple slaw and white cheddar poblano flan with a mesquite smoked tomato citrus glaze

This was my favorite dish by far and I would have been completely happy going right to dessert next. Instead, much to our delight, we were treated to the five-course tasting and had two more entrees to go.

Third course: Indiana duck with wilted spinach and arugula, shallots and maple bread pudding with a blueberry orange zest sauce

While the duck was not my favorite dish (you know how I am with raw chickens, let alone cute little quackers), it was still very good and the blueberry sauce was amazing.

Fourth course: filet mignon with potato rosti and a corn shiitake mushroom mixture

Wow. This potato was probably the best I've ever had in my life and I wanted to lick the strange looking corn mixture off of the plate. The filet was perfectly medium rare and delish, but my stomach was too busy quacking to enjoy the whole thing. I was not too full, however, to scrape every last morsel of food off of the dessert plate.

Fifth course: needs no further description

The mood lighting (or perhaps the wine) was affecting my photography at the end of the night, but you get the idea. Delicious food, fabulous company and five courses of happiness. What else could a girl on a baking break ask for?

mama chokers

I'd like to introduce you to the infamous chocolate drop cookie. These fluffy cookies have also been dubbed "mama chokers," due to the fact that my mother inhales them so fast she chokes on them. Literally. But if you try one, you really can't blame her. Especially when you bite into an extra large one that is so thick and fluffy it’s more like a mini-cake than cookies.

The recipe for these cookies was passed down from my grandma and has even been used by my mother at one point or another. Her kitchen went into a brief state of shock when she decided to bake something from scratch, but trust me; these cookies are worth the extra effort. It's a pretty basic recipe and they only have to bake for about seven minutes. The batter turns out looking more like chocolate mousse than cookie dough.

And the beater-licking is absolutely delicious.

I always make the cookies small at first, maybe 2 inches around, but the last few batches always turn turn into four or five inch cookies. This is where the mini-cakes come into play. I like to let people choose whether they want to enjoy just a few bites or several. If you ask me, I say go big or go home. While the cookies are cooling, I whip up some simple chocolate frosting.

A spread of the knife (or two or three) and you've got yourself a batch of mama chokers. These only last a few days at my parents' house, but that's just because my mother eats four at every meal. And happily chokes on them the whole time.

My parents were the lucky recipients of this batch of cookies in celebration of their 31st wedding anniversary (which is today). Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad! They walked away with the majority of the cookies, but I did save a few for Greg and I since we're celebrating our one year anniversary today as well. One fabulous year since we met and 137 days until our wedding. Just look at all of those wonderful numbers! I know that I promised you there would be no posts with math involved, but some numbers are just too lovely not to mention. 

a meaty mystery

It's the end of an era. I realize that normally eras last longer than seven weeks, but I feel like using the term nonetheless. I am proud to say that I am now officially Serv Safe certified - an important certification to have when working in commercial kitchens - and I survived my final day of culinary classes with my sanity and a smile. My day was complete with much needed celebratory drinks and dinner with my supportive fiancé that evening. But let's start at the beginning of the end.

We finished off our culinary lessons with my favorite meat of all - steak. Bring on the red meat! Apparently I have less of a problem with bloody meat if the whole thing is red to begin with. Our tasks for the day also included a roast with pork butt and a few slabs of ribs. Well, that was the assignment at least. Due to a mistake by a group of pastry students playing culinary for a few weeks, the most expensive roast ever braised was made in our school's kitchen on Saturday. Here's the start of the roast - any guesses on what kind of meat this is?

If this was really pork butt, then piggy got back. Sir Mix A Lot would be proud. Due to a misunderstanding, a few students grabbed a huge slab of what should have been our New York strip steaks and braised it like it was pork butt. By the time Chef was looking around for the missing red meat later, it was much too late. We had prepared the tender red meat Mexican style by braising it with a bunch of blackened vegetables, tomato paste and spices and wrapping it up with banana leaves before sticking it in the oven for most of the day. Here's the costly result.

The good news is that it was still a delicious piece of meat and made for some amazing tacos, but my mouth is still a little disappointed from the lack of a medium rare steak passing through my lips on Saturday. The ribs made me feel a little bit better about the whole thing. We prepared them with a peppery Mexican style marinade and grilled them for a bit before sticking them in the oven a few hours. They were worth the wait.

Then it was on to our practical exams. First, we had to complete our knife skills practical and slice up a potato into julienne and batonnet cuts. I did well on this and definitely feel like my knife skills have improved over the last seven weeks. Next up was potatoes anna. We were able to use the mandoline to slice up our potatoes. A side note of happiness: the mandoline is now one of my favorite kitchen tools. Easy to use, nice thin slices and less chance of cutting my fingers off - what's not to love?

My potatoes anna turned out great and I give most of the credit to the mandoline. Oh mandoline, you are my new BFF.

At the end of the day we took our written exam and then I hung up my culinary kitchen hat. I enjoy cooking at home, but I'm glad my savory days in the school kitchen are over. Actually I have a small break from the school kitchen while I focus on a term of food math and purchasing. Don't worry - I promise not to post pictures of fractions. I am going to take this time to bake at home and will still be sharing happiness with you every week. Yeast cinnamon rolls are on the list...any other tasty ideas?

bock, bock, bock

This weekend was a blatant reminder of why I am a pastry arts major and not a culinary major. Not only was there more fish in the kitchen, there was also a plethora of raw chickens. Lucky for you, I only have images of the cooked chickens. Unfortunately for me, I almost passed out while chopping my raw chicken's limbs off. I was literally the biggest chicken in the room.

You know those delicious rotisserie chickens that grocery stores sell for six dollars that smell and taste delicious, but you still have to rip the meat off the bones when you get home? Well, I've just recently managed to bring myself to tear enough meat off of those babies to get my six dollars worth, but I was not at all prepared for the chopping up of a raw chicken. Chef made it look so easy in the demo, but as a new butcher, the bones and cartilage snapping was just a little too much for me to handle. Not to mention the blood that poured out when I was trying to hack a wing off. I immediately became light-headed and thought I was going to pass out. Why is there bright red blood flowing in a dead chicken carcass?? Bleh.

After a fleeting moment where I considered becoming a vegetarian, I decided to sauté up one of my chicken breasts. And boy was I glad I did. This was the juiciest piece of chicken I've ever had via pan preparation. The trick is to keep the skin side down in the oil and use the spoon to drench the top of the chicken with oil - never turn the chicken over. Put some garlic and thyme in the oil at the end, stick in the oven for a few minutes and you will be rewarded with moist chicken with slightly crispy skin on the bottom. 

We also did some frying, which was tasty, although I'll admit it was a little bizarre to be munching on a leg that I broke off of a body not long beforehand

And then we had to pull out more chickens to roast in the oven. These were way more fun to prepare because only their wing tips get cut off. And then we got to slather the birds with oil and stuff them with garlic, lemon, shallots and seasonings and let the roasting begin.

We decided not to tie up the legs, so the stuffing came out a bit, but this was one juicy, tasty bird. I would pay the going rate at the grocery store for this one.

And now perhaps I'll be even better at taking all of the meat off when I do buy one. Just don't give me a raw chicken. Or another fish. Those were pulled out next. We made striped bass en papillote, which means it was wrapped in parchment paper with veggies, butter, lemon slices and seasonings and steamed in its own juices. The bags are usually cut open at the table when you order this at a restaurant. Here's the raw version. Much prettier than it tastes (in my opinion).

The final item we worked on was potatoes anna. These are like scalloped potatoes except you layer them in a small sauté pan and let them brown on the stove for awhile on each side. They are seasoned with salt, pepper and thyme (one of my new favorite herbs). They are really fun to make and will be part of our final practical exam next week....here's my first attempt.

After an extremely meaty Saturday, I was craving something sweet. And since my mother has been begging me for key lime pound cake ever since my recent blog, I decided to surprise her with one for my family's visit on Sunday. How did I manage to bake said cake on Sunday before their arrival at 10:30am?

Coffee. And the strong desire to put something in the oven that didn't previously breathe the same air as me. It was a much better way to end the weekend. And this upcoming weekend will be a grateful goodbye to the culinary world for yours truly.