Quick Update

It's been a long time! I have been so busy with school, work, friends and family that I haven't taken the time update my blog. For that I am sorry. Usually when I am slacking I have Marie asking me to update but I think she has been too busy to bug me haha. So since it is almost 1am I will just say a quick thing.

School: I love it. I had my practical finals this week and I have the written exams and the deep cleaning of the kitchens next week. I will post pictures and an update of how the quarter went soon.

Work: I hate the new gym I work at. I miss San Clemente, I miss the kids, I miss my co-workers. I am a little bitter of how I am being treated and I am about ready to just be done with the whole thing. I should be starting back at San Clemente a few days a week in a few weeks. I am still waiting to hear from the new owner.

Friends: You are all amazing. I have been so busy that I am very sorry if any of your think I am ignoring you or anything! I love you all so much. Hopefully after next week I can hang out a little before I start next quarter.

Family: I had so much fun with all of you guys here. The golf tournament went great (I will do a post about that), Disneyland was a blast (another post for that will come) and just seeing everyone was great. I can't wait to go up north next week for Kylie's 2nd birthday! YAY!!! My sister and I did a photo shoot a few weeks back and here are two photos from that:


Well that's it for now! Hopefully I will get time to put the rest up! Love you all!!!

Week 4

Well week 4 in school was one of my best and worsts. My Monday Baking class was...interesting. We changed groups sadly and AGAIN I was the only girl in my group. There was one boy that is also in his first quarter so that is one step away from being the odd man out. But he was....well an idiot. The other two guys in my group were interesting. One was nice, good at his work and a little bitter at the chef instructor lol. The other was a total ass! He was rude, condescending, and not helpful at all.

The idiot guy didn't know what he was doing AT ALL! I pretty much had to do all his work. Which means I was a little later to do my work and by the time I was ready to use a mixer there wasn't one available. Picture this: 5 tables, each table making 4 different recipes; only 4 mixers in the kitchen! Helpful? FAR FROM IT! Oh well we do what we have to do. So I was one of the last to use a mixer. So my bread dough didn't have enough time to ferment and proof. Because of this it wasn't perfect and we got a little lower of a grade. We got a 90%. I was bummed that it happened but we would have gotten like a 60% if I hadn't helped (done) the doughnuts for that other guy. The one guy who was nice in my group was like yes a 90%, way to go team. The jerk guy blamed it on me, asked what quarter I was in and when I said first he said oh that's why. Then asked if I have ever worked in a restaurant before, when I said no he said wow you are going to have a hard time in school. By this point I was just angry so I told him actually I hadn't had any issues until I was in his group since he wouldn't help when we asked for it before. Even though I helped him roll out the brioche. Whatever! I helped on 3 dishes and he barely did one. I hope that the next time we are in groups of 4 I at least have one more girl in my group!

Here are the pictures of what we made:

This is our brioche.
These are our cinnamon rolls.
Here is out challah bread.
Here are a few doughnuts and doughnut holes.

Then on Thursday and Friday I had my pastry class. I loved this week. We got to make a quiche, an apple pie, and a few fruit tarts. I really like the people in this class. They are really friendly and helpful. Most of the boys are savory students so they are just as lost as everyone else even though they are in their 3rd or 4th quarter. So they ask me for help just as much as I ask them. It's nice to start making friends. We can joke around with each other and we check to see how each other are doing. It makes a crazy class day go so much faster. I spend 10 hours a week in pastry class and 5 in baking and I feel like I am in baking WAY longer! It's totally the people!

Anyway here is what I made this week in pastry:

This is my quiche and my apple pie. I didn't fill the pie with apples because I didn't have enough time to do enough apples so the pie dough cover sank down to meet the apples that were in it. Oh well not the prettiest but it still tasted good. My quiche had bacon, tomatoes, cheddar cheese, and spinach it in. My dad said it tasted good. I didn't get a chance to taste it.

My tarts turned out pretty...I think so at least. I was excited to come home after working on Saturday and eat the strawberry/kiwi one...but while I was at work my mom ate it. I think my parents are enjoying me being in culinary school. But I took one to my friend Garret, my dad had one, my mom had two, and I took my boss one. They all seemed to like them. The last one was left for me in the outside fridge and I forgot about it. So again something I didn't get to taste. I will tomorrow when I make one for my midterm though. (I made 4 tarts which I am showing but I brought 6 home. One girl couldn't take hers so she gave me two of hers.) There was a contest in class to see who could create the most perfect tarts that day and whoever did it would get a full letter grade higher on the midterm or final. Well I was disqualified because I forgot to put the glaze on top. A mistake I won't be making again. So I put the glaze on top and took my sad tarts home. I still like them...well all but the one in the top right! :-)
So week 5 is midterms! AHHH! I will have another post soon about how those went! LOL!

Painting Stripes

You may or may not know that I have been in the process of painting my room for months. I painted three walls a few months ago and never got around to the last wall because I wanted to do pink and brown stripes on the wall where my bed is. The colors match my bedding.

So I learned this weekend that painting stripes is more work than I thought. The painting part actually wasn't bad but the trying to figure out how big to make them and tape them off was a pain in the butt!!! A few people tried to tell me how to do it and I really appreciate all the help. But when it came down to it I had to do it my way because I ran out of pink paint. I would have had enough if I hadn't had a palm tree on my wall before hand. Being lazy and thinking the colors were dark enough I decided not to prime over it! BIG MISTAKE! It took me forever to cover the palm tree with the pink parts. In the end you can still see a little bit of the tree coming through the pink in certain parts if you really look but it wont bug me.

The first thing I did was figure out where the stripes would be and then I painted the pink. I forgot to take a picture before so you just have to use your imagination to see the tree. :-)

Then I taped the stripes and painted the brown. (This was the tricky part because I had to measure carefully and use a level.) The pink stripes look smaller right now.

Then I removed the tape after a little while so that i could see how it all turned out! It's not perfect but it's good enough for me. I mean I am pretty much the only one that sees it all the time!As soon as I put my room back together I will take a picture to show what it all looks like with my bedding. Hopefully it will look good!

Ending Week 3

So last week I got really sick and wasn't able to go to class on Thursday and Friday. So I knew I had to step it up this week to make up for it. And I think it went pretty well. We were in groups of 3 and my group was a girl who was in her 3rd quarter and another girl in her 1st quarter. The girl in her 1st quarter was very slow so we had to kinda step it up even more to make up for it. I hope she speeds up for her sake...she may not survive. But we did end up making some fun stuff.

On Thursday we made flourless chocolate cake, apricot gelee, chocolate ganache, and a high ratio yellow cake. We over filled our yellow cake pans so they were very tall and took forever to bake. But they turned out great. Then we took one sheet of flourless chocolate cake and covered it with the ganache, then another layer of cake, then a layer of apricot gelee, then another layer of flourless cake. We wrapped everything and froze the chocolate cake layers and refrigerated the high ratio cakes.

On Friday we took the flourless chocolate cake layers and cut it in half. Then stacked one half on top of another. We then cut that into 3 pieces, where you could see the layers on the side. We made a chocolate gelee and covered the top with the chocolate gelee. We made buttercream frosting then we took the high ratio yellow cake and cut it in half. Filled it with buttercream, and put the top layer back on. Then we crumb coated the cake with the buttercream. The crumb coat is just covering the cake with enough frosting to cover it and make sure there are no loose crumbs that will get into the final frosting. We were running out of time so we took cocoa powder and with parchment circles we made "snowflake" designs by folding and cutting the parchment. Laying it on the cake and then putting cocoa powder over it. Then taking off the parchment. We then put some chocolate circles on the sides. My cake tasted great, but didn't look perfect. But I figured it's a crumb coat that we weren't going to finish and the more I worked on it the unhappier I got with it. So I stopped working. LOL! And like I said we were running out of time.

So week 3 was a success and a lot of fun! Here are some pictures.

This is the flourless chocolate cake layers...when done called a Ruby Torte

Here is my cake...not perfect but it's ok for now!

This is the finished Ruby Torte!
At the end of class Chef Zamora plated some of the Ruby Torte...it's so pretty!!!

Week 3 Baking

So today was the first day of week 3. So far so good. We were making yeast breads. This week we had 5 new recipes to make. We made soft dinner rolls, black pepper cheddar bread, whole-wheat bread, hamburger and hot dog buns, and a pullman loaf.

I don't have much today say about today because we rocked!!! I worked with the same boys as last week. We work pretty good together, but next week the groups get switched up. We were the only table in the class to get 100% on our breads. Chef Kim said we worked efficiently, clean, and well. She tried the first 4 of the breads. Because the pullman loaf had to go in so late there wasn't time for her to taste it. Also it took FOREVER to bake because someone turned off the oven while there was 3 loaves in there! I guess they didn't look inside first. LAME! Luckily out of the 3 ours was the only one that didn't deflate so we turned the oven back on and continued to bake it. We had to take it out a little early also because class was over and we were the only 4 students left in the kitchen. But since we were so efficient and done before everyone else she also had our table grill up the Italian sausage for the class, for the hot dog buns. We had time for that, to do some extra cleaning for her, and to take a break. I am not sure how we did it. And our stuff came out great. I kinda wish the groups weren't switching.

Chef Kim also graded out journals. We have to type out all the recipes and on the opposite page of the recipe we put a picture of what we made and then we add comments about how we though it went and things like that. She said that I did great and it was perfect and to keep it up. That was a load off my mind because I still really wasn't sure how she wanted it done.

I am still getting to know everyone in the class. I still don't know most everyone's name. I know a few but that is pretty much it. But everyone is really nice and helpful. I can't wait for next week which is enriched yeast doughs.

Here are the things my table made today:

Theses are the soft rolls that I made.
These are the same thing as above but they are shaped in the "double knot"
These are our black pepper cheddar breads

These are our whole-wheat rolls

Here are the hamburger and hot dog buns

And finally here is our totured pullman loaf lol

Week 2

So today is Saturday, the official last day of the week (on my calendar at least). And I don't really have a lot to say about school because sadly I got sick on Wednesday night. I was running a low fever that night, Thursday morning it was gone so I went to work. By Thursday at like 11:00am it was back but no longer low... :-( I knew that I needed to at least go to school and talk to my chef instructor. So I went in and turned in my homework and told her I was running a temperature. I knew that I couldn't work with food with a temp and the way I was feeling. So did she and she marked that I had come in, graded my homework, and sent me home.

I don't remember driving home from school. I was so out of it. I felt like I was gunna pass out driving there. So I am just really glad I made it home safe. I pretty much stayed in bed all day. The fever would come and go.

On Friday I woke up with the fever again. It was so frustrating because I had class again. And again I was going to miss it. All day the fever was off and on. But I felt better. I had a little more energy.

Today I had to work. YAY! I love my job a lot but when you are not feeling 100% it can be rough. Luckily I work with amazing people who really try to help you out. Every time I checked today I did not have a fever. YAY!!!! But I have felt kinda crummy all day. Back to the feeling like I was going to pass out or throw up. Awesome. I would rather feel better but have a fever!

I work again tomorrow and I am just hoping that I feel better. I have this darn caugh that wont quit and when you have to talk a lot, it makes for a rough day.

First Day Baking

Well I survived the first week. A lot of book work, A LOT of homework, even more feeling lost and out of place. By Thursday I was thinking...what did I get my self into? I felt like I was in WAY over my head and wasn't sure how I was going to do. With a lot going through my mind dealing with other things as well I kinda broke down and while talking to my friend Thursday night, I started crying. It felt good to get it all out. Then when I went to class on Friday I knew I had done what I was supposed to do the night before and I had brought the right things. We had some more lecture and review and then we had a lab.

We had 5 minutes to get our mise en place (everything we need) and then we were going to start. And when Chef Zamora (my pastry chef instructor) said 5 minutes...she meant 5 and that was it, you better be ready. We were practicing a few basic knife skills. We grabbed a potato, a lime and an orange. With the potato we ended up doing dice cuts and diamond cuts. We zested the lime and orange. Then we peeled them with our paring knife. After they were peeled we had to cut out the wedges. They couldn't have any white on them from the peel. It wasn't hard but you definitely had to pay attention to what you were doing. Then at the end of the class she looked at our cuts and told us if we passed or not. If we didn't then we had to practice at home and take a picture and show her. If we did that she would give us full credit for the day.

She came around as I was cutting the lime wedges out and noticed that my lime was rotten. I knew that it was but I was running a little behind so I decided to try it with this lime anyway. I shouldn't have because by the time I got the wedges out, most of the lime had fallen apart. And when she did my grading she asked me to try the lime at home again because I didn't have enough pieces to grade. But that was the only cut that I didn't pass. I was very proud of myself...and guess what, I still have all 10 fingers. :-)

Here are my cuts from classAnd since I had to pracitce my lime cuts at home here is what came out
Today I had my Intro to Baking again and it was Quick Breads day. Quick Breads are breads that don't require fermentation time because they don't use yeast. So they are quick. :-)

After standing at my table a little lost for a few minutes the boys at my table helped we find everything I needed. Not only was I the only person at my table that was in their first quarter but I was also the only girl. Awesome. The boys really helped me out and I had a lot of fun today.
Here is a photo of what we made.

Going clockwise: The bread loaf that is cut into slices on the top left is banana bread; then we have a savory scone with scallions, pine nuts, and goat cheese; a few country biscuits; a few blueberry muffins; another savory scone; sour cream coffee cake is the bread looking thing cut into slices; another country biscuit; a cream scone; more blueberry muffins; more biscuits; and finally another cream scone.

The day for the most part was a success. Our blueberry muffins didn't turn out that great and when you squish them they rise right back up like nothing ever happened. We called them out "stress muffins" like the stress balls. Chef Kim (our chef intructor) thought it was funny and brought one of them to the kitchen next to our. The chef intructor thought it was very funny as well. We had fun, ate some pretty good food and got to bring some home. So today was a good day! Next week in baking is yeast breads...I can't wait!