Day 5

Oyster mushroom ceviche

Week 3 is supposed to be pastry week but today we made cinnamon rolls and linzer cookies.

Day 4

Today we played with the anti-griddle.  It is a cook-top that freezes instantly...mostly instantly.  It freezes things very quickly.

It was fun.  We made popsicles and ice creams and chocolate cookies.

We sous vide some portabello and made an olive oil butter for a Portabello Picatta with rosemary mashed potatoes.

We capped our day with some pickles.  I made mine very traditional.  Dill, celery seed, peppercorn and mustard seeds.

Day 3

Today we got to use the smoking gun.  It is an awesome piece of equipment.  We made some tofu last week using coconut, irish moss and cashews.  Today we smoked it.  We also smoked some shiitake.

The smoking gun is just what it sounds like.  It is a gun shaped device that uses wood chips to create smoke.  It blows the smoke through a rubber hose.  It smells like campfire.  The tofu smelled a bit like the irish moss which is a seaweed.  It made me think of my grandma's house.  She lives on a lake in Northwestern Montana.  Mmm.  Good smells.

We used the shiitake to make sushi.  It was amazing.  The rice is made from jicama.  We then made Pho with the tofu.  I have never had Pho.  Some of the other students said it didn't taste much like cooked Pho.  I would imagine that's a hard flavor to recreate raw since it is usually a meat broth base.

Despite not tasting original, it was a delicious soup.  I didn't love the tofu.

And for dessert...apple pear cumble with almond gelato.  MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.  This was delicious.  Just like a cooked homemade apple crsip.  It is serious flavor.  Love this dish.

Day 2

Remember our panna cotta from day 1?  Today we split up into teams and created our own flavors.  My team made a black tea white chocolate panna cotta with a peach moscat sauce.  It was delicious.

We then made a delicious wilted spinach salad.  It was sweet, salty and fatty.  All I would have added is some apple.  mmmmmmm.

The equipment we played with today was a very expensive veggie slicer.  We made pastas from beets, carrots and parsnips.  Then we played with flavors and made pestos.  Mine is a beet angel hair pastas with parsley and walnut pesto.

Week 2!

Day one.  Tomatoes, cheese crisps and olive oil ice cream.

Vanilla Panna Cotta

Beet Carpaccio with macadamia goat cheese and frozen lemon oil

This week is all about equipment and techniques.  We worked with the paco jet which makes ice cream and the sous vide which is an immersion circulator.  

Day 5

Friday.

Enhanced sauce.

We made a few emulsifications today as well as got some tofu and panna cotta started.

We made an apple and arugula salad to go with our macadamia goat cheese.  It had candied hazelnuts and a white wine vinaigrette.

I accidentally dropped my mandoline guard by the sink and look what I found! A plant growing out of the drain.  How cool is that little man?

Corn and mint ravioli in a tomato fondue.  I want to eat the tomato fondue with a cheese sandwhich.

Can I make a raw grilled cheese?  I will put my brain power towards it.

End of week 1.  Cheers!

Day 4

Plant based Sauces and Specialty Sauces.

Theresa tried to show us how to roast coffee beans.  No, roasted coffee beans are not a mother sauce.  That's ok though.  They are pretty interesting.  The roaster didn't like the power supply at MKOKC, unfortunately, so it didn't work.  We may field trip out to her place to see the beans in action later in the month.

Today we made a Thai salad and a green curry.

This salad is amazing.  It has coconut meat noodles and pineapple in it.  The dressing is a creamy sesame which is the perfect combination for the pineapple.  The noodles are soft and contrast perfectly with the curried cashews.  I wish I had thrown in a handful of cilantro.  I used it for garnish, but it would have been a perfect addition throughout.

The green curry was not my favorite.  I like the technique, but not so much the curry spice.  We used kelp noodles along with coconut noodles and spiralized squash.  Summer squash is in season and delicious right now.