NE Highlights and Challenges | Week #4

This is a class assignment that I write about at the end of each week called Highlights and Challenges. If you are new to my blog I am enrolled at The Natural Epicurean Culinary Academy in Austin, Texas and this is my online journal (among other things!).

HIGHLIGHTS

1. Describe: What did you find especially exciting, interesting, inspiring, satisfying and/or fun this week in the kitchen?

This week I enjoyed cooking in a double lab scenario with a two person team. The list of recipes (about 5 recipes on average) gets roughly divided up in half between the two of us and we save the easiest recipe last so that whomever gets close to completing the other time consuming recipes can start on the last one. By the time we start the last one we begin plating and cleaning up our station. 

This week was an awesome week for me and my lab partner, Paula, because we almost plated first everyday! I sure do get satisfaction when we plate first, but even more satisfaction when we get complimented on how the food tastes! :)

The other cool thing I liked this week was FRUITS! We learned about fruits and sampled some interesting fruits that I have never seen or purchsed before. Fruits like, horned melon, kumquat, and guava were sampled. 

We made some great fruit recipes. Some of my favorites were, fruit salsa, grilling pineapple for fruit kabobs, watermelon salad and a strawberry soup. The garnish for the soup was so good!

We also had a lab about preserves that I found interesting. I liked the quick pickles we made in class and they turned out pretty good! I felt like that lab could have been longer or maybe I was just moving too quickly! I would have liked to make a marmalade instead of the beet horseradish, but that's okay I've got the recipe to make a marmalade at home :)

Here are some food pics for this past week:
Marinated Beets, roasted butternut squash, carrot salad with parsley and mint, and carrots with dried apricots and chipotle.

Turnip and rutabaga puree with leeks, warm fennel and mushroom salad, and stir-fried broccoli with mushrooms and ginger.

Roasted cauliflower with raisins and vinaigrette, sugar snap peas with scallions and dill, haricot verts with walnuts, cucumber salad, zucchini and yellow squash noodles.

Collard green coleslaw, mixed greens with cumin and paprika, stuffed collards, cabbage with mustard, sauteed baby bok choy.

Preserves! We made beet horseradish relish and quick pickles with onion.

Fruits! We made watermelon salad, strawberry soup, and a fruit salsa.

2. Reflect: In what ways have you begun to apply, develop or incorporate this and/or how does this influence your professional goals?

I'm feeling like I need to make some recipes from this past week on my own time since some of the recipes we were assigned were variations or completely new ones. For example, I love caggabe and cumin and the variation called for mustard instead of cumin, so I'd like to make that one as per the recipe. I think my family might like that one for sure. I like getting assigned variations of recipes, but that one in particular was the one I wanted to make. No worries at all about what was assigned, this is just an observation. I think it's good to have some variations so that when you share a recipe with someone you can let them know there is more than one way of cooking a recipe!

CHALLENGES

3. Describe: What did you find especially challenging or difficult in the kitchen this week?

I found it a bit challenging to study for the written part of the test since I initially thought we were only going to be tested on the current foundation course, but later confirmed that the written test does included both fundamentals and foundations courses! I appreciated Chef Diane's help with clarifying things the day before the test!

The other thing, which is minor, is the cleaning duties after lab.

4. Reflect: What might you do to meet and overcome these challenges or difficulties?

Since I have been on a two person team we have more that one role so I get a little confused as to what exactly my cleaning duties are, but again this is minor and I can just read the cleaning folder. 

As for preparing for any upcoming test I will get in the habit of asking "Is this portion of information on the test?" when I'm in class. This sounds like the best thing I could do for myself so I only study exactly what is needed. 

I'm trying out this new mind set about tests and being around others who are experiencing the same situation. For a long time I had this mentality when a test was coming I would worry and stress. That mentality is my ego. For now, I have decided to be calm and happy! I tried this new way of thinking and I felt pretty good especially on test day we had on Thursday. I even took a selfie:

Anyway, that's all for this week! Thanks for stopping by :)