chopped

This week I watched chopped again. One of the problems a chef ran into was she was cooking chocolate to make a sauce when it started to boil up. I learned that if you add honey to the chocolate and take it off the heat it will help settle the chocolate down, making it smooth again. I thought that was pretty interesting. Another problem the chefs run into is time, because they only give 20 minutes to cook and plate 4 meals that typically take longer to cook. You are at risk for undercooking meat which can be dangerous for consumption.

Week 6 classes

Monday's class I made italian sausage links, peppers and onions, however there was no italian sausage so I used andouili spicy sausage. The meal itself came out really well, the sausage was nicely seasoned and cooked to an appropriate temperature while the vegetables also came out good. I did a much better job of timing the meal this time, by doing the vegetables first since the meat didn't take as long to cook. I also helped with salad bar.

Wednesday's class was pizza day, where we made 12 pizzas (3 different kinds). It was pretty fun and I actually ended up going to the grocery store the following day to make my own pizza. Things went pretty smoothly but because of a lack of room in the oven it took longer then expected to make everything. Overall I have learned alot from this class and I am now trying to incorporate these recipes into meals for myself at home.

Man V. Food

I watched Man v. food and in the end there was a big food challenge of a giant 6 pound burrito. They went through the making of the burrito in which they sauteed the vegetables, floured the tortilla, added their secret sauce, and grilled the meat etc. While watching the show I learned that when you eat starches, it is best to avoid alot of water because the water helps the starch to expand in your stomach, leaving less room for you to eat. It was a pretty interesting concept which I didn't know before hand.

10/5

in class i made a beef stew. The beef itself came marinated in a bag and had to cook in boiled water for over 2 hours. I cut up the onions and potatoes, and we also decided to add some celery and carrots. What I learned from this class with Fran teaching is that it is often beneficial to do things in a certain order. I started with cutting up the vegetables, when really I should have started cooking the meat before hand since it took longer. I also made scalloped potatoes which I should have started a little bit earlier as well, granted it still made it out on time. I'm enjoying the class, and am getting the hang of everything in certain aspects but I still need to do a better job of being more efficient with my work.

10/3

Monday's class I made asian style french fries from scratch. I cut and peeled 10 potatoes, and learned that you need to keep them sitting in water until they are ready to be fried so that they don't brown. It was the first time I had actually used a friar to cook something in, so that was a good experience. I think they actually turned out pretty well. There are still certain items and ingredients where I forget where they are located and sometimes that slows me down. I still need to do a better job of going faster with my work.

Hell's Kitchen

This week I watched Hell's Kitchen starring Chef Gordan Ramsay. This is actually one of my favorite food network shows because of all the drama. It was an already aired episode but there is a red and blue team and they compete to have the best dinner service. They each take turns cooking different things and when someone screws up it holds up the rest of the service line. Alot of the time since they are trying to hurry and get orders out to tables they undercook the food which we learned in food safety is the worst thing you can do because of bacteria growth. The most important message from the show that I have learned when it comes to food is communication. You have to be able to communicate with your coworkers to ensure the food service runs smoothly.

FNCE

This past week I missed lab because I was in San Diego presenting my grad work at FNCE. Overall it was an exciting experience. There were tons of different vendors from all over the country that had booths setup handing out free samples of new products and information. I talked alot with the booths that geared towards sports nutrition such as the energy drink and supplement vendors (myoplex, gatorade etc). I think my favorite booth was the coca-cola booth in which they had a vending machine that was all touch screen and had over 100 flavors of their product that hadn't hit the market. Overall it was a great experience, the presentation went well, and I met a few OU alumni in the process. I gathered alot of valuable information and tried a lot of new products.