Father Feeds Flock!!!

Dutchess' grandmother and aunt came to visit so I pulled out some recipe cards from culinary school to impress them.   The first day I made chicken caesar salad and key lime pie.  For day 2 I made coq au vin, mushroom risotto, glazed turnips and tres leches cake (not pictured). I originally was going to just do glazed turnips, but Aunt Susan mentioned that she did not like turnips, so I added the carrots. At dinner, we served family style (I normally plate up, but  for some reason I brought the food to the table for serving), aunt susan took some of both onto her plate.  I noticed at the end that even the turnips were gone.  I take this as a huge compliment, and I appreciate her adventurousness to try them. Coq Au Vin is chicken braised in red wine with mushroom, pearl onions and croutons.  The taste is amazing.  The chicken was tender and juicy and the red wine sauce with the veggies was absolutely delicious. Whi...

For school I'm writing a research paper on the cuisine of the pacific  northwest.  After reliving so many memories from my first 13 years of life, spent in the Seattle area, I was inspired to cook food from that region. I have a Washington State cookbook, and I got this recipe from it. Roasted Mushroom Bruschetta. First I took shitake, crimini and oyster mushrooms and chopped them. I added parsley, onions, garlic and olive oil and roasted the mixture. I went rougue a bit and choose glazed carrots for the veg. I'm not sure this the best veg representative from the PNW, but I like em. Homemade chicken stock, sugar, carrots and a sprig of rosemary. Reduce until the stock is thickened. I wanted to include some type of a sauce that contained crab. I was thinking butter, dill and crab, but I found this recipe online and altered  it a bit.  Melt butter, add flour to make a roux. add milk and crab and parmesan cheese (rec...

Since we work in groups, I don't cook every dish for any meal. However, for the most part, I cooked or helped with the food contained in these photos. I normally only take photos of "my" food. Its part of our grade to document what we do for our journals. My table the night we got the highest grade in the class. Thats me on the left! Cheese enchiladas, refried beans, pico de gallo and flan I forget the name, but this is a mexican beef soup shrimp cheviche mufaletta fried shrimp po boy I think this is jumbalya bread pudding with whiskey sauce pralines banana pudding with meringue  clams casino thumbs up from table 3 corn chowder I call it the plumber crack carrot i still need some practice on my tournee,  but not too bad for my second attempt winter vegetable soup tomato duxelle roast beef, tomato duxell, brocolli hollandaise and...

The other week in culinary school... wait, have I mentioned that I'm in culinary school? Maybe so. Thats me on the left. Anyway, the other week we made pralines.  I had never made these before, and I was surprised at how easy they are. Just a little chemistry, and viola!  Candy! The trick is to obtain "softball stage", I'm not even sure what that means, but it is 242 degrees. Using my brand new candy thermometer, I achieved this. They were soft, chewy and delicious. Father Willy Wonka-ed up some dessert for the flock!

I rocked the clam chowder in culinary school last week, so I thought I'd share the greatness with my flock. first I rendered some bacon with some dried rosemary from our garden. Then I sweated some onions and celery with the bacon, in the bacon fat.  I cooked them until they were tender. I then added clam juice and scalded milk, and simmered for  40 minutes.  Then I added the diced potatoes, and cooked it until the potatoes were tender. The sauce is bubbling and getting close. I added some extra herbs, (tempered) cream and the clams! I plated in a warm bowl and garnished with some chopped parsley.  I also bought some take & bake french  bread and cooked it, then sliced it and spread butter on top, working it down in between the slices. Then I sprinkled some parsley on top. When he first sat down, Zachary said "I don't like this", at the  same time he started taking bites, still sayin...

I had a whole chicken in the freezer, so I took it out a few days ago. Today I "fabricated" it, which is culinary school terms for cutting it up.  After I fabricated it, I placed it in ziplock bag with pineapple chunks and a store bought "hawaiian marinade". I let this sit all day in the fridge. For the starch, I choose to make lavender rice. For the vegetable I wanted to make some wilted spinach.  The cool thing is that we also had some bok choy and some kale.  So of course, I combined them and added some extras. This included carrots, parsnips, bok choy stems and garlic. I put the marinated chicken parts on the barbecue and grilled it. Then I plated with the culinary traditional white/dark meat mix with a mound of rice and the wilted greens around the edge. The chicken was very flavorful and juicy and the rice had a great lavender flavor to it.  I used apple cider vinegar to cook the greens and it w...

So as you've seen in the previous post, I made some venison sausage. I couldn't wait until tomorrow, I had to try them tonight. I got a red bell pepper, and sliced it with some sweet onions, then I sauteed them with the sausages. I left them connected as links because last time I made sausages the meat leaked out the ends. To go with the sandwich I bought some purple asparagus.  The plan was to just cook and eat them, but I remembered that we had some bacon.  BACON WRAPPED ASPARAGUS!!!!! We had some Green Goddess dressing, so we dipped the asparagi in that!  Yes, Yum! To go on the sandwich I used some leftover fiery garlic sauce from our  bison tacos the other night.  I've now enjoyed this on 3 meals. Take 8 cloves of garlic, 3 tbs apple cider vinegar, 2 tbs srirachi, 2 tsp chili paste, s/p and 1 1/2 tsp sugar.  Put everything in a food processor.  Enjoy! I read the recipe wrong and used 2tbs ...