Tuesday's Class

So in my first class, we made a waldorf salad and a panzanella salad. A waldorf starts off with a mayonnaise from scratch, add some diced apple and chopped grapes to the mayo, and put the mixture on top of a lettuce of your choice and you have a waldorf salad. A panzanella salad is a traditional peasant salad from Italy, the Tuscany region specifically. Start off with some day old bread and slice that into about 1/3 inch cubes. Put your bread in about a 275 degree oven just to dry out the bread. While your bread is drying in the oven, it's time to make your vinaigrette. You can make any vinaigrette you want, for class we made a vinaigrette with balsamic vinegar, apple cider vinegar, roasted garlic and roasted red and yellow peppers. Then all you have to do is toss your bread with the vinaigrette and your panzanella salad is done.

In my baking class, we made our own puff pastry and made a braided breakfast pastry and feuilletees. A feuilletees are more or less a shape of a puff pastry then a dish. It is a square with a raised border that can be filled with a savory or sweet mixture. We filled ours with walnut cream and blueberries. Here is a picture of a pate feuilletees so you can get an idea what it looks like:


That's it for this update, so stay tuned for more!!

-Matt

First Entry

Hey everyone,

So, I thought that while I'm on this fantastic culinary journey of mine, that i mine as well chronicle it and share my ideas, recipes, food, and anything else that i come across in my journey. Feel free to comment on my posts and share ideas with me.

So the other night, i made a shrimp alfredo pasta with whole wheat penne pasta. I marinated the shrimp in a mixture of olive oil, lemon juice, carmelized onion, garlic, taragon, marjoram, and red pepper flakes. For my alfredo, i started with a standard bechamel sauce, thickened with a cornstarch slurry instead of a roux, and used parmesean, gruyere, and smoked gouda cheese.

Last friday i did prep work for the Big Red wine festival. We made a salmon wellington stuffed with basmati rice, wilted spinach, portabella muschrooms, and feta cheese. We also had shrimp stuffed with a seafood stuffing that consisted of celery, red pepper, yellow pepper, onion, diver scallops, sea scallops, haddock, mayo, and panko bread crumbs. The third dish was tourneed potatoes baked with rosemary until golden brown.

Well, that should do it for my first entry, I'll keep you up to date with my culinary adventures!!

-Matt