Reflection of the First Semester

When the first semester started I expected it to be the same as last year but in reality it is a lot different. Last year we learned a lot about making dinner foods, appetizers and cupcakes. This year however we have done all of that as well as learning how to decorate cakes, which is something I have been wanting to do for a while. It's not so much of making the actual cake itself but more of frosting it and decorating it and things like that. We also seem to have more catering events this year then last year which is a good thing.
The highs in this class have been making different things then last year and we haven't really used the same recipes as we have before which is always a good thing because I like when we make new things but it is also fun when we make one of our favorites from last year. The only low in this class would be the fact that I'm now halfway done with taking this class for the last time which is very sad ='[. But otherwise this class has been fun and eventful and has made it a memorable experience so far.
For the second semester I would like to be able to decorate a cake by myself with a nice border and design that people would actually enjoy for a birthday or party or anything like that. Another would be to master making dough for breads like sweet breads or anything like that since I haven't really made yeast dough since my Freshmen year in cooking 1. I would like to also be able to make a tastey pizza dough as well and master that too.
Overall this semester has been really fun. From doing two weddings so far and other fun events where people enjoy our cooking to just doing simple recipes for us to try out in the classroom. I feel like the class has held my high hopes of being as good as last year especially now that we are having our trip to Chicago in April, so exciting! I think the only thing I would change in this class is for everyone to be equal in their hardwork rather then some not working as hard as others and then people having to pick up extra stuff from those that aren't doing anything. I would fully recommend this class to any student who likes to cook or even bake. It gives you a lot of experience working different jobs which looks great for any resume. You also develop professional skills of catering and learning to work with other people and work towards a trip at the end of the year that makes all the hard work so very worth while.

October!

Already in this month our class is starting to become pretty busy. This last Satruday we catered a wedding for a girl that was in this class last year. We made four different tiers for the wedding cake. One layer was funfetti, another was strawberry, chocolate and banana. Personally I loved the chocolate tier, and the banana tier the best, they were delicious. For appetizers at the wedding we had deviled eggs, a meat and cheese platter, fruit salad, rolls with a compound garlic butter, and punch. For dinner we had green salad, fruit salad, tri tip, scalloped potatoes, macaroni salad, beans and raviolis. It was a really cute reception and everyone really enjoyed our food. For the rest of this month we have a lot still going on. We are going to start selling Halloween cupcakes, we did this last year and it seemed to be pretty successful. We are also selling cookbooks for $10 dollars and we will continue selling them until after Thanksgiving.

So Far So Good!

In the last couple weeks our class has been kept pretty busy! We catered a retirement party for a woman from the Humboldt County Office of Education. We made spring rolls, asparagus wrapped in prosciutto, a fruit platter, deviled eggs and toasted bread with a garlic spread on top of them. We also made two pink camouflage cakes which I helped decorate. Last week we had a catering event for another retirement party for a woman in the office at Fortuna High School and on the same day we had our first staff lunch. We made coconut lime whoopie pies, a really delicious soup, a salad and spring rolls for the staff lunch. We also made the same stuff for the retirement party except we made a three tier chocolate cake with butter cream frosting as well as a black bean and corn salsa. This week our staff lunch is chicken fettuccine alfredo which me and one of the other girls, Whitney, are making together. =]

Already Cooking!

One week into the school year and we are already making amazing dishes. The first thing that my group member Kaitie and I made were banana whoopie pies with a cream cheese filling in the middle. They were amazing and everybody loved them and they were gone before we knew it! Definitely something I am going to make over and over =]

The next thing we made was chocolate cupcakes one of our favorite things to make because the recipe we have for them is just amazing. They turn out really moist and as close to perfect as you can get every single time.

Year 2!

It's week two of my second year in HROP Culinary Arts. I am looking forward to another amazing year learning new techniques and learning new recipes. I'm also very excited for this year because we are going to Chicago! =] We have a large class of 12 girls and it should be a very fun and exciting year.

Busy Busy!

Since my last post we have done a lot. We had two finals one was we all were given the same three recipes and had to manage time, cleanup, and how well we presented the food and how we followed the recipe. The recipes were braised chicken breast, mashed potatoes, and garlic asparagus. 

Our second final was to make cupcakes with mystery ingredients from our countries we researched and present them. My ingredients were lemon and almonds from my country of Greece. Pictures to follow.

Another thing we did was made crepes and plated and presented those with bananas and chocolate syrup or whatever we wanted, some people used nutella as well.

We also did staff lunches the last two weeks. Two weeks ago we did a lasanga lunch without Mrs. Chatfield there. It was a complete success. This last Friday we did a tortilla chip soup with salad with spicy ranch dressing on the side and chocolate tart. It was really good too. For Valentine's Day yesterday we made red velvet cupcakes as well as chocolate cupcakes that we sold to the students at Fortuna High as well as cookies we made for a local elementary school. It's been busy this last month!

New Year!

It has been awhile! In the last month and a half we did a lot of fun stuff. We had a pie sale and sold around 250 pies! It took a long time but everyone who bought one was happy. We sold apple streusal, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, chocolate mousse, and pecan pie. We also made 45 dozen cookies and pastries for the HCOE Holiday celebration at the Riverlodge.  We made Chicken Parmesean and Eggplant Parmesean for a lunch at the HealthyStart building on our school campus. We also catered an 80th birthday party on the Saturday before Winter Break, it was a lot of fun! We are now working on a project where each student has a different country and has to research the history of the food in the country and pick a traditional food and prepare it for the class and present our country to the class. My country is Greece and I am really looking forward to it.