A Bounty of Bread

I started breads class this week. We will spend the first half of this class focusing on typical breads working towards artisan breads and then the second half will be devoted to enriched breads and pastries. That means croissants and danishes are on the way.

The first day was all lecture but we have been working nonstop since then. And by nonstop I meant sporadically. Turns out, there is a lot of waiting around when you are making bread. This is in stark contrast to our last class when we were in constant motion in an effort to get everything finished. No one is quite sure what to do while waiting for our bread to ferment or proof so we have started playing battleship and hangman. Yesterday I was smart enough to bring a book.

All that waiting around has produced 2 baguettes, one loaf of white pan bread, one loaf of cinnamon pan bread, pizza dough and two baguettes epi style. I froze the white bread, my husband and I ate one baguette almost immediately, the cinnamon bread became french toast for breakfast this morning (with leftovers for tomorrow) and I fed the kids at school one of the epi baguettes. The last baguette will hopefully become banh mi sandwiches tonight and I think we are making pizza during class today. One epi baguette left. Phew! Bread is easier to find a use for than cookies at least.

I resolve.

Everyone has been talking about resolutions lately (shocking) and I hate to tell you this but I'm gonna do it too.

I don't usually make resolutions because I don't stick with them. I don't stick with them because I feel like it is something I'm supposed to do, not something I want to do. My family and my husband will tell you that it is very difficult to make me do something that I don't want to do.

This year I was going to skip even pretending to make a resolution but then I thought of a good one that I really want to try. Plus it is simple and pretty open-ended so I can probably cheat. I am going to do something new every week. I decided it can be anything new. Eating something I've never tried, making something new, going somewhere, a new activity, whatever.

It started on New Year's Eve, before I had even thought of the resolution. We had dinner with friends and every couple was asked to bring a dish to share. We have adventurous friends so we brought roasted bone marrow. I have never had bone marrow but I hope to have it again soon. It was far tastier than I imagined, like delicious meat butter.

Late last week I made pasta with braised oxtail. I have never prepared or eaten oxtail before. I usually leave the meat preparation to my husband but this needed to be cooked all day and he was at work so I had to do it myself. This was also delicious and I will prepare it again soon.

Over the weekend was one more first. I volunteered to make a dessert for a bridal shower I was attending. I went for Tres Leches cake from the new cookbook my brother got me. Another first.


So far it has mostly been new food adventures. I will try to mix it up. Later this week I am going to a concert of a band I have never seen at a venue I haven't been to. Plus I started a new class at school!

Chocolate Overload

 My poor book club. This is what I'm bringing for dinner.

At the end of my Intro to Baking class I was drowning in baked goods. I ended up bring home three cakes one day and had the good sense to freeze two of them. One was a genoise cake which I turned into a tasty trifle at Christmas (resolution for the new year, take pictures of things and also try to take better pictures of things).

The other cake was a devil's food cake. I have never been a fan of devil's foods cake but that may have something to do with the fact that the only form I have had it in is a Snackwells cake/cookie thing. Remember Snackwells? Low fat cookies and such. They were also low on deliciousness.

Since this has been my only experience with this kind of cake I had no idea what to do with it and I also wasn't very excited to try to do something with it.
Enter Christmas.

For Christmas I received many wonderful things. My brother got me this book on a recommendation of a friend of his who is a pastry chef in New York. In this book is a really good looking devil's food cake. It has layers of caramel and dark chocolate ganache. The frosting is dark chocolate ganache coated with toasted cake crumbs. Now who can I make eat this cake? My book club. I hope it is good.

The crumb coating makes the cake look "classy" in my husband's words but I felt it lacked a little something extra. In the book there is a perfectly placed dollop of ganache on top of the cake. I tried to replicate it but it always ended up looking like a turd. I have been wanting to try my hand at making roses so I warmed up the ganache a little and hoped for the best. I don't know if you are supposed to pipe roses out of ganache but I did.

I made 5 roses and they each turned out a little different. The first ones were smaller and tighter since the chocolate was a little cooler. The edges of the petals were rough which I think made kind of a cool effect. The last 2 I did were bigger and softer looking since the chocolate had warmed up while I was using it. After chilling in the fridge for a while I chose one of the bigger ones and stuck it on the middle of the cake. Done and done.

New Year!

I couldn't have really asked for a better year than 2011 was. It was a year of firsts and a year of adventure.

This year we traveled to Asia for three weeks to visit Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. It was my first time traveling in that area. Again, my husband made an awesome blog for it so if you are curious about what it is like to travel in that part of the world I will refer you to him.

This was a the year of weddings. Four of my husband's cousins got married and one of our friends got married twice (sort of). I'm usually not a big fan of weddings but these were each so fun and unique in their own ways. One had brunch for the reception dinner. One had a hot dog cart late in the evening. One had karaoke at the dance plus it was at a beautiful resort up north. One was in a local park. Three had fun photo booths. One was on the beach in Florida and officiated by my husband (another first).

We made our first trip to New York. We traveled to Chicago to see my brother perform in a play that we later got to see him receive his first Ivey award for.

There were also new babies (4 friends and one family member brought some new humans to the world) this year and other new beginnings. My husband and I both left our jobs. He left his for a new opportunity at a different company, I left mine for a part time teaching job that allowed me to start culinary school. We had several friends that also started new jobs and even started new companies this year.

This year I also started running. I completed Warrior Dash, Tiger Tracks 5k and Muddy Buddies. I also obtained my first running injury.

We survived 17 flights and a million concerts. We had way too much fun with our friends doing things like camping, a wig out, pine wood derby, a pie party, a milkshake party, a pudgie pie party, Christmas in July, Bratstravaganza, roller derby, wine party, birthdays, sledding, crafting days, book clubs, bowling, rib club, game nights, etc, etc, etc.

I also made it through the entire year without getting a tattoo.

It was a very brave year.

2012 is going to have a hard time competing.

NYC, I love thee

I will write a little recap of my very first trip to New York City. Note that my husband blogged about our trip as it was happening so his it better. Really you should just ignore this post and read his.

I learned two things on this trip.
1. All stereotypes about NYC are true.
2. NYC is the heart of Christmas.

1. Seriously. The accent, yelling over cabs, overweight cops eating bagels and donuts, the fast pace, the smells (good and bad), etc. New York is a lot like what you see in the movies and on tv. I wasn't disappointed.

2. Christmas is New York is better than you would expect. I feel like now I know what Christmas is supposed to be like. Every bar and restaurant we went to was decked out with Christmas decorations. So were most stores. Rockefeller Plaza and the surrounding stores could be part of the north pole. We saw a firetruck that had Christmas lights all over the front of it. Everyone wished you a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. Even the strip club we walked by on Broadway had a huge Nutcracker statue and the bouncer was dressed as Santa. I felt the immediate need to come home and decorate our house more. I cannot be outdone by a strip club.

I learned four things about New York.
1. All stereotypes are true
2. It is Santa's workshop
3. It is all about the bakeries
4. The shopping is varied and wonderful

3. Their bakeries are serious. I didn't eat anything bad (although I had help from a friend picking the good ones). Also there are bakeries on every block. We had cupcakes from Magnolia bakery which were so cute and delicious. At Amy's bread I had a scone and my husband had brioche and they were both fabulous. The brioche was the best I had EVER tasted. At Sarabeth's I had a breakfast sandwich on a croissant with ham and gruyere. The croissant was as light and fluffy as a pillow. We made several trips to Le Financier for macaroons. They were huge and very tasty. Especially the cassis one we had. At Le Pain Quotidien (which we called the pain quotient) I had another fantastic scone topped with ricotta cheese and paris ham. I plan on recreating that experience for breakfast every day possible. They also have a hazelnut spread that puts Nutella to shame.

4. The shopping was better than I could have imagined. I was picturing big department stores and name brands. That really isn't my kind of shopping. I knew there would be cute little boutiques too, and there were. The star of the shopping show, however, were the pop-up holiday markets. We went to five of them. They are temporary stores with lots of vendors selling anything you could imagine but mostly things that you couldn't. They ranged from kind of fancy (the Grand Central Station holiday market) to hipster and gritty (Artists and Flea pop-up shop in Chelsea market). I pretty much did all my holiday shopping at these markets and we both bought plenty for ourselves too. We would have bought more but that would have also required buying an additional suitcase. We seriously spent hours in these markets, shopping, pining and chatting with the vendors. I would like to live in Chelsea market please.

I learned six things during my trip.
1. Stereotypes - real
2. Santa lives there
3. Bakeries, you will eat until you explode and you will be happy to do so
4. Shopping, you will shop until you are poor and you will be happy to do so
5. It really is the city that never sleeps
6. I want to go to there, again

5. I felt safer in NYC at night than I do in Minneapolis and St. Paul. It is mostly because there are always people on the street. Walking back to our hotel at 2am we never went down a street without at least 3 other big groups of people walking as well. And many of them seemed to be just starting their nights.

6. As promised by everyone who has gone before me, I am already planning a return trip. We didn't make it to any of the other burrows or most museums. I am told that if I go to Brooklyn I may just settle in, never to return to MN.

We really crammed a lot into our trip. We only had 3 full days so we kept moving the whole time. We made it to the Nutcracker in Lincoln Center, the NBC studio tour, Top of the Rock, the Museum of Natural History, and a taping of the Letterman show plus lots more cute restaurants and shops. We really couldn't have done it without an awesome itinerary made for us by a friend and advice from my brother and lots more friends. Thanks everybody!

Refreshed and Renewed!

My finals are over and I couldn't be happier with the results. My final written exam went very well, so did the product id test and so did my final practical exam.

For the final practical I had to make a fresh fruit tart, strassburger cookies, eclairs and pastry cream to fill the eclairs and tart. These are all things I have made before but I historically screw up under pressure and forget to put in sugar or baking soda or whatever. This time I actually felt remarkably calm and confident during the whole baking assembly process. What a difference six weeks of instruction can make. Then came the grading part and I was extremely nervous. I'm actually surprised that I didn't drop the whole tray just walking up to the from to get graded. Luckily I didn't and my chef instructor was very happy with my products. Phew! Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture before she tasted everything.

As a reward I went to New York with my husband. As part of our pre-flight routine we went to the Surdyk's Flights for a cocktail and late lunch.

Then we got to New York. And I ate. And I shopped. And I ate. And then we did some eating and shopping.


It was the best trip ever.

Oops

I forgot I had a blog. It is finals week this week so I can't really be held responsible for my sanity. My life will return to normal very soon but not before it gets a whole lot awesomer. Cryptic! Mysterious! Ooooooooooo (that was a ghost sound)! I'm tired.