Been a While

WOW..It is has been a long time since I posted. Chef school has been a complete whirlwind so far. I am already halfway done and I can't believe it how quickly it all went by.

I have learned a lot since school started, but I feel like I still have a ton more to learn before I am even close to being a decent cook. I am happy at how quickly I can now crank out fresh pasta, it no longer feels like an all day event!
Finally figured out how to create Orange Cream Cheese Mousse. The technique we were taught in class didn't work at all, neither in class or here at the house, but I have finally figured it out..the trick is to heat the cream cheese over a bain marie and whip it with the orange concentrate before folding in the Italian Merangue...NO LUMPS.

Today I tried to perfect a technique for the jelly sponge. Every time I try to do it, the sponge cracks when I roll it up. Tastes delicious, but doesn't visually look great. I googled it and think I will try again next weekend. I did try do a chocolate Jelly Sponge today, and it did work out okay. I think next time I will use less of the cocoa in the mix...it was almost too chocolately...did you think such a thing was even possible? It cracked even worse than the regular sponge, so maybe a higher flour to cocoa ratio will work better...although the darkness of the cocoa sponge looks amazing.

Tonight I made a Shitaake soup using the beef stock I made last weekend. It tasted really great...I added some little pork meat balls from the homemade sausage we made in class on Thursday. 100% of this soup was made by my own little hands...so it tasted even better I guess.

Sausage making in class was very interesting. I have already bought the meat grinder and sausage stuffer attachment for my Kitchen Aid stand mixer, so I plan on starting to make my own sausages pretty quickly. I just need to find out where I can buy the casings.

Thanks for listening...I promise to write again soon.