Back to School

Well, school has officially started. I have classes Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday all day, Thursday and Friday mornings. The classes that I am in are Garde Manger (Cold food such as sandwiches, salads, and we will be making our own sausages), Intro to Pastries, and Intro to Baking. The summer went by entirely TOO fast. The Chef that was to teach my Garde Manger class had to take a leave and so the replacement for this quarter is the same instructor for my Into to Pastries class. We see an awful lot of each other and I'm not sure if it is going to be a good thing, but we will see.

We made some really good salads this week. I made this wild rice salad that a Chef at the school came back for thirds on. He REALLY liked my wild rice salad. It always makes me feel good when the Chefs come back for more on things that I make, it boosts my confidence.

This week in Pastries, we made pie. I have NEVER made a pie from scratch before. I am not a fan of pie crust and therefor usually bye the graham cracker crusts and then put pudding in it or something. It was a completely new experience for me. I made three pies at school today. I made a lemon meringue pie that I don't think turned out (I don't know because I didn't taste it because I HATE lemon meringue pie), a chocolate banana cream pie (VERY tasty), and an apple raspberry pie (tart but tasty). For never making pie before I think I did pretty well. I even liked the crust I made, a miracle in and of itself because I hate pie crust. I haven't had Intro to Baking yet, that is tomorrow and this is the first week of school, but I think I will enjoy it. These are pictures of my apple pie.


It actually looks homemade!! I was getting pretty flustered making these pies today though. My flaky crust turned out to be a little too dry, but the Chef got it to go into the pan alright, it just seemed to melt in my mouth when I ate it. The apple raspberry mixture was a little "confusing" because the raspberries kept weeping and I didn't know how much thickener I would need to keep it from running all over. It turned out really good, like I said tart but tasty. Spencer even liked it a little (he doesn't like apple pie at all). The apples were still a little crunchy and the sauce, I think, was a great consistency. I think ice cream would totally complete it though, and for the men in my family, NO SHARP CHEDDAR!!!!! (Especially moldy, Dad.)