2nd quarter almost done

Well the 2nd quarter of my college career is drawing closer to an end. I have exactly 10 days of class left- not that im counting- and then I will be heading to montana to work for Lance this summer doing whatever.

Since May I believe I have done quite a bit. The last post that talked about school I was just getting ready to switch to Cake station from Pies/ Tarts and just this week I switched off of Cake station and am now on Mousses/Creams, laminated doughs, and pate a choux (the stuff eclairs and cream puffs are made out of).

Cake station was ok, I did learn a few different flavors and kinds of cakes but I was really hoping to learn some more decorating skills to broaden what I already know but sadly they didnt really teach me anything I havent done already as far as that goes. I got rather bored and frustrated on that station because I felt like it was a bit of a waste of time and the teacher wasnt much help when I asked if I could try some more advanced cakes and such. Alas my wondrous skills were not to be overly tested this quarter :p

Plain white cake with buttercream

 Chocolate Cream cake

 White cake with lemon swirl

 White cake with coconut pudding in the middle with buttercream

 Drizzle cake- choc cake with butter cream

This last week I started on the Mousses and Cream station and got to make a Charlotte Bavarian- see pic below- yes I made it all. It was a lot of fun to do. This charlotte is a raspberry roulade (jelly roll) with an orange bavarian cream in the middle, coated with a glace and the border is whipped cream

This next picture is a white chocolate mousse pyramid with raspberry filling, poured with chocolate and the lines are white chocolate. Ganache rosette on top with some chocolate filigree

Showing the inside- this one has a bit much of the raspberry filling according to the teacher but it tasted amazing let me tell you!

So thats the up to date on that. I will try to add photos as I remember to take them and as we make cool stuff :)

Moving in to the new house

Hmm, there seems to be a trend with my not posting very often. Quite a bit has happened in the last month. Rick and Julia got the house and we spent most of the month of May fixing it up to make it liveable.
We tore out all the carpets and found beautiful hardwood floors underneath that look like they've never been walked on so one of the tasks was to refinish those so they were nice and shiney again.

The house is a older model and a little funky in its construction due to an add on or two. My room is upstairs and to the left- a step above the rest of the house. (literally) I have the largest room in the house kinda be default because the stairs going up are rather steep and they didnt want to have to traverse them with pregnant belly and later on with baby. I took up the carpet in my room- it wasnt actually tacked down it was just a really old scrap that you could see through. I sadly do not have nice hardwood floors underneath. I just have the ever so lovely underlayment, so I did what any self respecting person would do... I left it with the underlayment showing its glory to the world. Well I did go and get a couple pieces of carpet to go around my bed so my feets dont get cold in the morning but the rest is in its natural state.
  The walls of my room were a rather lovely cream painted wallpaper, on 2 walls that is. The other 2 walls were the most gorgeous wood paneling the likes you may never see again- so I promptly slapped some mud on it and primed the heck out of it so I could paint it blue. (as if any other color would do).
There isnt a ton of wall space since there is a built in desk between two built in closets on one wall, one wall has the window in the middle, one wall has some built in book shelves (insert happy dance) and the last wall has the main door and my secret passageway door (dont tell anyone about it, its a secret). So in order to have enough space for my sudden plethora of photograpic wonders that I seem to have aquired I decided to do the logical thing. I suppose since its the most logical thing I dont need to waste any space telling where I put them.

The main part of the house is looking really nice. Rick went in and scraped the bubble ceiling off (the stuff with asbestos in it) then textured the living room, kitchen, hallway, and master bedroom. A coat of primer and paint later and it looks like a whole new place. The kitchen now has two walls that are a nice cheerful yellow and the cupboards were painted a bright white. Its amazing how much a new coat of paint brightens up the place.

We fully moved in a week ago today and are getting things unpacked at a fairly good pace. My room is fully put away- yes you may be shocked- and I leave for montana in just 2 weeks time for the whole summer. Im pretty excited about that.

I am going to end this post here. I will post another one on the goings on at school and such to avoid making this one even more lengthy than it already is

Standardized Recipe

Well peeps my last post was on procrastination about a project. That project was the above title. Basically we had to take any recipe we wanted, baking or cooking and convert it to professional terms- ounces/ lbs instead of cups or eaches. Then we had to take that recipe and convert it to make 20 servings. With the recipe it had to be more than 6 ingredients and if the recipe called for tomato sauce then you had to actually make the tomato sauce- no pre packaged stuff. (noodles are ok and stuff like that) I chose to do Hamburger Cheese Bake- most amazing dish in my opinion. Part of the project is to list out every single thing you will need to make this dish- pots, pans, spoons, strainer, knives, cutting board, etc. Assume that you are going somwhere to make this and the only thing there is a sink, trash and stove/oven plus electricity and water.
  To do the actual instructions assume the person is an idiot and write everything out in great detail
put water in pot, put pot on stove, turn on stove to high, wait til it boils then add noodles. Etc
So the rough draft of that is done now. After I finish the final draft I will post it on here as a reminder if nothing else :)

On another note- Rick and Julia got the keys to their new house yesterday!!! And I got a new key as well. I am pretty excited for a couple reasons, the biggest one being its waaay closer to school. Right now I have a 20 mile each way commute to school and leave the house at 6 to avoid traffic. From the new house its only 6 miles each way and I should be able to leave around 6:30 or later which totally makes my day. The new house is in Burien so soon I will have yet another new address. This move will make number 18 in just under 6 years. Kinda sad isnt it sigh. Hopefully I wont have to move for a while after this. It is a 3 bed 1.25 bath (if you count the lone toilet in the laundry room) with a nice size back yard for the future dog and child to play in :) We are doing some fixing up to it as it is a older house with some lovely shades of carpet and walls.
I shall try to take some pics of the house tomorrow and post them on here. Sorta before and afters if you will.
Since my project is done and its still a bit early I am going to go read a guilt free book :) Happy reading

Procrastination

Well peeps (yes I just said that) I am doing homework tonight so of course I decided to help it along by blogging. Procrastination is the key to success after all. My current homework consists of 3 sections of an online math class that I just got bored with then I am supposed to be figuring out what Mise en Place I will need for a recipe if I were to take EVERYTHING needed to make the dish to a place and make it. (Excluding sink, stove/oven and trash can and generator) So this entails quite a lot of stuff since you have to list out how many spatulas, what size knife as well as what kind ex: 8" french knife, 5 quart pot, etc. Then we had to take the original recipe (we could use whatever one we wanted) and convert it to make 20 servings. So basically I got going on it like 2 weeks ago then realized I had to change the recipe cause we arent allowed to use anything out of a can like tomato sauce, we have to write out how to make the sauce and what we would need for that as well. Sigh life is so rough. My notes on it are spread over my desk- you cant really see the surface at all right now. Umm..... ya ok thats really all I can think of to write. Not much has really happened lately I guess.
Oh we get to switch stations tomorrow- something im rather excited about. I am soo sick of making pies and tarts. I get to move on to Cake station which is the whole reason I started this program, to learn more about decorating cakes and such so I am pretty excited about that :) Well its bed time now. Sorry this one wasnt super entertaining but hey I never promised they would be.

No Longer Missing!!

I found my blog! It has been missing for about 2 years now (meaning I totally forgot I had one) But since the name of it still rings true, I figured I may as well see about writing in it again. Its been 2 years, 3 months and a few days since I last wrote. Lots and lots has happened but there is no way I am going to wrack my brain to dredge it all up. There have been relationships and breakups, roommates and roommates getting married (Kirstyn and Rick [not to each other obviously]) or going into the work (Teresa Taylor). I moved to Shelby and drove combine for Roy for a couple harvests and worked at Albertsons Bakery as a cake decorator for a year. Before Albertsons I worked for Dad's Repo company thing with Sis.

In September 2011 I finally decided to follow my dream and go to culinary school- or more specifically, Pastry Chef School. As a result of this decision I moved me and most of my stuff to Auburn, WA (about 20 miles south of Seattle) and moved in with Uncle Jerry, as well as Rick and Julia. My school program is 6 quarters for my AOS (Associates of Applied Science). I have been considering staying and getting my BA as well since the school I am going to offers a 6 quarter program basically meaning I will get my 4 year degree in about 3 years if everything goes according to plan. (but we know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men)

As of this moment I am 3 weeks into my second quarter of school. The first quarter I spent 5 weeks learning more than I ever wanted to know about how to mix cookies and the other 5 weeks learning about all the different cakes there are... and let me tell you there are a lot and we barely touched the surface.

This quarter is split up into 3 sections- Pies and Tarts, Cakes, and French Pastry.

I started on the Pies/Tarts section but I dont know which one I will be going to next. The way this school is set up you start with a group of up to 10 people and go through the entire program with the same group. You may get split into smaller groups (for the 3 sections) but you still are in the same room and interact with each other the whole time. Its nice in some ways because you get to really know the people you are with every day but on the down side... you get to really know the people you are with every day :p

Today we learned how to make a pretty stinkin good Quiche and I dont normally like quiche. I guess its true that every thing really is better with bacon in it :)

I am going to try to keep notes here on how school goes so that I can look back and remember both the good and the bad of it later when I am hopefully working at a nice bakery somewhere

New Years

I have seen a couple people make lists of new years resolutions so I figured I would write mine down here so I can actually remember them.
1. Cut out all soda pop (mainly Dr. Pepper)
2. Cut out all sugar in order to loose weight
3. Stay at my current job and make it longer than a full year (beating my record)
4. Pay taxes in only 1 state this year
5. Keep my room in a semblance of clean (at least more so than I do now)
6. Get to a weight I like :p
I wont say that I will try to blog more cause knowing me I totally wont. Thats about all I can think of and I think 6 is plenty.
Ciao for now

Mexico Bound

Well folks, it would appear that the time has finally come for our jaunt to Mexico, dad is taking us 4 girls on a 5 day cruise. It should be a blast and a half since it will be the first time I have ever left the country (I know Mexico isnt that far but still) and the first time I have been on a cruise. We're leaving in about 2 hours (and Im still not packed... ooops) and will be gone for about 9 days. One of the best things about the cruise is that there is NO internet and not much cell service meaning there is no way I can get sucked into work since that is what usually seems to happen since Kirstyn and I both work from home. 3 Cheers for no internet ( I never thought I would say that) Ok its time for me to go pack now. Ill try to take photos and stuff and post them somewhere online when I get back home.
Ta