Wednesday, May 30, 2012

A busy week here in Reno. Over the weekend I had an order for Cappuccino Mousse in Chocolate Cups as well as mini-Lemon Meringue Pies. Yum!

Our Memorial Day was quiet. I did go shopping, along with my sister, for my personal chef client. I made the dessert of the week-Benne Brown Butter Apple Cake. Benne seeds are another name for sesame seeds. Benne are what southern slaves from Africa used to call sesame seeds, and the name stuck-at least in the south. One dozen egg yolks, 3 sticks of butter, a little vanilla, sugar, flour and salt later, I had a cake. Although I ended up baking it for twice the length of time the recipe said because the center of the cake was so "jiggly".

We did BBQ (after Jordan got the propane tank refilled, that is) blue cheese hamburgers. They turned out well-just a little pink. Steamed baby potatoes and broccoli completed the meal.

Tuesday I started a new job at one of the GI groups. I'll be working per diem in pre-op and post-op. Everyone seems very nice, so it should be fun!

After my orientation, I went home, changed clothes, packed up my "stuff" and went to my client's house to cook. Yesterday's offerings were Crab Louie Salad,

Slow Cooked Lamb Shank, which will be served with Baked Provencal Tomatoes,

Chickpeas sauteed with Arugula and Sherry,

Pasta Puttanesca,

Chicken Marsala served over Pasta,

Sausage, Spinach and Ricotta stuffed Canneloni (hand made canneloni, thank you very much, lol!)

and Roasted Honey Pear Salad with Blue Cheese and Hazelnuts.

A very LONG day! I was definitely in bed early last night. Today was filled with errands. But tonight-we are going to Fine Vines for a "Titanic dinner". The owner of Fine Vines, Tom, said a friend of his found an old book with all the food menus, food supply lists, etc from the Titanic. It sounds like a great read. At any rate, when Tom's chef found out about the book, she decided to do a menu out of the book for one of the dinners Fine Vines offers once a month. Very cool! I'll let you know what we had and how dinner turns out!

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Another week gone by. Where does the time go?!

Last week (in the middle of trying to show our house to realtors), I helped my friend Mickie with the food for a charity auction for her church, Unity Unitarian. Lots of work! They were expecting about 150 people and we made 13 different items which meant at least 150 of each item. Whew! There was Sesame marinated chicken skewers, Beef meatballs in a tomato sauce, Turkey meatballs in a cranberry sauce, Curried Veggie Rolls, Cucumber slices topped with hummus and red peppers, crostini with black bean puree, Devilled eggs, Asparagus wrapped with prosciutto, roasted red peppers and roasted asparagus for the begans, artichoke dip, a cheese plate, Pineapple empanadas, chocolate ganache in phyllo cups, lemon curd in phyllo cups, and coconut macaroons. Is that more than 13 things. Seems like it is, lol. We had a few hitches (the BBQ grill had a hornets nest in it and once we got rid of that, we still had difficulty getting it to stay lit!) but all in all, it seemed to go well. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. My sister and Diane helped out again. Great to have good help!

It was a quiet weekend mostly, although Sunday was the only day we didn't show the house.

Monday I had a catering job providing dinner for the SCOR partnership meeting. I don't know if it's good or bad that cooking for ten people is no big deal, lol. I served up Chipotle Maple Glazed Pork Chops, Double Potato Mash, a mixed green salad with walnuts, blue cheese and a White Balsamic Pear vinaigrette and for dessert, Little Lemon Meringue Pies. I did not serve any bread this time since everyone seems to be watching their weight. No feedback yet on how things went.....

Today was my usual personal chef job. I had iPhone problems last weekend, so lost the pictures I took of last week's meals and I only got a couple of pictures today. Guess I'll need to get back into taking food pictures! Today I made Prawns in Green Curry, "Beige-Ette" Au Veau (a french veal stew), Couscous with Chickpeas, Fennel and Citrus, Shrimp and Zucchini Skewers, BLT Steak Salad, Romaine Salad with Chicken and Chipotle vinaigrette, Herbed Rack of Lamb with a Pinot Nois sauce, Mashed potatoes, and Green Beans with Tomatoes and carmelized garlic. Oh, and a Cabbage and Mango Salad with a rice wine vinaigrette. Lots of food! My only dessert so far this week was Zabaglione with strawberries-quite tasty!

And now, I'm just plain tired, so I guess bed is next!

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

It's been a busy week! Since I last wrote, Jordan took a trip to Denver and came home with an appointment by DOE (Department of Energy), our house went up for sale, and I had a couple of new cooking jobs!

Over the weekend, I made 420 cupcakes (I'll have to come back and add pictures later) for a corporate marketing gift. I went round and round about how to package them but finally ended up using 9 inch round pans I found at the Dollar Tree. They're used in restaurants for leftovers but worked perfectly for my purpose. I could get 14 mini-cupcakes into one tin, then put a ribbon and sticker on the "lid", which was also silver, so they were actually pretty cute! The surgery center loved them and so did the offices they gave them out to.

Monday evening I made dinner for a group of orthopedic doctors who had a business meeting. Their office manage found one of my pamphlets and gave me a call. Nice! She wanted "finger food" and suggested sandwiches. One of the doctors is gluten intolerant, so I didn't think sandwiches were a good idea, lol. I suggested Beef and Asparagus rolls (sliced roast beef, an asparagus spear, a stick of red pepper and Alouette Herb and Garlic Cheese wrapped in a butter lettuce leaf tied with a length of chive); Brochettes of Melon and Prosciutto (wedges of cantalope, a "ribbon" of prosciutto and a boccancini placed on a skewer with a basil-shallot-olive oil drizzled over it) and a Classice Greek Salad. For dessert, I made Bittersweet Chocolate-Orange Truffles. I left extras for the staff. I am still waiting to see how they liked them. I got feedback on the truffles right away! I think she said they were exquisite, lol. Ah, chocolate, it cures so many ills.

Tuesday, I had my personal chef client and made Parmesan Crusted Chicken with a Tomato Basil Salad, Balsamic Glazed Steak served on a salad of mixed greens, Sesame Crusted Pork Cutlets with Gingered Mashed Sweet Potatoes, Lunchbox pies (filled with chicken and sweet potato chunks), Raspberry Frozen Yogurt and Swordfish sauteed in Sage Olive Oil served with Salt and Rosemary crusted new potatoes (lots of "crusting" going on, I think!). Oh, and Quince Glazed Lamb Tenderloin served on a bed of asparagus. All yummy!

I am also working with a friend on a charity event-a silent auction, which takes place this Friday. We have been working and planning and baking and rolling phyllo dough into Curried Vegetable rolls, boiling eggs and a bunch of other things! They are expecting 150 people and we are serving 13 different appetizers and sweet treats. that will fill up the rest of the week!

I took little Ah Choo to my sister's place where he will stay until we are done showing the house. It just seems too risky leaving him alone with strangers and having them let him out by accident. Jordan and I are stressed about all this, and so is the cat (picking up on our stress). He'll come back home on Monday or Tuesday.

So, there you have it..a crazy life, rit st the moment!

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

What a day! I was awoken at about 4am by the cat (Mr. Ah Choo) throwing up on the bed (not once but twice). Poor guy! But of course, I had to get up, change all the bedding and by that time I couldn't go back to sleep. So I got up, took a shower and then the downstairs smoke alarm starting beeping that it needed a new battery. A 9 volt....which of course we did not have. So at 5:30am, off I went to Walmart for batteries. It all worked out...

I was at my cooking job by 9:30am this morning. I made Sesame Beef Rice Paper Rolls, Seared Scallops on Lemon and Spinach Risotto,

Soft Polenta with Blue Cheese and Wine Beef,

Stir Fry Pork and Shiitake Mushrooms,

Chicken simmered in Soy and Star Anise with Rice, Honey Lamb Kabobs with Couscous,

Arugula, Chicken and Pine Nut Tabouli, Corn Cakes with Proscuitto Salad, Pizza with Tomatoes, Olives and Rosemary and Spinach and Ricotta Pies. A very busy day!

Then it was home. I made my filling for the Pineapple Empanadas. Now all I need to do is assemble them, all 175, lol. And make 420 mini-cupcakes by next Tuesday. Such is the life of a personal chef.

Monday, May 7, 2012

It was a busy weekend! On Saturday Jordan and I drove down to the Culinary Institute of America in St Helena, California. For my birthday, Jordan paid for me to take their class called "Chocolate at Home". The class was from 9:30am to 2:30pm and took place in the professional pastry kitchen at the CIA school. The kitchen was HUGE, big enough for all their students, both pastry and culinary arts students. We started out in the classroom for a lecture on the history of chocolate. Our instructor was Chef Steve Isaac, who has been a pastry chef for a great many years. What a fun man! And so obviously passionate about pastry.

Once he finished the lecture, we moved on to the kitchen to learn how to make ganache. I was taught to make chocolate ganache with just chocolate and heavy cream (you could put any additional flavorings in after you finish making the ganache). At the CIA, they use heavy cream, corn syrup, chocolate, butter and flavoring. Chef Isaac even told us we could make ganache with water!!! He said that was helpful to know if you were making ganache for someone who was lactose intolerant. A little water in chocolate will cause the chocolate to "seize up" and become gritty but a good amount of water gives you ganache. Amazing! We were broken up into five teams, with two teams making a lime coconut ganache with white chocolate, two teams made dark chocolate ganache with bourbon and one team (the one I was on) made milk chocolate ganache. Chef Isaac made the other half of our ganache (we made double portions so everyone would be able to take some home). Chef Isaac did a demo for peanut brittle, pecan toffee and almond dragees. The almond dragees are whole almonds with a candy coating, then enrobed in dark chocolate and rolled in cocoa powder. Yum! We finished all the truffles then watched Chef Isaac make a serving sculpture out of chocolate. That part was also amazing....the things you can do with chocolate! I did take some pictures of Chef Isaac, the sculpture, my partners in crime (team five) and of course, our candy. After we were done, they fed us lunch, in part made by the students taking the other two classes being offered there the same day, same time.

After class I went down to the CIA store, Spice Island, and looked around, bought a couple of things and found this sculture of a chick in an egg that was done entirely out of chocolate! Chef Isaac had made it for Easter.

We drove back to Reno about 5pm. What a gorgeous day it was! Sunny, warm, so many things blooming (it is California after all..). What a nice mini-vacation it was! Jordan still had some work to do because this week is going to be crazy busy with one of his jobs, but at least he got away for a while.

Sunday was a quiet day. I helped Jordan as best I could, then worked on recipes, worked up a shopping list for Tuesday and painted the two-seater glider in the back yard. The glider has been sitting outside for a couple of winters now and was looking very worn. Now it looks better! I've finished planting all the flowers I am going to put in this year, now I just need to finish adding more mulch.

Today Jordan left very early to fly down to Vegas for the "naming" committee he is on. People submit applications to name certain areas (all in Nevada), bodies of water, etc, and this committee decides if it is appropriate or not. Kind of interesting. I went grocery shopping for my personal chef job tomorrow, then had lunch with my sister. I had small brownies to make for my client, (I tried out a brownie pan I bought last year and have yet to try, lol) and also made Rhubarb-Raspberry-Strawberry Crisps. Yum!

The rest of the day is free, so I guess I'll do some cleaning......

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Monday was full of errands and grocery shopping. My only dessert this week for my client was a Lemon Icebox Pie. I had to look it up! I didn't have a recipe for that Southern specialty, so onto the Internet I went. Recipes were easily found for Lemon Icebox Pie, so I was very lucky. And it's so easy! Graham cracker crust (just had to use the Momofuko Milk Bar recipe-just sounded more interesting) with a lemon chiffon-type filling (lemon juice, egg yolks, sweetened condensed milk and lemon zest), topped with sweetened whipped cream. So easy but so good!

Tuesday, I worked for Jordan in the morning, then cooked for my personal chef client in the afternoon. Long list of to-dos today.

Chicken Braciole with Alfredo Sauce,

Chilean Sea Bass with Herbes de Provence, Chianti Marinated Beef Stew, Salmon with Lemon, Capers and Rosemary,

Ratatouille Tart with Carmelized Tomato Jam,

Shredded Pork Summer Rolls, Orechiette with Shrimp, Feta and Olives, Aromatic Lamb Meatballs and Green Fatoush Salad, Green Goddess Salad with Shrimp, Chickpeas and artichoke hearts,and Chicken Paprikash. Whew!

Today-computer work!