Day 14 - Anitpasta Platter and confusion...
Well today was the last day of week 3. We created a lot of single dishes that we ended up combining as a team.
First up was slicing all the veggies for our platter. We each had to slice up zucchini, yellow squash, asparagus, Portobello mushroom, egg plant, roast a red and yellow bell pepper and make balsamic vinaigrette.
Then we each made Bruschetta. Next out come the marinated artichoke hearts we did the day before.
This was one of the most fun days we had. My partner (Johnny) and I had a blast because while we each did our own thing, we pulled it together for the combined platter and it looked fantastic! (See Below)
Our roasted bell peppers were very tasty. Chef Knight said we could do whatever we wanted to present them. Some cut theirs into strips, or used cutters to make nice shapes. Not us. These things are slimy and no one is going to want to pick one up and slurp it down like a spaghetti noodle. *DING* a brilliant idea pops into my head. Let’s dice them up, mix a little of the vinaigrette into and put them on spoons for individual servings like ceviche! Johnny pilfered some cherry tomatoes so that added some extra color. He even got very creative with a couple of very thin slices of the bell peppers and formed at heart with an arrow at the base. I called our platter – Food from the Heart. I then plated the veggies, bruschetta, artichoke hearts and sliced mozzarella and then drizzled balsamic reduction sauce over everything. Chef loved our presentation. We were so excited we took it over to Chef Richardson who also loved it.
Let me back up a bit by describing a couple of other dishes we had to prepare this evening. Steamed veggies (cauliflower and broccoli) and a serving of steamed long grain white rice. Yeah…white rice. That was the weirdest thing ever. Here the night before we made wild rice pilaf and two risottos. But hang on…after we do the harder rice dishes we’re going to go back and do the most basic of all rice dishes. I’m still scratching my head on that one. Now the veggies I could understand. We steamed those so we could present the compound butter we made. That butter was very tasty on the veggies. Or was it the veggies were very tasty with the butter? But the rice….ok I need to just get past it. I can’t! I mean we make this rice and plate it. Just the rice…no seasoning, no sauce, no butter nothing..just a plate of white rice. I wish someone would please explain this to me.
This next coming week will be geared to prepare us for our buffet. This coming Friday our class gets to take over the restaurant and prepare a full service breakfast buffet. I’ll be very interested to see who gets placed where. We can invite 4 people to come as our guests, but I have opted not to. Reason # 1 – It’s a very long drive, Reason # 2 – It’s eggs. I just cannot see having anyone in my family drive 1.5 hours to Los Angeles at 6pm at night to eat eggs. Then get to drive home. So I’ll save my invites for my graduation, or, if they do a real buffet of real food.
First up was slicing all the veggies for our platter. We each had to slice up zucchini, yellow squash, asparagus, Portobello mushroom, egg plant, roast a red and yellow bell pepper and make balsamic vinaigrette.
Then we each made Bruschetta. Next out come the marinated artichoke hearts we did the day before.
This was one of the most fun days we had. My partner (Johnny) and I had a blast because while we each did our own thing, we pulled it together for the combined platter and it looked fantastic! (See Below)
Our roasted bell peppers were very tasty. Chef Knight said we could do whatever we wanted to present them. Some cut theirs into strips, or used cutters to make nice shapes. Not us. These things are slimy and no one is going to want to pick one up and slurp it down like a spaghetti noodle. *DING* a brilliant idea pops into my head. Let’s dice them up, mix a little of the vinaigrette into and put them on spoons for individual servings like ceviche! Johnny pilfered some cherry tomatoes so that added some extra color. He even got very creative with a couple of very thin slices of the bell peppers and formed at heart with an arrow at the base. I called our platter – Food from the Heart. I then plated the veggies, bruschetta, artichoke hearts and sliced mozzarella and then drizzled balsamic reduction sauce over everything. Chef loved our presentation. We were so excited we took it over to Chef Richardson who also loved it.
Let me back up a bit by describing a couple of other dishes we had to prepare this evening. Steamed veggies (cauliflower and broccoli) and a serving of steamed long grain white rice. Yeah…white rice. That was the weirdest thing ever. Here the night before we made wild rice pilaf and two risottos. But hang on…after we do the harder rice dishes we’re going to go back and do the most basic of all rice dishes. I’m still scratching my head on that one. Now the veggies I could understand. We steamed those so we could present the compound butter we made. That butter was very tasty on the veggies. Or was it the veggies were very tasty with the butter? But the rice….ok I need to just get past it. I can’t! I mean we make this rice and plate it. Just the rice…no seasoning, no sauce, no butter nothing..just a plate of white rice. I wish someone would please explain this to me.
This next coming week will be geared to prepare us for our buffet. This coming Friday our class gets to take over the restaurant and prepare a full service breakfast buffet. I’ll be very interested to see who gets placed where. We can invite 4 people to come as our guests, but I have opted not to. Reason # 1 – It’s a very long drive, Reason # 2 – It’s eggs. I just cannot see having anyone in my family drive 1.5 hours to Los Angeles at 6pm at night to eat eggs. Then get to drive home. So I’ll save my invites for my graduation, or, if they do a real buffet of real food.
posted by Denise @ 10:40 AM
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