Today we had to do some prep work for a SOUP event.  I helped my friend prepare for the vegan dishes, which included marinating mushrooms and preparing a veggie broth.  The night went pretty smoothly, but I did learn how important it is to be careful when making food for specialty diets.  It is very easy to cross-contaminate so you have to be aware of what you’re doing and touching at all times.

So today was pretty cool because my group got to cater for the Sons of Utah Pioneers.  We got to help create the menu, which was exciting.  I spent like three hours picking caterpillars out of brussel sprouts, which was less exciting.  One thing I learned is the prep is such a huge part of catering.  Obviously it saves you copious amounts of time on the day of the event, but it also allows you to identify and solve problems, like missing ingredients or needing to adjust recipes.  I had so much fun helping prepare this!

So news flash, biscotti is friggin’ delicious!  Especially when you add lots of orange zest and hazelnuts.  One problem I learned to avoid with this crunchy cookie is getting them too dark.  It is important to make sure that your biscotti cooks enough in the first bake or it will get super dark during it’s second bake.  You also have to be very careful when cutting the biscotti, to make sure they are all the same size.

We also made some cream cheese brownies and I learned (I actually found this out at work rather than school) that if you don’t want your cream cheese to get to dark, you should put a pan on the rack above your brownies when you bake them.  The more you know!

Today we learned how to make the perfect chocolate chip cookie (or try to at least).  The thing that was hard about it was trying to be opened minded.  I’ve made CC cookies dozens of times.  However, baking at home versus at school is different, and I had to accept new techniques in order to succeed.  One of the problems I ran into was my cookies turned out super flat.  I think this might be because I didn’t put enough baking powder in them.  

We also made shortbread cookies, which kind of reminded me of biscuits, because it uses the same method.  I learned that you have to develop the gluten enough by mixing, or else they will spread too much during the baking process.  Another thing to remember is that if the dough isn’t rolled out evenly the cookies will bake at different times because they are not the same thickness.

Today we prepped for the scholarship ball as well as another catering.  I was in charge of salads.  I learned how to make couscous which was fun, it is different than any other grain I have ever cooked.  I had to substitute a lot of veggies because we were out of traditional ones (cucumber for zucchini, red onion for onion).  Luckily they were raw so I didn’t have to worry about cooking the substitutions.