The soup tonight was definitely better. I kicked in a dash more nutmeg and added brown sugar for the little bit of sweetness that was lacking. Unfortunately, it's also too rich to have too much of. Guess that's just the nature of any cream-based soup.

I also tried deep frying some polenta, but that was a mixed success: although the end result was rather tasty, it was too soft to really handle with any authority. I think battering beforehand might help in that regard. For my next deep-fry batch, I might slap a layer of cheese in the center during the setting stage; I have a feeling that might be quite excellent once cooked.

I also think I'm coming down with a cold. A good deal of coughing and an intense desire to crash around 9:30 seems to imply it at least. Time to do the zinc/vitamin C dope-up routine.

Squash soup went ok. I think it could've used more sweet. It could either be that the squash needed some more ripening time, or I added too much cream. Either way, I think a touch of brown sugar would enhance the flavor in the right way.

The polenta turned out ok, but I have yet to deep fry some slices. Perhaps tomorrow.

Another cooking night is complete. I deboned the chicken quarters I bought earlier as best I could, but it wasn't as easy as normal because things were cut oddly compared to what I was expecting. I was lazy and made herb roasted chicken again.

On the more adventurous/new side of things, I made polenta - just your standard milk, water, cornmeal, butter, salt and cheese. After it set, I carved it into nice little blocks that are now wrapped in plastic & refrigerating for now. I'm going to try deep frying some of it later...it sounded so decadently delicious when my instructor mentioned it in class.

Also in the not done before category is chicken stock making. The newly demeated chicken bones, along with veggies, bay leaves and more frozen bones are simmering over low heat. They have another 8 hours or so to go before I get to strain and chill the whole package. It should go quite nicely with the squash soup I'm planning to make tomorrow.

I finally broke down and dumped the big bag of change into a Coinstar machine. This bag had been building up for the past few years, but I didn't expect to get $124.59 out of it. After getting that glorious cash back, I almost felt like rubbing it on my face like Malcolm (Can you tell I've been watching the first season on DVD? =). Sweet glorious coins into bills....*hargle*

On a slight downer note, the Dierbergs location I go to seems to have stopped stocking whole chicken. That makes getting a whole chicken to debone so I have enough bones to make stock that *little* bit harder. Although I can understand that food in general is going more towards convenience, I expected that there'd be at least a few whole ones for the cheap and/or the culinarily ambitious individuals that shop there. I'm probably going to switch back to Schnucks for normal grocery shopping if they still stock them. Either that or start doing regular runs to a butcher shop.

Caught the Americanized version of Coupling tonight.

I think the most conciliatory thing I can say about it is "I've seen worse."

It's just a very pale imitation of the original. It's as if a good deal of the life and wit sucked out of it when they de-Brit'd the series. (As if that's ever a surprise.)

Strangely, Lindsay Price as Jane was oddly appealing, even if she wasn't as wacky & zany as Gina Bellman's Jane. Guess it must be the eye candy factor overriding the critical portions of my brain.

Today was the last day of cooking classes in my culinary basics class. *sniffle* We covered starches and vegetables. A sampling of the dishes covered tonight includes polenta, gnocchi, braised leeks, risotto, béchemel and butternut squash soup. I took the task of making butternut squash soup since I suggested it last week and would've felt a little stupid not doing it since the instructor actually remembered I asked about it. It turned out very nicely: a nice creamy, slightly sweet rich fall soup.

Probably the most amusing thing I've gotten out of this class was a description of the people that are going to culinary school. Asides from the career changers (like yours truly), people already in the industry and the food nuts, there are also individuals going because they're either going to be getting divorced & need a career or are looking to hook-up with someone that'll be an excellent chef. Nutty, isn't it?

Thankfully, I'll be continuing my education next week with a knife skills class. I even get a "free" Wüsthof paring knife out of it. Unfortunately, I think I might break down and take advantage of the 20% off Wüsthof knives that night. Pity the poor bank account if that happens.

I didn't quite make it to the fishmonger today - late start in the morning = store closed by the time work is over. That means no scallops & aioli tonight. Oh well. I guess I can make it for the first time this weekend.

However, I did finish off the creme brulee's that I made yesterday night. The best part was I got to use my brand new kitchen blow torch (Fire! FIRE!) to carmelize the sugar. The end result was rather just utterly yummy: I could seriously see myself finishing off all four of them tonight if I didn't have better control.

Since last week was fish, I decided that more practice was in order and decided to make tilapia en papillote for dinner tonight. Although I've made & blogged about this before, I learned a few new things about it so I decided to give it a go again. Plus I was feeling super lazy, and this dish is a cinch to make.

For the most part, I was making papillote's "correctly" before. The only real differences between the way I learned from a cookbook and the class were using parchment paper (a definite must use), cutting the paper into a heart-shaped pattern (the classic French shape) and maybe putting the butter on the bottom of the fish instead of on top (I'm probably mistaken on this point, but I didn't notice the instructor flipping the package before cooking). The basic concepts - meat, veggies, butter, wine and flavors (salt, pepper, herbs, etc.) sealed within a paper package and cooked - were the same.

Since this was more for education's sake, I decided to follow the class technique more closely this time. I stuffed tilapia fillets in wax paper (yes a faux pas, but I forgot to buy parchment paper) along with butter, sliced onions, thyme, tarragon, salt, pepper & a bit of wine. The entire package was baked @ 350 deg. F for 20 minutes. The end result was rather scrumptious.

Wednesday, I plan on stopping by a fish market to hopefully pick-up some dry-packed sea scallops. I plan on pan-searing them as well as preparing some sort of aioli to go with it. I was thinking lime-based with Sriracha, green onions and cilantro. Any suggestions?

Because it's pretty worthless to take a cooking class and not practice what I've learned, I've been cooking a lot more than I have in the past month. Between week 1 & week 2, I made herb-roasted chicken, beurre blanc and a pithivier (which was a hit with all the co-workers).

This week (between week 2 & week 3), I decided to be wacky + go out on a limb: I made french onion soup. So most of you are thinking, "French Onion Soup, whoop de doo." But this is no ordinary French Onion Soup; this is French Onion Soup of death: the soup itself contains 1 full pound of onions sliced & caramelized, 1/2 cup of madeira and 2 cups of homemade demi-glaze (2 days worth of stock simmering goodness). The final product was served with homemade herb croutons and freshly grated Gruyère broiled to melted perfection.

I feel incredibly bad, but I'm well on my way to eating 4 ramekins worth of the French Onion Soup. IOW, I think it's rather tasty on a Homer-esque level. I'll definitely have to make more.

Today I had my second of four cooking classes at Kitchen Conservatory. Kitchen Conservatory is a high-end personal kitchen store that happens to also give recreational cooking courses. It's also very bad because they have a lot of nice tools and you get a 10% discount on non-sale items after class.

The particular class I'm taking is "Culinary Basics", which is a basics of cooking course, but with more of a cooking school slant. There's a class once a week for four weeks, and each week covers a different core cooking ingredient area: week 1 was chicken, week 2 was beef, week 3 will be fish and week 4 will be vegetables + pasta.

The basic format of the class is the following: the instructor introduces the dishes she's planning on teaching/having us cook. We do a few "core" techniques together. We split into teams to prepare the various dishes. Along the way, we can ask the instructor questions. Also, she'll do demonstrations of various things she thinks will be important to know. Finally, once all the cooking's done, everybody sits down and eats what's been prepared.

Week 1, the basic techniques hit were chicken stock making and how to debone a whole chicken. It's surprising how simple deboning a chicken is once someone shows you the proper way. Also, we learned how to make basic beurre blanc. In addition, we made various chicken dishes like herb roasted chicken, paprika chicken and pan seared chicken. But most importantly, we learned how to make a pithivier, a slightly sweet almond filling wrapped in a puff pastry & baked.

This week (#2), the basic techniques hit were brown stock, demi-glaze and how to cut an onion. There were twp mother sauces, Hollandaise and Brown Sauce as well some of their offspring. The main courses made were beef wellington, pan-seared steak and a wickedly good french onion soup. Dessert was self-caramelized using blow-torches.

So far, I've really enjoyed the classes. They've been pretty low pressure, but I've been learning some new basic things that I hadn't really know that well in a formal way. Also, it's been good to meet new people that are also interested in learning more about the art of food. Thus far, there's been a slant towards Western cuisine (particularly French), but I don't mind. I did make a suggestion for learning how to steam a whole fish (which seems to be more of an Asian thing) next week...we'lll see how that goes.

However, to some degree I feel like this course is *too* basic...that in some ways I'm learning how to crawl after I've already begun walking Ex. my knife skills are a little on the sloppy unprofessional side, but I can cut at a decent clip pretty nicely. The other thing is that I feel like I could use more hands on instruction...even if it was in the same group setting.

The biggest thing I believe I'm getting out of this course is a confirmation that I honestly do enjoy cooking. Even the cleaning part is alright if it's part of the process. I'm about 90% sure that I want to become a chef. I know it's going to be brutally long hours and lots of work, but I think I'll genuinely love preparing dishes everyday. Barring Armageddon and Offspring of Armageddon, I plan to be either attending cooking school or apprenticing at a restaurant within two years.

What's the first thing I do after revamping this blog? Promptly ignore it of course. Since it's been a few weeks since my last entry, I'm feeling somewhat obligated to post something.

"Something"

Now that I've gotten that out of my system, I'll do a brief recap of what's been going on the past few weeks. After the job thing fell through, I've pretty much ignored doing the evil work of hitting up people/companies/web sites and whoring myself out. Instead, I've been slacking with the not-so-occasional work madness. I've watched a number of movies, way too much tv, hit Chicago over Labor Dabor and started taking a recreational culinary basics class.

So that's it...nice, neat and presented in an utterly boring and uninspiring format for your reading pleasure. I promise that I'll have something more interesting soon.