Dessert Sauces

This class was fun. Simple but delicious sauces. I would like to personally thank this class for the large amount of brownie points I earned with my girlfriend. I swept her off her feet with sweets.

Finishing Sauces and Infused Oils

The simplicity of a finishing sauce was impressive to me. The saying "Simple but effective", comes to mind. Our class made a lot of sauces with very different tastes and consistencies. I now know why Chefs are intrigued by foams. They are a giant pain in the @$s. At home I made an infused oil with the following ingredients:

12oz extra virgn olive oil

1/8 red bell pepper

1/8 green bell pepper

1/8 red onion (lyonnaise)

4 cloves garlic

1 bay leaf

10-15 peppercorns

The end result is a sweet/spicy very light oil. It brings a lot of flavor to a plain salad so you don't have to pile on all the things that make a salad unhealthy.

We made a buffet of sorts last week in class. My partner and I personally made tapenade, Thai melon salsa and seviche. I later made the same dishes for neighbors and as far as my opinion goes the Thai melon salsa was the biggest hit. simple but effective

Soup&Sauce

By no means am I a blogger, so here goes. Soup/Sauce class has been and continues to be an eye-opener. I was oblivious to the complex chemistry of what goes into a soup or sauce. In thursday's class we made compound butter. I am intrigued by the many different kinds of compounds you can create. I plan to make C-butter with fruits, spices, and will experiment with some edible flowers. I was surprised that the only real difference between Hollandaise and Bearnaise is an acid reduction with tarragon. The addition of tarragon made a drastic change in flavor. In closing I am looking forward to next week.