Vintage Mink

My honey gifted me this gorgeous vintage mink stole over Valentine weekend. It was actually his mother's and - I'm still shocked by this - his sister was going to throw it out! So he snatched it up and made it a gift to me. I wore it out for Valentine's Day dinner and felt like an old time movie starlet.

We had a wonderful, dreamy, romantic time together. I couldn't have asked for more... Cheers!

Something's Fishy

We're still in terrine and tray mode in Garde Manger class - thankfully next week we switch over to sausages and charcuterie. Today we made poached trout in court bouillon, and scallop mousseline terrines on mirrors with tray garnishes of our choice.

I made the little choux pastry garnishes for our tray, it's so simple and quick, and with little discs of the scallop mousseline and some parsley mayonnaise, they were actually quite tasty. Giving the trout a little hot pepper to hold in its mouth also amused me to no end. Plus now I know that mousseline is what the little fish balls in phò soup are made of and I can now make my own. Eureka! Cheers!

Salmon Mousse Terrine and Chaud-Froid

We're in the terrine phase of our Garde-Manger class and today was salmon mousse terrines on decorated chaud-froid. That's just a fancy way of saying gelatinized salmon and cream, on velouté sauce with more gelatin. So. Much. Gelatin.

My partner and I had fun making our undersea scene with little carrot fish and dill seaweeds. The only bummer is I botched the clean whiteness of the chaud-froid with some dark aspic instead of the clear gelatin glaze Chef had prepared for that purpose. Ah well! We still got 84% and I am quite happy. Cheers!

Quickly Now

This is a pretty horrible photo in terms of quality, but I loved my outfit today. I just felt really cute and happy, so I decided to quickly snap a few shots and take what I could get.

The only things missing are earrings, because I somehow left the house without any today, which is odd for me. Early mornings make my brain all foggy, I guess. Cheers!

Sticky Toffee Pudding

I was making the sticky toffee pudding, with roasted banana ice cream and candied pecans for the restaurant at the college this week. I'm very happy with how the little puddings came out, as well as the plating. Making little 'cookie' bowls for the ice cream is always fun and easy, too.

There was a birthday, hence the special plate. We were out of chocolate so I just nicked some leftover ganache from another person in the bakeshop and used that to write out the letters. They're a little more blobby than I like but it did the job. Cheers!

Sushi

This week we made sushi in our Garde Manger class. Not bad considering I'd never made any before! Cheers!

Soup Sunday

I woke to a world blanketed in snow today, and it felt like a good day to make some soup. I've been meaning to make a batch of this awesome Pumpkin Ale Cheese Soup for months now, and finally I got around to it today.

 

I always like to add a little more pumpkin puree than the recipe asks - 2/3 of a cup just doesn't seem like enough to me - to give it that added little pumpkin kick. With smoked paprika and dry mustard in here, the flavours need to be robust enough to stand up to those spices.

Now I'm going to enjoy some soup! Cheers!