Pate a choux: the unhealthier cabbage!

This week was a lot about Pate a Choux, the basic dough for pastries like eclairs, cream puffs, profiteroles, and a french cake you may be familar with which is basically lots of profiteroles stacked like a christmas tree with spun sugar around it. In french it means "head of cabbage" because it does kinda resemble it once its baked. Anyhow, we only had to make cream puffs, eclairs, and "swans" which were literally this pastry dough filled with chocolate, whipped cream, strawberries, and little heads and wings! they were percious. Again, i apologize for forgetting to bring my camera, its just that its VERY easy to get it damaged (a lot of flour and sugar flying around in the kitchen) in the baking labs. Anyhow the Pate a choux consits of lots of butter and eggs. Although you might think its super rich, its actually quite airy, hence its popular to fill it. We made a plethora of pastry creams as well this week. We made a great one for out napolians on monday which consisted of milk, eggs, gelatin, cornstarch, and the best part, pure vanilla beans. I dont get to use fresh vanilla beans very often (they are super pricy, often sold like safron with only one or two pods). There was a a case chock-full of these dried vanilla beans and I was so tempted to steal some! but i am not that kelpto, so i restrained myself. I think the chef is good, like i said, a hard ass miltary drill sergeant type but he teaches effectivly. plus, i think he noticed my extra efforts because he told me he appriecated me cleaning his demo-table every night (i do this because no one else does and the sooner we clean up, the sooner we get to go home!) and said he added extra points to my grade. Speaking of grades, its midterm now, so we got our midterm grades. I have an "A" although i admit, i am not that proud of it. I do well on quizes and homework, but to be honest, i think the products i make aren't great. I dont have a passion for baking, and i a think my mediocre results in my products show it. but its very hard for most of the class actually to get things to turn out perfect. But i am a perfectionist, so naturally this irritates me. The cool thing is that I've been making all these pastries that frankly, i dont eat very much of (i DO taste everything, but I have theory that i dont have rich desserets unless i am absolutly craving it) and neither do the people living with me, so i've been giving them to people i buy from as i mentioned in my last post. Its cool, i scored free sushi last week! I really hope to be able to make desserts using less sugar and saturated fat by the end of this course. Infact, i have a little idea: please send in a "sinful" dessert that you'd like to get "lightend" up. I'll try a bunch of different substitutions i think will work and hopefully will come up with something nice. I'll post it here with pictures too. Lets send some desserts to rehab!

Its like Shrek, lots and lots of layers!

did you get that. In the first Shrek (cause i couldn't stand the second and thought the third was a joke so i never even saw it), shrek tells donkey about how ogres are like onions, maily because they have "layers". I guess Shrek must be like coissants and danished as well because as i learned this week, the flaky layers require much elbow grease and time. It makes me look at those ones you roll out of the tube in a completely different way. I sorta wanted to cheat and go out and buy a dough-boy tube and present it. anyhow, first we had to make whats called a beurrage or "butter block" which is basically whipped butter with a little bit of flour and lemon juice. Its formed into a "block" and chilled. Then you make a wet dough which might look like any old dough. You fold in the butter block with the wet dough, pound it, flatten it, and chill it for at least 30 min. then you take out the dough, fold it like a letter (3 time) and again pound and flatten and agian, chill for at least 30 min. You do this 3 times (not including the intial fold). wait, thats not all. We made danishes which was a bit fun because we got to cut them into all those cool shapes (and we get tested on them) like pinwheels, turnovers, "windows" (i cant explain how it looks but its pretty neat, pockets, bearclaws, spirals, etc. we were able to fill them with whatever we wanted which was nice (gave me some room for a creativity outlet). then once shaped, they needed to proof which took about another 30 min, then filled, baked, and then they were brushed with an apricot glaze and drizzled with white icing (its like a double sugar infused garnish, healthy aint it?). I was actaully very proud of mine, most turned decent. Other people i saw complete burned them, I never thought of this but burned danishes are very sad looking. On Friday we made croissants and pain au chocolat which is just as time consuming and labor intensive. They turned out fine, but again, i snicker every time i pass buy the tubes in the market. I've been speaking with some of the other students and most generally really like this baking course. I on the other hand miss those days of simply cooking. Sure, its fun to brag and say you actually made your own loaf of bread (but its old buy now, I could seriously operate a litte bakery from my house i've got so much baked goods). I also made some nice friends passing them out. I give them to the people at the fro yo shop to get a discount on healthier desserts, i even gave them to my mail man. hey, its good to be on good terms with people who serve you and what better way than with freshly baked danishes!

Overrated Food/Nutrition Trends!

I recently flipped through this magazine I'd never heard of called "Radar". This was actaully an old issue (my therapist needs to seriously update her magazine selection, where i spotted this odd-ball of a mag). They were giving 2007's overrated trend awards and i must say, i totally agreed with most of them (some i totally DIDNT and hope it got on the list as a joke). Celeb chef and potty mouth Anthony Bourdain gave a menu of dishes he thought were overrated (again, i agreed with most, stuff like "Be sure to sample our selection of flavored salts, and please await the water sommelier (Bourdain said) A chef who offers anything other than sea salt probably refers to himself in the third person. When the water sommelier comes over, I reach for my gun." SO heres my list of totally overrated food and nutrition fads of the year:

Pinkberry: I love fro yo as much as the average health nut, but serisouly, shelling out six bucks for plain tart yogurt with some berries on top and waiting half an hour for the employees to do this is nothing short of overrated. I am thrilled healthier snacks are becoming trendy, better this that the krispy kreme boom, but this overpriced, over hyped yogurt is nothing special.

Shaved Truffles: Anthony mentioned this but i have to second it. Most of the time, when i see "shaved" or "accented" with truffles on a menu, i just see it as an easy way to over-charge without people thinking twice about it. Also, it tells me the dish underneath is probably mediocre that the truffles need to compensate. Indeed its a lazy chef's way to enhance the price of his menu without really streching his culinary imagination.

Whole Foods: Sorry, and i know i frequent there but some people treat it like its a health food mecca. the reality, the quality is not THAT impressive, not EVERYTHING is organic, its not saving the planet from global warming (i know they try though, but they still carry many goods imported from far off places like New Zealand so they shouldn't go off bragging that they aren't leaving a carbon footprint). Also, its kinda like mall and many people just go to "window shop" and leave without really buying anything. Propbably because although the food looks entcing, its much cheaper elsewhere. I see celebs there, its like a label, some people buy at whole foods to say, "i got this from whole foods".

Vitamins: This made radar's list and i totally agree. Some people will spend hundreds of dollars a month on vitamin supplements alone. And get this, most, if they eat more than top ramen and coke, will not need all that supplementation. Infact, they could OD on it. My dad got kidney stones because of too much vitamin C in his system (a combo of popping supplements, drinking OJ daily, and eating plenty of fruits and veggies). A simple multi might be ok for most people and maybe even none if you eat REALLY healthy. the one thing maybe to consider is a calcium supplement for women, but thats not a vitamin. and quit it with those vitamin infused waters will ya? they taste like, well water, and cost twice as much and een have added sugar.

any others you can think of?

I am Baked, and Fried for that matter!

So sorry for not posting everyday, i do hope people still read. Anyhow, i missed a day so i had to make like four different breads on monday! Pita, foccacia, cinnamon buns, and rye. I actaully never loved cinnamon buns although i love the smell of cinnabon at the mall. The funny thing is that the chef couldn't fdtress enough how there was "nothing healthy about these buns" and that "they might as well give you a heart attack". cause they were basted, rolled, and encased with butter and sugar i guess. Any how, if the buns didn't get you your devilish side, yesterday we got fry0happy and made doughnuts and beignets (i think thats how you spell them??). That took orever because we had only two fry stations. Mine were gorgeous and i had a beignet with some powdered sugar because the doughtnuts were huge and frankly i really was not craving them all that much. I wanted t get out of class early so i can go to the frozen yogurt shop and maybe trade them for chocolate frozen yogurt (ahh the health nut in me kicks in!) but we stayed until about 11:15 pm, so everything was closed. Today i have an egg quiz, basically i need to make two poached eggs and hollandaise, yuck! good think he makes us throw it out right after he grades them incase we "slide it over" to "cheat" and give it to someone else in the class. I must say, i miss my usual cooking classes, baking is kinda boring, a lot of measuring, a lot of waiting for things to proof, bake, set, cool...I have ADD when it comes to the kitchen, and i hate just kinda floating around waiting for my sourdough to rise (by the way i made two loaves yesterday that were PERFECT!). Anyhow, i cant find my camera so these are NOT my doughnuts, but hopefully they got your mouth watering...

From NJ: Fiber One Caramel Delight!

Sorry my pics are not working over a NJ so again iam posting a recent review

Again you may visit http://thiswaifcooks.blogspot.com/ for a picture of this. Well I am so excited that cereal companies a coming out with new cereals, as it appears, daily. I love cereal, not sure if its a vice or not because it can be healthy but its like my comfort food. I didn't grow up eating mac n'cheese (with a Beligan dad and Israeli mom, standard american classics weren't often in our kitchen) so cereal really is what comforts me. Plus its great for a meal or snack, its portable, etc.. so i am happy i get to try all these new cereals! anyhow, my second favorite to all bran is usually fiber one. I like their normal cereal and their honey clusters are pretty nice too, so i was having high hopes for their new caramel delight. A cup has 180 calories, 3g fat , 41g carbs, 9g fiber, 3g protein, and 10g sugars. a sweeter high fiber cereal all in all and actually fairly close nutritonally to the newly reviewed all-bran strawberry medley. They come in squares similar to cinnamon toast crunch but they are much "airy-er" and crisper as oppsed to really crunchy and hard. No grittyness you might get from other high fiber cereals and it wasn't too sweet. infact, it wasn't sweet at all. It was not bad, but i dont see the "caramel" to this delight. It was delightful, but i think the caramel claim is a bit far-fetched. This would be good if your trying to get kids to eat a high fiber cereal that doesen't look "healthy" becuase its brown, but other than that its a bit on the bland side. i know the original fiber one has no sugar, so why does it seem that its actually sweeter than this version? who knows. but i like all cereal, money on this was not wasted :)

NJ Review: All-Bran Strawberry Medley

i wanted nj fans to see a pic of my cereal review, so pardon the interuption....
I am a big All-Bran fan, I actaully have about a cup daily mixed with some yogurt and fruit. Very fiberific and delicious indeed. So when i saw this new Strawberry medly box, i jumped for joy! the cereal has crunchy bran flakes and squares with granola clusters and real strawberries (albeit, dehydrated). Each 1 cup sering is 170 calories, 1.5 g fat, 44 g carbs, 10 g fiber, 5 g protien, and 10 g sugar. To be honest, i was a little disappointed with the nutritional info. sure its got a nice amount of fiber, but there is a lot of sugar for "healthy" cereal and the third ingredient is sugar! ok, but i'll cut them some slack, its still fiberific and there are way higher amounts of sugar in cereals these days. I LOVE the flakes! crunchy and not gritty by any means a lovely hint of strawberry sweetness! and i am obsessed with these little checker/chex looking squares! its like if life cereal decided to make a strawberry verison! Great tasting, a little lacking the the nutrition dept, but still worth a try!

This Waif Can Cook, But Can She Bake?

ahh so i started baking Monday. Man SO different from my previous cooking classes. First of all, its on an entirely different campus! It only holds baking and pastry classes. We have gotten smaller in class size so we only have on instructor. He's a hard ass, military type man, so let call him Chef Sargent. I think he might be a good instructor though. anyhow, we started by making dough for baguettes and "epi" (which looks like a wheat sheaf but its just a baguette cut with easy to tear off pieces). Mine actually turned out pretty ok, despite my horibile scoring! Yesterday we made whole wheat dinner rolls which i am sorry to day i totally burned! how embarassing! they weren't burnt to a crisp, they were still very much edible, but a litte on the dark side. I must say, i havent been in baking very long, but i can tell you already, i prefer cooking. its very slow, we have to wait for it to proof, rise, bake, i get impatient and i dont even have ADD. anyhow, i also have math classes at 8am til 2pm every saturday now! I hate math and i know its impotant, but i really dont want to be baker. Today i do challah and brioche, that should be fun, i love challah and itll be like an homage to my Jewishness!