The cooking thread

[Rtificial]

Hahaha thats pretty good. A girl in my class made a Kirsh cake..and that thing would take your breath away with all the liqour.

In my intro baking class, I once put WAY too rum in a whipped cream, it damn near got me bent tasting it.

My teacher now, he has an actual "hash" brownie recipe from Jamica. It even has the measurements and type of weed to use haha. Even has a warning "if to be served to kids, please leave out weed"

[Masaka]

It has a bottom Genoise cake layer as the base, then a Coconut mousse layer with mango and pineapple and a splash of fruit liquour in the mousse. Next is a another genoise cake layer topped with a mango glaze, then topped with more Coconut mousse, then topped with another mango glaze layer. The outside surrounding cake layer is a sponge cake ribbon I made ahead. That cake was a pain in the butt to make.

I think we need to arrange the official TNL Bake-Off. I volunteer to taste Rtificial's stuff

While I like to cook, I don't have a lot of time to devote to it (30 minute meals is my favorite show ever), and I'm usually cooking for myself, except when my roommate wanders into the kitchen Consequently, a lot of what I make is designed to prepared quickly.

Favorites include stir fry (with whatever meat's on sale ), fajitas, and a cajun chicken pasta dish.

There's also a chicken and mushroom soup pasta dish I like to make when I've got company. Get a big can (or two, for extra sauce) of cream of mushroom soup, a pack of chicken breasts, a bit of rum, some broccholi and some mushrooms (optional). Season and brown the chicken how you like (I like (love) garlic, onion powder, black pepper, a little thyme) I tend to leave out salt because of the soup.

Dump the chicken into a big saucepan and cover it with the soup, adding some water to it to thin it out some, and add a couple shots of rum. Cover it and let it simmer for about 15-20 minutes. Add the broccholi and mushrooms with about 5-10 minutes to go so they get cooked, but don't get mushy. Serve it over pasta and you're set

[Dyne]

its amazing (at least when i was there) how many of my friends were so inept when it came to cooking while i was at college. besides a frat party with beer there's nothing ladys like more than when a guy makes food (and good food to boot) for an entire floor of his dorm. we were lucky and had a room that was basically a small kitchen on each floor and i was the only one that would use it. so many times id be in there cooking for myself, someone would come back from class and ask if i could make something. most of the other kids had the parents that would buy them so much food but they could only cook the noodles. well finally this would ctach on and a lot of times even the girls floors would come up. ahhh fun times. it was nice to because our RA's didnt mind if we drank (as lomg as we shared with them) so we got a way with a lot. usually now tho i dont tend to go all out unless i feel like doing something special for the lady friend. goning to a nice restaraunt is nice and all but making it yourself tends to go over sooooo much better.

[Rtificial]

I just got home from school with some pics of my final project. It turned out pretty good, there was only some minor things I would have changed tho.

That lady that does 30 min meals is adorable.

Yea Masaka, I make some quick stuff too, sometimes I'm too tired to do anything time consumming. I do a lot of chicken wraps, fajiitas, quesadilla's. When I have salmon steaks, I cook up alot of them.

Heres the pic of my final project. From left to right we have a Chocolate pinenut tart, German black forest torte, Miniature scarlette empress, with more up front for the judges and on the right my epi bagette's.

[station82o]

damn that stuff looks great - i'd be nervous as hell doing a class like that... it also seems like a hassle to transport all that food intact from home to school as a final project.

[icepop]

I always thought that cooking school tests involved doing all the cooking at the school. No?

[red_war_machine]

I'm quite a good cook. My favourite recipe remains Nigel Slater's slow fried potatoes with thyma and taleggio, although I'll give anything by Nigel Slater a go.

Far and away the greatest cookery writer... ever. Do you have his books in the US? If so, I'd REALLY Recommend buyingn one. They're so well written I like to just flick through them occasionally when I have no plans to cook. Then his descriptions make my mouth water andI have to go and cook soime bacon or something.

[Rtificial]

I'll check around and see if I can find any of his books.

Yea I cooked all that at school. I didn't get to bring home the black forest cake...cause I have such a long drive home, I doubt it would make it. I'm eating some the chocolate pinenut tart right now. The bread was bout gone by class over and the lil scarlette empresses got ate up too.

Heres the black forest cake. Them cherries are stoooooout I soaked em in a kirsch cherry sauce.

[Wolffen]

Damn, that stuff looks great, Rtificial. I wish I had the time and money to go to cooking school. I'd love to open a restaurant with my wife, but I know that around 80 or 90% of all non-chain eateries tend to go belly up within 12 months. Maybe when I win the lottery. Awesome work, Rtificial! I'm sure you passed the exam with an A++!

[Rtificial]

Thanks, yea I did pretty good. Only some minor nitpicks on some things.

Opening a restaurant is A LOT of money. The school I goto we have to learn the business aspects too. Our last class is facilities and we pretty much have to come up with a restaurant theme, have EVERY THING planned out from the location, demographics and more. Then we have a portfolio show and are judged on our restaurant. Its almost as if we are trying to sell our idea to a bank to get a loan.

Things have been tough on the hospitality industry for awhile, with the recession, 9-11, stock market messing up. I think the ratio is like 1 in 3 restaurants fail. If you can make it your first 5 years, your there to stay.

I wouldn't put off opening up your own restaurant. There are 3 types and each have their plus's and minus's. You can either go independent, chain, franchise. I'd research and see which way you'd want to go. But sounds like you'd best be suited for independent.