Autumn has arrived!

Since the Lipscomb wedding, we've had a few projects. 

One being our Halloween Cupcake Sale.  We had four flavors - pumpkin, chocolate, confetti, and banana - and each were decorated very festive.  The pumpkin cupcakes were topped with a little marzipan pumpkin, the chocolate with a chocolate spiderweb, the confetti with a mini reeses/whopper/fondant ghost, and the banana with caramel corn.  They were a huge hit, selling 578, and we made roughly $800! 

Last week for staff lunch we made chicken tostadas.  They were served with a delicious Mexican hot chocolate tart for dessert. 

Sunday Summer, Bri, Taylor, and I helped Chatfield with a wedding in Blue Lake.  We served deviled eggs, fruit, cheese, salami, crackers, salad, garlic mashed potatoes, steak, chicken, and puff pastry tarts topped with mozzerela, roasted tomatoes, and pesto.  The wedding cake was red velvet, and it was decorated with a simple mocha ribbon and green swirlies around the edge. 

Yesterday, we had a catering at Eureka High School for an HROP Advisory Board meeting.  I was unable to attend, but I heard it went over really well.  They served chicken and spinach spanakopita, salad, garlic bread, and spice cupcakes (which were very tasty!) topped with honey whipped cream and sesame brittle. 

We don't have a staff lunch this week because we don't have school on friday due to Veteran's day, but we have begun our Pie Sale.  Up until next week, we will be selling pumpkin pies, chocolate mousse pies, pecan pies, apple struesel pies, and pumpkin cheesecakes.  We are hoping to rake in quite a bit of money to go towards our trip in the spring!

Mr. and Mrs. Lipscomb! ♥

Kelsie Ann Burnside and Boden Tanner Lipscomb got married on Saturday, October 15, 2011.  The wedding ceremony itself was amazing - Kelsie looked beautiful in her wedding dress and Boden looked great as well.  I attended the wedding rather than helping cater, but it was still a great time.  The food prepared for the reception was delicious.  There was tri-tip, scalloped potatoes, cheese raviolis, fruit salad, green salad, and beans.  The wedding cake was tasty as well.  It was a four-tiered cake, frosted with vanilla butter cream, decorated with a hunter green ribbon wrapped around each tier, and green flowers placed about.  The four flavors of the cake were confetti filled with pastry cream, strawberry filled with strawberry filling, chocolate filled with chocolate mousse, and banana filled with banana filling.  Kelsie then had her own personal mini cake which was confetti with whipped cream, because she dislikes butter cream.  Everyone in the class did a great job from what I could tell.  I brought Summer with me as my +1, and we had a fun time.  We danced the night away with great friends and loved helping Kelsie and Boden celebrate their big day!

Sammy and I with the beautiful bride, Mrs. Kelsie Lipsomb!

Sammy and I with Kels and Bobo!



Whoo whoo whoooo loves cake pops?!

Here's a little picture of the attempt Summer and I made at making Owl Cake Pops.

We're off to a good start!

In the past few weeks, we've had quite a few projects - staff lunches, caterings, and in-class cooking.
Our first staff lunch, we made spring rolls with tom kha gai soup and coconut lime whoopie pies.  Last week, we prepared lime chicken, or lime portobello, rice, and mini Mexican hot chocolate cream pies.  This week we will be serving fettuccine Alfredo, chicken or veggie, garlic rolls, and upside down apple cakes for dessert. 
The two caterings that we have done so far were both retirement parties.  The first was for a woman at the Humboldt County Office of Education, and they had the same foods as we did for our first staff lunch - with the addition of deviled eggs, asparagus wrapped in prosciutto, fruit kabobs, and a pink camouflage cake.  The other retirement party was for a woman who worked here in our business office.  We, much like the other party, made them the same food as we did for lunch, again with the addition of corn and black bean salsa, and a retirement cake.
Summer and I also made mini creme brulee pies.  They were small, cute, and, not to mention, delicious! 
We are now working on apple strudel. 

and, just an FYI, next week is Homecoming Week, and us Seniors are getting ready to dominate!

Bananaaaas, yum!

So for some reason, Chatty had a ton of bananas, so we had a banana day!  In groups of two, we each got a recipe for a banana dessert.  There were banana scones, banana cookies, mini banana cream pies, banana whoopie pies, and Summer and I made delicious Triple Banana Double Caramel Mini Cupcakes.  They were so cute!  We made a gazillion of them, so we took them around and passed them out to all the administration on campus...got to make sure we get good grades somehow! ;) haha, just kidding.  Everyone loved them, as did I.  Sum and I are going to make many variations of mini cupcakes and sell them to people to raise money, hopefully it works out well!  Tomorrow we are beginning to work on knife skills, so we will all be chopping pros by the end of the year!

and we're back!

School started back up again on August 24, 2011.  It is my senior year and I am very excited, to say the least!   It is a little nerve racking knowing that in ten months I will be walking across stage, graduating, getting ready to start a new chapter in my life, but I am definitely looking forward to it.  I'm just going to focus on making the best memories possible during my last year of high school, and so far I am doing just that.  This past week about 50 kids from our Senior Class of 2012 had Senior Sunrise, which is where we all gathered on the football field and watched the sunrise together.  It was a tad bit foggy, but it was the idea that counts.  We will be having Senior Sunset at the end of the year, and I'm sure it will be just as great.  I am looking forward to continue growing closer to my class, [:

Regarding cooking, there are many things I am looking forward to, too!  I can't wait to begin staff lunches, as chaotic as they may be.  I am also looking forward to helping make the wedding cake for Kelsie and Boden's wedding! Yayayayayyy, so exciting, I am so happy for them, <3  Starting in a few days, we will be working on knife skills.  Let's hope no one cuts themselves!  We will be working hard between caterings and other fundraisers to work towards our goal of traveling to Chicago in May!

aaaaand the year comes to an end!

It is hard to believe that the school year is almost over, the seniors are graduating, and I am going to be a senior.  It has been an awesome year and we have made quite a few memories, New York being one of the biggest.

New York was awesooommeeee!  Our first flight was delayed, so we missed our tour of the Culinary Institute of America.  I was pretty disappointed, but the rest of the trip made up for it.  We did get to tour the French Culinary Institute, though, and it was amazing.  I want to go there so badly, it is like my dream school!  That tour was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip, along with visiting Sylvia Weinstock. She is such an inspirational little old lady! Oh! and how could I forget the Lady Gaga concert?! Scalping tickets off of a drunk gay man from Hawaii in the middle of Central Park at 7am is quite the experience.    My favorite restaurant was Ilili's, which served Lebanese food.  The food were delish, the bathrooms were cool, and the waiters were chill, (and by chill, I mean they had cute accents and were really hot, [; )  We did lots of shopping at I spent roughly $400...whoops!  Everything else from Broadway, to Times Square, to Central Parks, to all of our tours were great. Made so many memories and it was definitely the trip of a life time!

Tomorrow is the last day of school, and our last day of cooking.  It will be hard to see all the seniors leave.  Definitely won't be the same without them next year!  Spending two class periods together, back to back, and an entire week together all the way across the country definitely formed us into a family.  I know all of these girls will always have my back, and I will always have theirs.  I truly cherish all the memories I have made this past year with each and every one of these girls, and all the culinary experience I have gained along the way, [:

Murder on Maui!

On the night of Thursday, April 14th, we held a Hawaiian themed murder mystery dinner.  We all sold plenty of tickets and there were about 115 people there.  We recruited several teachers to act out the murder while the guests enjoyed their four course meal.  The food consisted of teriyaki chicken skewers with a pineapple dipping sauce, salad with a mango vinaigrette, pulled pork, pineapple coleslaw, and sticky rice for the main dinner course, and for dessert - a caramelized banana tart topped with delicious coconut ice cream.  Other than the salad dressing being a little too spicy, we heard nothing but good words about the dinner.  Along with the dinner and theater, we also had a silent auction.  Some of the things we auctioned off were jewelry, desserts, alpaca fur products, a picnic backpack, prom tickets, and much more.  Between the auction and the dinner we raised about $1800!  We are all very excited because we each have our $1200 raised and there are only 37 days left until we are off to the Big Apple! [:

Busy, busy, busy!

We have had plenty of catering jobs to keep us busy the past few weeks.
Last weekend, on Saturday, March 5th, we catered a tea party for 80 elderly women, that the HROP culinary class has been catering for eight years now.  We made curried egg salad, chicken salad, cream cheese and smoked salmon, and cucumber mint tea sandwiches, mudslide cookies, orange cranberry and lemon scones, raspberry tea cakes, raspberry diamonds, lemon thumbprint cookies, and lemon curd.  The ladies at the tea party were very satisfied with all of our hard work.
Last week we all worked our butts off to prepare for two catering jobs that both took place on Saturday, March 12th.  School was cancelled on Friday due to the tsunami warning, so Kelsey and I came into class in the afternoon to help Chatfield work on all of the food we had to finish for the two caterings.  One was a wedding at the Scotia Inn.  We made a four tiered wedding cake with chocolate, lemon chiffon, and two tiers of carrot cake.  The cake was decorated with fresh flowers and a sleek black ribbon.  We also made 250 lemon tarts topped with blueberries and 250 cheesecake bars, all for the wedding.  Chatfield and I delivered all of the desserts, set up the dessert table, and bolted out of there in order to make it to the Veteran's hall in time.  At the Vet's hall was an event for the Fortuna Library.  We catered a pasta buffet, including pasta, marinara sauce, meat sauce, and a creamy pesto sauce.  To complement the pasta, we also prepared garlic bread and a green salad, with two kinds of salad dressing - ranch and Italian.  For dessert we made a mixed berry slab pie - a pie baked on a cookie sheet (much easier to deal with regular pie, by the way) - topped with a dollop of freshly whipped cream.  Everyone thanked us and complimented us on the delicious food.
Although these catering jobs were a lot of hard work and were both very stressful, we got paid a good chunk of change and was definitely worth it. And as of today, there are only 72 days until we leave for New York! Ahhhhh yeeeeeahhh! (: 

NEW YORK CITY, HERE WE COME!

99 days until we are off to the Big Apple!

We are still trying to raise the money, but most of us are already over half way there.
A few weekends ago we had a bake sale in front of Safeway and raised over $600 (much better than the rough estimate of $200 that the cheerleaders made...)
We will continue to raise money up until it is time to hop aboard the plane!
Can't wait!

2011!

2011 has been a great year in the Culinary Arts III class, so far.
Early in the year we did an Asian inspired lunch, complete with home-made fortune cookies topping our cupcakes.

 

In January, we also had finals.  For our first final we all made and plated braised chicken, sauteed asparagus, and mashed potatoes.

Our second final was a Cupcake War.  We each got two secret ingredients from the country we had been studying and had to incorporate them into our cupcakes.  My country was Argentina an my secret ingredients were spearmint and vanilla bean.  I soaked the mint leaves in a chocolate ganache, giving it a minty flavor, to fill the chocolate cupcakes and I used to the vanilla beans to create a vanilla bean butter cream. 
I gladly passed both of my finals, [:

On a relaxed day in the kitchen, we made delicious crepes filled with nutella that someone *cough*Lindsay*cough* hid from us.

A week ago yesterday was my 17th birthday.  To celebrate the entire class made mini molten lava chocolate cakes...practically the equivalent to Heaven in your mouth. 

Yesterday was Valentine's day and we made cute little cupcake grams.  Some were chocolate with a chocolate butter cream and others were red velvet with a vanilla butter cream.  They were all topped with festive pink, red, and white sprinkles and a chocolate heart with a personalized message.  They were either picked up or delivered to the customers. 

This week we will not be doing a staff lunch due to a cheese tasting that I have been waiting to do!



Update on the end of the year!

November and December was a rather busy time for us, maybe that is why we haven't been able to blog so much.  We did everything - pie sales, cookie platters, ServSafe course, Winter Festival, gingerbread houses, and many catering jobs. 
During the pie sale was a major success - we sold over 250 pies!  The pies included pecan, pumpkin, apple strussel, chocolate mousse, and a pumpkin cheesecake. 
The cookie platters were for the HCOE holiday party at the Riverlodge and we baked and plated about 45 dozen!
As a class, we took a ServSafe class at the CR unit in Eureka.  I passed with a 83% and am now officially ServSafe certified!  !!  [:
Also, we worked at the Winter Festival that our school's Travel Squad put on.  We had a bake sale and had a 'decorate-your-own-cookie' stand. That was plenty of fun and, well, festive.
One of my favorite activities this past holiday season was making our gingerbread houses.  Sammy, Kelsie, and I did a 'Charlie Brown Christmas' themed gingerbread house, complete with fondant sculptures of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, and Woodstock. 
The many catering jobs we had were the Healthy Start lunch, an AP Teacher lunch, an 80th birthday party, and plenty of staff lunchs.
We are now working on our International Food History and Food Customs project.  The country I got assigned is Argentina.  I am looking forward to learning lots of new information about the Argentina cuisine, along with the other countries my classmates are doing.