Without further adieu:
Great big bag-0-cookies. Yum! The combined efforts of the entire baking and pastry class bundled into one giant piece of plastic wrap.
Convenience! This is my class-issued apron that has now become a carrying case for the uber bag of cookies and some other tasty treats.. shown below!
Yaay! For Squished Pastry! This is what happens when you use an apron as a carrying case and the only method of carrying your goods is with a plate and some plastic wrap!
I hate wasting food, that's why I took 5 shortcakes. They were well-enjoyed by my family.
Ahhh, home again. And so is Dad.. whee! He brings BAGELS from NEW JERSEY! *happy dance*
It is IMPOSSIBLE to find bagels like the ones from "up north" here in the South. This one has sliced tomato, capers, and sauteed onions. If we had remembered to grab some smoked salmon at the grocery store, then there would've been that on there too. And cream cheese.
Shrimp! Joy! Shrimp cocktail, half plain, half with melon balls and cappacolla (Dad, fix my spelling please on the cold cuts) from Casa Del Sol, one of the best places in Hillsdale, NJ to get good Italian stuff. Especially cold cuts. And fresh mozzarella cheese. The cocktail sauce was made by my dad and contains ketchup, worcestershire sauce, and wasabi paste (we were out of horseradish!). It was AWESOME.
Course the second of that night of feasting: Parsley mashed new potatoes (new potatoes are those little red ones that taste so good with the skin on); blanched green beans with sauteed garlic, onion, and slivered almonds (yaay prepackaged snackfoods!); and a braised pork chop. The pork chop was floured before cooking with garlic, paprika, chili powder, salt, and pepper. YUM.
Now for something completely different!! This was a course in a 3-courser I made while it was just mom and I. This was course #2: Grilled eggplant with heirloom tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and gorgonzola cheese topped with a basil leaf. I love summer only for the food-- the tomatoes come out with all sorts of tasty varieties!
This one was fun-and-a-half to make and eat! Fajitas turned into lettuce wraps due to a lack of tortillas! This is grilled steak, and sauteed veggies including bell peppers, mushrooms, onions, celery (odd sounding but was a nice subtle difference and filler), and garlic. The sauce was a brainchild of my dad's containing soy sauce, coffee, wasabi, and a few other things that currently have slipped my mind.
Here it is without the lettuce, and some crunchy noodles I picked up at the Bon Odori! Ta-da, instant culture change.
What do you do when papaya's on sale? You eat it! And make fun desserts out of it. This one was neat, involving a "bird's nest" idea. A ring of papaya with bananas Foster in the center topped with a mound of vanilla ice cream and some whipped cream with a plum sauce. WOW was it ever good. It was a tropical awesome-explosion.
Finally, the plate of doom. This was a way to use up a bunch of the cold cuts at once. It started out with an idea for an antipasto but turned into a platter of doom. Sopressata (sp?) hot and sweet, cappaccolla (hot and sweet), prosciutto, mozzarella (sadly it was the storebought not fresh), artichoke hearts, and tomatoes on top of a salad of lettuce, onion, cucumber, carrot, and sliced black olives. We had just re-located my dad's mandolin (slicer) from about 30 years ago or more and I had some FUN with it.
There are all of the photos I've been meaning to upload but haven't. Enjoy!
