Weekly Roundup! 3.14

The featured products are as follows, from left to right, top to bottom: Palmiers, Pithivier, Chaussons, Mille Feuille, Brie En Croute, Tarte Tatin, Lobster Newberg, Salmon En Croute, Band Aux Fruits

Weekly Roundup!

This Week: Petit Fours
From left to right, top to bottom, we have…
A Petit Four tray, Petit Four Glace, Opera Cakes and Battenburg Cakes
Again, any recipes can be requested by posting a comment on this post.

Some more good news from this week:
My boss, Ellen Mitchel, is the head of the Green Committee at the Texas Culinary Academy. At TCA, we make alot of waste. I expressed my feelings to Ellen about all of our waste and it really seems like we’re really going to be able to make a difference. We’re starting a composte pile, a recycling system and I’m arranging to have all of our product donated at the end of the day. We make a lot of food that we just throw away, why not give it to people who need it. There are plenty of people in Austin who are starving! We have a large homeless population. Meanwhile, all of the students at TCA are paying $30K a year to attend and all of our product is getting tossed each day. We are the priveledged and we’re simply eating up a good portion of produce and other supplies with out any benefit besides getting the education of how to cook it. It’s like an artist that creates and simply throws it away afterwards.
I’ll be updating as time goes on… I hope that in the next week we’ll be able to make some headway with the Green efforts at TCA. I want to make the school known for its recycling and its effort to be as helpful to the community as possible.

—————————————————————————————-

As a vegetarian that is concerned with the ethics of eating meat products, I wonder what happens to the dairy cows that give me the milk I drink (or at least I used to, before I started just drinking Soymilk..) One concern that I have is that kids are taught that these cows live to “give” us milk. They want us to believe that these cows line up to be pumped full of hormones to increase their milk production just so that we can suck them dry three times a day for our own enjoyment. These cows are raised and kept for the sole purpose of producing milk. The truth is bonechilling.

r

Apple Cinnabran Muffins & Olive Tree Adoption!

Here’s some interesting news! Nudo olive tree growers are encouraging you to adopt a tree. You’ll recieve all the oil that comes from that tree for one year while your adoption is valid. For only $130, you can adopt the tree and help support your own health and the environment. The Nudo grove sets apart a portion of its land for forestation, in an effort to offset its carbon footprint. Give it a look @ nudo-italia.com

Breakfast for this week was made fresh and delicious in my tiny kitchen. These muffins give you a good deal of flavor and are appealing to many due to their grab-on-the-go quality. I love to make these and wrap them up individually in saran wrap. Store them in the fridge and grab one on the way out of the door in the morning!

Apple Cinnabran Muffins

1.5c Wheat Bran
1 c Buttermilk
1/3 c  Vegetable Oil
1  Egg
2/3 c Brown Sugar
.5 tsp Vanilla Extract
1 c AP flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Baking Powder
.5 tsp Salt
1 tsp Ground Cinnamon
1 medium Apple, chopped and sauteed

Mix together buttermilk and wheat bran, let sit for 10 mins. Next  mix together Vegetable oil, egg, brown sugar & vanilla ext. Mix these two together. Sift the dry ingredients and mix into the wet, mixing until *just* combined. Scoop into paper-lined muffin tins. Bake at 375º F for 15-20 mins. Enjoy.

Weekly Roundup

Here’s the goods made this week in the commercial kitchen of your DC writer, Robin. Feast your eyes, kiddies!

The goods are as follows, from left to right, top to bottom:

Whiskey Pecan Tartletts, Pecan Diamonds, Chocolate dipped Vacherines, Peach Cobblers, Chocolate Peanutbutter Pie, Linzer Cookies, Chocolate dipped Madelines, Cherry Pie, Key Lime Chiffon Pie, NY Cheesecake, Blueberry Pies, Lemon Tartletts, Spritz Cookies, Pear Frangipane Tart, Almond Macaroons

Pate A Choux: Cream Puffs, Eclairs and Swans

Pate A Choux is easy to make, if you know what you’re doing. Your dough slowly comes together, after agitating and exercising your deltoids, biceps and triceps for at least 20 minutes. I love mixing things by hand. I really feel like I’m paying for pastry school *and* a gym membership. I’m paying enough, I’d might as well get a workout from it.

After your choux bakes, you get a wonderful surprise when you discover that the interior of every puff is perfectly and wonderfully hollow. Fill with your choice of pastry cream and whipped cream and enjoy. You can freeze baked choux dough for an indefinite period of time, take out you puffs and serve once you fill them to the brim with pastry cream. I chose delicious chocolate pastry cream and topped them with whipped cream before placing the tops back on and dusting with powdered sugar. Pate a choux: friggin’ awesome.

Pate A Choux pastry

We formed our choux into swans. They’re great for baby showers, weddings, anything where you gather giant numbers of women who can “ooh” and “ahh” at your pastry swans. When you get out of pastry school, it’s the unfortunate opinion of everyone that you know that you *obviously* went to school just to learn how to do this. This skill will easily pay for your schooling.

Choux Swans

Finally, you can also use your choux dough to make eclairs. All of your friends will love you. You’ll begin to be invited to parties just because they want you to bring these.

Chocolate Eclairs