Bread 2

We had our 2nd bread unit in Pastry 2. This was for the most part a continuation of the Vienoisserie in Pastry 1.

This was not my most favorite unit, and I was going through a personally rough time - temporarily homeless due to an absolutely crazy landlord, Adam and I had to crash at people's houses, lose lots of sleep, meet with lawyers, and find a new apartment throughout the duration of this unit. I fucking hate landlords. This resulted in me not really giving my all to school - I was doing the minimum according to my standards. So lets just look at the pictures and move on, shall we! Petits Fours is next!

Petits Pans. Wow, small baguettes!

Irish soda bread. Tasty!

Croissants take 2. Plain, ham and cheese (super yum!), and pain au chocolat.

Sweet potato brioche. This was really tasty, we stuffed it with spiced pepperoni, and goat cheese.

5-grain rolls. Not a huge fan. "healthy".

Banana muffins. Kind of dry, liked the crumb topping.

Tart Alsacienne. Caramelized onions, olives, anchovies. Decent.

Ciabatta. Fun fact: means "slipper" in Italian.

Corn muffins. Included jalapenos and bacon! Best kind!

Lemon poppy muffins. Zesty and poppilicious.

Foccacia. Sounds like an STD, tastes like rosemary.

English muffins. Cool. Note: burned ones made by Lindsay and Melissa, inferior students and sabateurs (pictured below).

Cornmeal-Buckwheat Scones with Walnuts

I made these forever ago but forgot to add them. The recipe can be found in Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich, my new favorite cookbook! Whenever I make breakfast breads and pastries, I always have some weird guilt thing that happens and I try to put as many healthy things in them (fruit, whole grains, nuts) because I generally eat healthy breakfasts. So these fit the bill, and they were delicious with jam, butter and Earl Grey tea in the morning. I shock myself at how fucking awesome I am sometimes.

Vegetable Ratatouille with Cornmeal Biscuits

I was in Chicago for a week, but since I've been back I've been cooking and baking as usual. But before I left for Chicago I made this dish, inspired by a recipe in an article recently in the NY Times. I used whatever vegetables I had around (onion, eggplant, zucchini, half a can of tomatoes) and cooked it up in my cast iron skillet. I then whipped up the biscuit batter, dropped it on top, stuck it in the oven, and viola! a meal appeared before my eyes... out of... vegetables!