NO BAKE CARAMEL/PUMPKIN SPICE COOKIES

For those of you who love cookies but hate the baking aspect of them, like me, you'll enjoy this cookie recipe very much!

What you'll need:
2 cups sugar
stick of butter
6 oz. evaporated milk
1 box of pudding, this time of year I found pumpkin spice, which worked out perfectly, but butterscotch works just as well!
2 1/2 cups quick oats

Directions:
Combine sugar, butter, and evaporated milk in a saucepan and bring up to a boil
add oats and pudding and take off heat
spoon batter onto wax paper and let cool 15 minutes.

I topped my cookies off with a little sprinkle of kosher salt just to add the "salted caramel" effect to the cookies once I placed them all on the wax paper!

ENJOY AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!

SHELLFISH AND CORN CHOWDER: WARNING ITS DELICIOUS

This Yields approximately 48 fl. oz, so make sure you have a huge saucepot!

What you'll need:

• 2 qt. water
• 8 fl. oz white wine
• 8 oz or about 1 1/2 cups chopped onion
• 4 oz or about 1 cup chopped celery
• 8 oz or about 1 1/2 cups chopped carrot
• 2 garlic cloves
• 8 fl oz of clam juice
• 1 lb of your favorite shellfish ( I used jumbo shrimp, but crab, or lobster will do just fine!)
• 1 TBS red pepper flakes
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 2 tsp creole seasoning (Tony Cachere's)
• 2 TBS tomato paste
• 1 tsp black peppercorns
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 fl oz of Cognac or Brandy
• 2 oz of whole butter (unsalted)
• 1 red bell pepper diced small
• 3 oz or about 1/2 cup small diced onion
• 2 garlic cloves chopped
• 4 TBS all purpose flour
• small can of corn kernels ( I used 11 oz can) drain excess liquid. You can always use more corn if you like.
• 12 fl. oz of heavy cream
• salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS:

1. combine the water, wine, first batch of onions, celery, carrots, garlic and clam juice to the saucepot and bring to a boil.
2. add the shellfish and cook til pink. Lobster about 8 min, same for crab, about 2-3 for shrimp MAKE SURE THE SHELL IS ON!
3. remove the shellfish from the cooking liquid and remove meat from the shell.
4. crush the shell and return it to the cooking liquid with the tomato paste, peppercorns, bay leaf, cognac, cayenne and creole seasoning. Taste, add kosher salt if it tastes flat, I added a good handful of salt here.
5. Simmer stock for 1 hour to extract as much flavor from the shells and veggies as possible.
6. strain the stock through a china cap (strainer), pressing firmly with the back of a ladle to remove as much liquid as possible from the shells.  This should yield about 24 fluid oz of liquid. Add water if you don't have enough of the stock left over.
7. Heat the butter in a heavy saucepot.  Sweat the bell pepper, onion and garlic for one minute.  Add the flour to make a roux and cook for 3-5 min.  Whisk in the stock, bring to a boil, reuce to a simmer and cook for 15 min.
8. Add the corn kernels.  Scald the cream and add it to the soup.  Bring the soup to a simmer and adjust the salt and pepper seasonings.
9. Dice the shellfish meat and add it to the soup
10. SERVE AND ENJOY!

I hope ya'll love this recipe as much as I did!
Steph :)

Update

So nothing too exciting has been going on these past few weeks, but I feel like I should update anyways! We are still doing all of our safety and sanitation courses.

However, we've learned the different techniques of cooking vegetables this week so that was exciting!

I'll report back in a little while!

The First Week of the Rest of My Life

It's Sunday night, my nerves begin to start on their journey to making every move nerve racking for the next day.  So little to my surprise, sleeping was almost impossible, due to the fact I have a horrible habit of waking up every hour or so in PANIC thinking I've overslept whenever something important is due to occur.  Opposed to my months of waking up around noon, waking up for Monday at 5:45 seemed oh so awful.

Thankfully, I didn't oversleep, and I began my day with dressing in my professional attire for the day ahead.

Once I entered the building of my dreams filled with kitchens, food, stainless steel out the wazoo and people who were just as obsessed with food as I was, I knew I had made the best decision in my entire life.  I was greeted by Chefs with open arms into their world and knowledge of food with enthusiasm. 


After going over all the guidelines, handbooks, rules and regulations, we were all given our uniforms, knife kits and were on our way home.

The next day, Tuesday, was more of the same thing, however we were all in uniform.  Not gonna lie, uniforms are NOT something I'm used to AT ALL, so it's taken me a while to get used to it. Chef coat, pants, hat, apron, neckerchief, black socks, white undershirt, black chef shoes, hair pulled back, minimal makeup ( MY LEAST FAVORITE GUIDELINE).

My classes consist of: Human Relations with Mr. Appel, Safety, Sanitation and Kitchen Design with Chef Heidi, and Cooking with Chef Justin & Chef Heidi.

• Human Relations is the standard blah blah blah be nice to get a job kinda crap.
• Safety, Sanitation and Kitchen design is, for right now, a monotonous computer program that teaches us all of the dangers of contamination, bacteria, fungus, allergies etc. of cooking, (which has made me paranoid at restaurants now)
• Cooking is my favorite, shocker I know.  As of right now, we are learning our cutting techniques, julienne, dice,chop etc. Scary at first, but I'm starting to get the hang of it.  We have started with potatoes, celery, onions and garlic. But will get into other aspects of cooking such as spices, cheeses, veggies, fruits and so on.

I've met some wonderful people here who I believe will be life-long friends, resources, advisers in the culinary industry and I can't wait for what lies ahead! Everybody wants food to be the main component in their lives and are very enthusiastic. 

Today, Friday, we had a meeting which was more of a motivational speech more than anything.  But it really made me realize that EVERYBODY has their failures as well as successes, but it's your willingness to reach your dream that makes you desire to push through your obstacles and use your "stickability" to make all your dreams become realities no matter what.

MARKET YOUR OWN UNIQUENESS
Steph

Hot Chocolate Recipe

1 box (about 14-qt.) powdered milk
1 1 lb. box powdered sugar
1 2-lb. box Nestle's Quik
1 7 or 8 oz. jar of Chocolate Coffee Mate (YES I FOUND THIS AND INSTANTLY ADDED IT!)

Scoop about 1/3 cup into a cup of hot water or milk if you want it creamy!

Warning: Beware of the powdery mess and it makes quite a bit... so if possible mix this outside

Great Appetizer!

• Buy some frozen bread dough- let thaw according to package directions
• cut into pieces, roll out into ropes, then cut into little squares about an inch wide
• place squares on a cookie sheet/ cover w/ aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray
• brush an egg wash on each piece with 2 egg whites and a tbs of water
• sprinkle with anything you'd like for a pretzel bite:
• cinnamon and sugar
• sea salt
• Parmesan cheese and oregano
• bake in the oven for 15-18 min at 375
• dip your little creations in whatever sauce you desire! 
• I recommend a mustard cheese sauce with garlic for the plain
• and a marinara sauce for the parmesan cheese and oregano!

ENJOY!

Zesty Italian Marinade

For dinner tonight, I am marinading my chicken in a wonderful Zesty Italian concoction, which I found to be INCREDIBLE!

oh, and warning, I don't really measure...so BEWARE of some of the measuring techniques haha

In a blender combine:

1 1/3 cups olive or vegetable oil
1/3 cup red wine vinegar
small palm full of whole peppercorns
small palm full of hot pepper flakes (add more if you like it HOT)
3-5 cloves garlic
(a few shakes)= 1/4 tsp of  rosemary
a few shakes oregano
a few shakes of crushed basil
how ever much salt you desire salt
same with fresh black pepper
a palm full grated Parmesan cheese
a pinch of all-spice

poke chicken breasts with a fork about 6x on front and back
place in bowl
pour marinade over, cover with saran wrap
allow to marinade a min of 4 hours

I'm going to put the chicken on a broiler pan in the oven, but if you would like to cook your chicken any other way, be my guest!

ENJOY :)