The Rouxbe School

Months ago, possibly even a year ago I discovered Rouxbe. What is Rouxbe? An online cooking school. Not just any school and really good chef training school. Who should attend? Well, who doesn't want to hone their cooking skills? Why should I sign up? First off, everyone can learn or re-learn a long forgotten technique. In today's economic environment, it is an advantage to know how to take simple ingredients and make them fabulous! Where is the school? It's at your house! Rouxbe isn't some lame correspondence course that will take your money and you get nothing in return type of school though. They have video instruction, tests, reviews, drill downs and recipe submissions. They also have a great forum where you can get specific questions answered. How? Any time of the day or night at your convenience. Yes, this is your school.

I signed up before the school launched. It is the best money I thinkI've ever spent on the internet. Rouxbe is partnered with the Northwest Culinary Academy of Vancouver. No you are not going to get an online degree from Northwest. You are going to get the experience of their chefs and instruction through video and written formats.

The great news is that you can take it for a test drive and see if it really for you. Try it out for 30 days, if it works for you sign up. If not, you have not lost a thing, and gained a bit of free instruction. Me? I signed up for the lifetime membership and will enjoy this for a long, long time.

The knife skills suite is worth the price of admission!

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Pear Butter

Over the weekend I made the best hostess gift ever. It was easy, and is so good, everyone will want to make it. But because the internet is giving all of us a trial during our fires, I can't post the recipe with pictures until later. Check back later today to see if things have changed. Hopefully it will be up before the day is out.

Type rest of the post here

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Fern Oleta

I first met Fern when I was 17 years old. I had become smitten with her tall, lanky son. We had been dating just a short while when I was invited to dinner. I say dinner because that's what they called it. To me it was a feast. The table was filled with fresh vegetables, a big pot of chicken and dumplings, the requisite fresh onion, bread and butter, fresh sweet tea, and a pitcher of grape kool-aid.

Fern's husband was a farmer. He tilled the ground, and brought in fresh vegetables on a daily basis. Fern also worked full-time. She would come home at lunch every day and cook up a meal for munch and then return to work. She would then come home and fix an evening meal. Wow.

This was not something I had ever witnessed take place anywhere but my grandmother's house. It was part of Fern's life. Taking care of her family, working, and working hard. She did not work in a building, with air conditioning and desks, or a retail store (until later in her life), no Fern worked as a farm hand. She was born in Oklahoma, married at 14 and a half (mostly to escape raising her younger siblings) and moved to California with her husband in the mid-forties and began a life together that kept them working hard for nearly 50 years.

Fern began working in a potato shed. She cut potatoes for a living. Every day she stood for 9 hours in the same spot, cutting potatoes into pieces getting them ready to plant. After a few seasons of cutting potatoes, she added picking onions to the mix. While she was pregnant with her first son, she picked onions while 8 months pregnant. Then, when he was old enough he joined her in the fields harvests crops with his mom. Yes, very grapes of wrath here.

She moved on to the rose company where she spent days in the rose gardens budding roses. It amazed me that she spent so much time in the hot sun and still would go in at noon, cook, clean a bit and then return to the labor of the day only to come in at night and begin again. Her sons did not want for a thing. Between her and her husband they worked hard to provide for their family and put a roof over their heads.

That day I was invited to dinner, I was amazed at the meal presented. It was not for show, or to impress me, as I was only one girl her sons had brought home. I was welcomed and fed. The meal was delicious. I had never had anything so tasty in my life. Yes, I'd had frozen chicken and dumplings, gross representations of biscuits over cooked chicken, but never had anything I'd ever eaten before tasted so good. I was in heaven.

For years Fern tried to show me how to make a good pot of chicken and dumplings. You see I married her son. He liked them and so did I. Yet neither of us could replicate them! My daughters all ate them and loved them. Gramma Fern's dunklings were the best in the world! Finally someone had tried and was able to make them just like gramma's. The youngest one has finally mastered them and when she was here last weekend she a made a pot fo rall of us to enjoy.

Recipe:

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk

Take one whole chicken and cover it with water to boil on low until fully cooked. I cooked mine for about 1 1/2 hours so it was really tender and made a good broth. Take the chicken out of the broth to cool. While cooling the chicken, combine all of the dry ingredients in a bowl ad mix well. Next add the milk. Mix gently together. Allow the dough to rest for about 5 minutes to allow the gluten to start working. Roll out to 1/4 inch thick and cut into strips. Bring the broth to a boil. Drop strips into the boiling broth. They will swell up at first and then start to shrink as they dissolve and make the yummy gravy. Right after you drop the dumplings into the broth bone the chicken shredding it into bite size pieces. Drop into the pot. Let it cook for about 20 minutes. Serve.

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Fall is here - well mostly - Pumpkin time

Today it was in the 90s again. ugh.


We went to the pumpkin farm a couple of weeks ago. It was the first time being at one for the 4 years old. I love the wagon filled with the pumpkins and gourds! It says fall, harvest, work done well. We purchased a few pumpkins, my favorite being the small "sugar" pumpkins. There's one right in the center front of the wagon. Smooth skinned and small.

They'll go directly in the oven after a good scrub to the outer hull. Then insert a knife at the top and begin to split the pumpkin in two, cut through the skin on both sides of the pumpkin. Once it's split, cut off the stem and core the pumpkin. If you wish, you can quarter the pumpkin to roast it. I usually just set them on a cookie sheet, with a bit of water in the pan - about a cup or so - and roast it in the oven at 375F for about and hour or until the skin is tender.

Cool and scrape out the flesh into a food processor bowl. Pulse to puree the pumpkin. They are lighter in color than canned pumpkins and have a bit more "juice" too. I allow my fresh pumpkin puree to drain a bit to firm it up a bit.

It can now be used as you would the canned stuff or if you wish you can combine it with canned puree for a more traditional color. The puree will be good for about 3 days in your refrigerator, or you can freeze it at this point to use later. It will be good for six months.

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Weddings, gumpaste roses

Update: Pics of delivered cake at the end of the article!
When I managed the bakery, we had gumpaste roses readily available to use. As I looked at the wedding cake I needed to do for tomorrow, I realized I didn't have any gumpaste roses. What to do?


One choice would be to purchase some. I checked with a couple of shops 45 minutes away in either direction, and they were expensive, or too yellowish white. I checked online with the sources we used at the bakery and they had some really great prices. If, I wanted to buy 50 or more. That wouldn't be prudent.

So my other choice was to make them myself. I use fondant all the time, but I have never used gumpaste. So where does one go to learn quickly how to use the stuff, what it is made of, how to make it yourself and all other kinds of info? Where else? YouTube!

I found a great tutorial made by Edna. Edna is a cake designer from Florida. She shoes you how to quickly and easily make a rose in six, yes, six videos on you tube. She makes it look very simple so I thought I'd give it a try. This is my result.

Petals: There is waaay too much powdered sugar on the board, but it was the end of a long day and the last flower was done in a rush.


Bud centers. When I made the centers, I had watched an inferior you tube video that showed how to make them. The I found Edna. I wish I had found her first!


This is the result of my first effort in making gumpaste roses. I think they turned out well enough to use on the cake, and they will improve in quality as I practice more often.


I can see all kinds of things that should be done better, yet I still see enough quality that they would be acceptable for the wedding cake tomorrow. Thank goodness for Edna!

Update: Delivered cake:

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I love a wedding!

Got a call Saturday evening. A mom in desperate need of a cake. S'mee passed my name along as a possible person who could do a cake on short notice. The mom had looked a some of my wedding cakes online and decided on one prior to calling.


Being that she had done all of the leg work, how could I turn her down? It will be a chocolate cake, buttercream frosting and a cookies and cream filling. Mmmmm. Good choice. S'mee did the bouquet, and I am very glad she recommended me. So we will be delivering a cake to Apple Valley and then heading to Arizona! Yayayay!

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Perch

For years, I have been subjected to all the bird jokes. Yes, I've heard just about all of them. I chose to embrace Rocking Robin and her boppin all around as my favorite. Well, I have a new favorite! Perch is a lovely little blog I've been keeping to myself for some time now. Justine, the author, has the best taste around. I have drooled at her posts and snagged a few pictures to put in my "house" file for when we build our home. Justine is also a good friend of my daughter's I've come to find out recently.

Tomorrow Perch is going to spotlight Over the River and Through the Woods.... We are very excited to have Justine review us and have a giveaway. Yes, a giveaway! All you need to do is go to her site and make a comment on her post spotlighting our new venture! We're giving away a few goodies to give your parties the perfect pizazz!


Go, quick! You'll have a week to sign up, but you have to do it!

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