Finally-- real protein.

Fish. Sweet, merciful, fish. Again, I have no issues with vegetarian cuisine, but it's not the most exciting food to eat...or cook. Protein of the "once-breathing" variety requires some more finesse, it's a better medium for flavor...and...well...IT'S MEAT!

As I mentioned in my previous food post, today was pesco-vegetarian...for those hippies in the world that may not eat Bambi but are A-OK chowing down on Nemo. Our dishes focused on salmon (an emerging favorite food of mine) and skate. I must say-- skate is one ugly fish.

Both dishes were tasty. The salmon was your standard panko-breaded piece of fish, but it was seasoned with a mixture of minced Cilantro, Nori Seaweed and Lemon Zest. That's a weird combo at first glance, but it provides a great citrus, salty flavor-- perfect for fish.

The tofu stuffed in the center turned a lot of people off, but I honestly didn't mind it. Then again, I don't mind the texture of tofu, and in this case I felt it gave each bite some substance.

The fun thing about this class is the playful way to approaching starches and vegetables on the plate. This isn't just put cauliflower next to the fish...let's make a puree out of it. I've never had such flavorful cauliflower...it almost tasted like mashed potatoes (if *that* makes sense). As for the Curry Emulsion...I could take or leave it. It was sweet with a spicy bite at the end, a very interesting and tasty combo, but a little went a long way.

If you don't roast tomatoes...you're missing out. Just put some salt, pepper and oil on them and stick them in an oven to slow roast at say, 300 degrees. If you really want to rock it add things like red wine vinegar and some of your favorite herbs to the marinade-- so good!

Fingerling Potatoes-- fun to say, fun to eat.

I really enjoyed the Shallot Encrusted Skate. I'm used to eating a lot of flat fish when I reach out to cook fish at home, but skate was never one that grabbed my attention. It's got a good, natural fishy taste to it without being too overwhelming.

So the original recipe for the dish called for the skate to be encrusted in onion, but the Chef said that could be a bit intense. This is where shallots save the day. They taste better (to me) anyway. What you're left with is a nice balance of crunchy and soft. Think the texture people love fish sticks for but with high-end products.

The vinaigrette Incorporated champagne vinegar, salad and truffle oils, minced herbs, some salt and pepper, and red tobbiko caviar. We also got to bust out the "chemistry set" with this one and use lecithin (powder) and xantham gum to mess with consistencies and properties of the vinaigrette. I'll leave you to the Wiki pages to read up on those a bit more-- I don't feel like explaining.

LESS THAN A WEEK LEFT TO VOTE ON THE BLOG MASCOT NAME (poll, to the right). OmNom holds a slim lead-- if that's not OK with you the time to act is now!

OK, enough for now...it's my day off from The Omni. Time to relax...

RECIPE -- Vegetarian Chili

Alright, I've got a few minutes so it's time to bestow the masses with the recipe for this fantastic Vegetarian Chili I keep raving about.

Keep in mind that this recipe originally calls for a 1/2 cup of T.V.P. (Texturized Vegetable Protein-- sounds delicious, huh?). I'd say unless you're hardcore about keeping it vegetarian, don't hesitate to brown some of your favorite meat on the side instead and toss it in. Or just leave the meat and T.V.P. completely out and bask in the deliciousness of vegetables.

Anyway-- the recipe:

VEGETARIAN CHILI

1 oz Vegetable Oil
8 oz Onion (medium dice)
2 oz Red Pepper (medium dice)
2 oz Green Pepper (medium dice)

Sweat the onions and peppers in the oil.

2 tsp Cumin
2 tsp Chili Powder
1 tsp Oregano Leaf
2 tsp Garlic (minced)

Add the ingredients to the pot with the onions and peppers. Cook GENTLY until the aroma of the garlic is apparent. Be careful not to burn the spices.

1 Chipotle Pepper (minced)
1 tsp Adobo Sauce (you can buy this in cans at many supermarkets)
8 oz Pinto Beans (cooked)
4 oz Kidney Beans (cooked)
4 oz Black Beans (cooked)
4 oz Garbanzo Beans (cooked)
2 Green Chilies (your preference in terms of spiciness-- Jalapeno? Serrano?)
1 pint Vegetable Stock
2 cups Diced Tomatoes (in juice)

Add the rest of the ingredients to the pot and bring mixture to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for about 30 minutes to allow flavors to marry and consistency to thicken.

And that's it-- a one pot meal in all of it's delicious glory.

Don't forget to adjust seasonings at the end (salt, pepper, spice, etc.) and you can adjust the consistency with a Cornstarch (or Arrowroot) Slurry. That's equal parts water and Cornstarch/Arrowroot mixed together and whisked (BE SURE TO WHISK CONSTANTLY FOR 30 SECONDS OR SO WHEN ADDING SLURRY) into the almost finished product. Add slowly as to not over thicken. If it does get to thick just add more vegetable broth.

Hope you get motivated to try it. I promise you won't be disappointed!

EAT YOUR VEGETABLES! (still)

We finally move on to pesco-vegetarian food tomorrow (which allows the use of seafood), but for today it was one more meatless romp in Contemporary Cuisine.

I could take or leave the Green Lentil Chili. There was nothing in the Chili aside from lentils and sauce-- far from the variety I like and expect from the typical Chili. Plus, no matter how cooked and soaked in the sauce the lentils were...they're dry and kinda' bland. Good for you, sure, but bland.

The Vegetarian Chili, however, was amazing. I made mention of this exact recipe when I did the Enthusiast Course at school around Cinco de Mayo because it was made in that class. There's nothing else to say other than IT IS AMAZING! This is forever more my go-to recipe starter for any Chili I will make in the future (recipe to be posted soon).

And yes...I will put meat in it to take it to an even tastier level.

OK, that's it for now. VOTE TO NAME THE FOOD MASCOT! The poll is still located to the right. Also-- go Blackhawks...and the 'Lost' finale...well...yawn. Not going to miss that show...

Weekend Update

I know it's Tuesday, but I had a few pics from the weekend worth posting. That and the blog was starting to accumulate dust-- the new job has me busy and finding free time (or at least free time when I don't want to be asleep or simply lazing about) is hard as of late.

This was my fuel for the weekend. We catered a local prom on Friday at The Omni and put out around 400 plates of lasagna. First of all, who wants lasagna at prom? It seems like a potential mess waiting to happen, but maybe that's just me. Second, when your favorite food is lasagna the last thing you want is to only be able to stare at it and plate it up a few hundred times. After about five minutes of that you want to gorge on every last scrap of noodle you see, trust me.

So, no surprise, after work I was off to GEagle to get ingredients to satisfy my lasagna fix.

Anyway, I know I've posted a pic of homemade lasagna on here before (what can I say, when I do cook at home I cook food I crave). This go-around I went with a sweet Italian sausage instead of ground beef, and I used fresh mozzarella instead of shredded or sliced processed versions. I'd say the changes made a difference --great ingredients usually do-- and overall I enjoyed this pan start to finish between Friday and today.

I just snapped this pic on the way to work on Sunday. You have to love Pittsburgh in the spring! I mean just look at that beautiful downtown skyline!

Anyway, Sunday was different for a lot of reasons at The Omni. We didn't cook out of the usual kitchen on the lower floor for starters. Instead we packed up all the food we would be using for the day and made a few trips tightly crammed into service elevators to a kitchen on the 17th floor.

The reason for the change of location was that the banquet we were putting food out for happened to be Kosher. This meant using tools and pans that were caged away in the 17th floor kitchen that have only been used in the past for these Kosher events. The few pans we used that had seen pork, shellfish or a dairy product in their lifetime had to be covered in Saran wrap.

(Note-- this was somewhat super annoying because we were not allowed to use our personal knives. The "Kosher" knives were just terrible-- just duller than dull. Try butterflying a chicken breast sometime with a dull knife...ugh).

Also interesting was that the Rabbi in the kitchen for the event had to check our preparation and cleaning of any vegetables used in the meal (bugs are also off the menu on Kosher menus...but I think that one is pretty universal), and he also had to turn on all the ovens, burners, steamers, etc. I don't quite know why, to be honest, but I just know it had to be done.

Let me now make note of one of the greatest things I have ever seen-- a Rabbi...with a flamethrower.

Let's just let that sink in for another second.

Yes, I have seen it-- a Rabbi with a flamethrower. Since it's probably impossible for The Omni to reserve a huge collection of serving vessels and tools just for Kosher events, items that had seen non-Kosher food items in their day were...well...cleansed? And by cleansed I mean the Rabbi walked around with a propane tank attached to a line which was attached to a nozzle. When he fired that bad boy up a nice foot or so of flame would shoot out and "purify" whatever needed a Kosher do over.

A Rabbi with a flamethrower...never thought I'd see that in this lifetime.

One other nice note about the 17th floor kitchen was the view. The kitchen downstairs is windowless, so when you are able to look up after plating almost 400 salads and see this:

Score.

There's still time to vote in the NAME THE MASCOT CONTEST. The poll is still located to the right, and there's still time to make your voice heard!

Vegan food never looked so good...

Nothing draws more groans from the majority of the class than when vegetarian and vegan food appears on the recipe rotation at school. I've never been one to get down on eating a plate of veges or soy products --as long as it tastes good-- so I was pretty excited to see how the pair of dishes we worked on today would turn out.

The focus in this class is quality over quantity, namely plate design over creating a buffet of food each day. To that I say...FINALLY! It's time to make stuff pretty as well as taste good. That's why I decided to attend this school in the first place-- to create dishes a motivated home cook can't produce with a recipe and a couple episodes of 'Good Eats' under their belt.

The dish our group was responsible for today (we will switch tomorrow) was the Crepes. The Crepes themselves use chicpea flour and can be tweaked with herbs of your choosing for both flavor and appearance.

As for the Tofu filling-- just herbs, garlic, lemon juice and salt. Nothing crazy, I know, but it's certainly more entertaining on the pallet than plain Tofu. We also put some of the roasted vegetables in the Crepes (Shiitake Mushrooms, Asparagus, Scallions, Red Pepper, Red Onion) in addition to using them as a garnish.

Now the carrots is what makes this dish all fancy and interesting, at least in my eyes. We have the carrot sauce (Shallots, Thyme, Lemon Juice and Carrot Juice, reduced down and garnished with Parsley). Then there was the Carrot Foam (fell free to call it 'Bubbles' or 'Air' if you prefer), which is nothing more than Carrot Juice hit with an immersion blender to incorporate air. And finally, the Carrot Powder. You take the leftover pulp from the carrots you juice, roll it flat on a sheet tray and bake until the carrot pulp dries out. Crumble and use as a garnish.

All in all-- the dish was good but nothing spectacular. It tasted like the stereotypical vegetarian and or vegan food many people scorn (i.e. it would taste better with meat involved somehow).

The other half of the class produced the tastier dish of the two in my opinion. The Soy Brown Sauce was held perfectly by the homemade Wheat Noodles. It also blended well with the Seitan, which is nothing more than a pound of all purpose flour and wheat flour kneaded into a firm ball and soaked under cold water for five minutes or so to allow the starch to rinse out of the dough. You repeat that step a few times and are left with a gelatinous, starch free(ish) ball of dough, which we cooked off in a vegetable and herb poaching liquid.

Add the vegetables for a bit of color and crunch-- no complaints there. I enjoyed a small bowl of it, but I must admit was kinda' sick of it by the near end. The sauce was tasty...and your mind starts to wonder how it might taste on a hunk of chicken or something. Sigh...oh well.

OK, that's it for now. I have about 10 minutes to shower and hustle over to The Omni for Day 2 of work. Day 1 kicked my butt...and I'm sure it's going to be more of the same from now until Saturday (40 hours in the first week-- mixed blessing of the century when you're up at 5:30am everyday).

VOTE ON THE MEAT MASCOT IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY!

There's still time to donate!

Molly has a video up on YouTube reminding us all that there's still time to donate to her cause as she continues to train for the upcoming San Diego Marathon. Check it out, or head to her Web site for more info!

I GOT THE JOB AT THE OMNI, PITT!

I START MONDAY!

Gotta' admit-- rooting for Habs now...

Cuisine Across Cultures BBQ

I won't go too much into the details of the finale of Cuisine Across Cultures food. If you have ever been to a family reunion, you have probably ate at least of version of food we prepared today. I must say though, it probably wasn't as tasty as this.

Notes of interest: the base flavor for the BBQ sauce mixed with the Pulled Pork is reduced Root Beer ... I. LOVE. DEVILED EGGS! ... Putting Feta Cheese on anything automatically takes it to a level of awesomeness unmatched by few ... I also made lemonade from scratch today (lemon juice, simple syrup, ice and water). Sooo good! ... This was possibly the best "meal" I've had at school.

NAME THE BLOG MASCOT CONTEST IS ONGOING! Please vote to the right, and feel free to invite your friends to do the same. I'm pretty happy with the amount of votes so far! It gives me a good idea of the amount of people who read the blog and care enough about it to get interactive.

NAME THE MASCOT POLL OPENS TODAY!

I was browsing Pens pictures the other day and sat wide-eyed in shock at my computer desk after discovering this photo of the Blog Mascot going crazy at Mellon Arena a few years back. This photo leads me to believe that a high-ranking Pens administrator so admired our carnal friend's homemade T-shirt that soon "white outs" would become common place for Penguins playoff games in years to come.

The poll is officially open(!!!) and located to the right! It will remain open until 12:22pm on May 31st. Why then? I dunno. It gives people time to vote I guess...

Many entered, few names were selected-- now it's YOUR turn to narrow it down to the big winner! I don't know what winning might entail yet (maybe I will make you dinner), but if you sent in a name please don't feel obligated to vote for your own. There were many strong entries!

Vote, and feel free to tell your friends!

BBQ Prep Day

Home-grown feasting...

Only three days remain in Cuisine Across Cultures, and the cycle is coming to the close with food that really hits close to home-- American food.

This is one of those food cycles that is such a hodgepodge it's tough to define. Apple pie? Sorry, French. Soul food? Nope, African. Hamburgers!? Those European butchers had to find a way to make the less-than-best cuts of meat available to them edible.

If anything you have to go regional. You want steak in America? See you in Texas. Gumbo? Louisiana, obviously. That Maine lobster is going to be stellar in Maine and expensive as all heck in Alaska. That ham and pineapple pizza you got last week? Aloha, Hawaii.

Think comfort food. That's American food to me. Chances are one of the dishes in the above slide show was on the table at your last Thanksgiving, if not last week.

Anyway-- the rundown: Scalloped Potatoes, Fried Scallops, Beef Stew, Cheese Grits, Pot Roast (don't know where the pic of that went), Swiss Steak...you've seen and eaten these products in your life so I'm not going to badger you with the details. As we all know, they're delicious. I mean I can't eat a Swiss Steak in any capacity without immediately comparing it to my mother's.

The Codfish Cakes were tasty. You start with very heavily salted cod that has been soaked in water for a few days to cut the intense salt flavor. I'm not going to lie, when the fish was finally cooked and being shredded for the dish...it smelled like a foot. But through the miracle of cooking (and the right spices), foot fish became tasty fish. That's weird to say, sure, but it's true.

Brunswick Stew was a new one for me, and honestly it was pretty similar to the Beef Stew. The main ingredients received a bit of a face lift, however, as chicken and rabbit were used in the variations we made in class. Hearty, satisfying-- perfect for those cold Midwest nights.

Side note: I got to fabricate my first rabbits (sorry if anyone was a huge fan of Thumper in Bambi). There's not a ton of meat on the little guys, but I'd say the process is a hybrid of boning a chicken (for the legs) and a fish (for the loin and tenderloins). I must also say that rabbit is delicious. The other, other woodland creature meat I suppose.

Gumbo has been a mixed bag when it has popped up on kitchen menus this year in school. In month three, it was 50/50 if it was any good. In Catering and Buffet, the Gumbo made for the final buffet was *terrible* to say the least. And the first day or so in this food cycle, I still wasn't impressed. It's not hard to make, really, it's just easy to screw up. For some reason people go a little heavy-handed on an ingredient (be it the roux preparation or the hot sauce), and what you get is a one-hit wonder...and we're talking Aqua's "Barbi Girl" here. Yuck.

As I frequently seem to do on this blog, I'm going to rave about *my* preparation of the Gumbo. Why? People were raving about it to me, so I must have done something right. All I can modestly say is that, for once, the flavors were balanced. I didn't get bitter, ingredient, salt, burn, bitter. It just tasted like a hearty stew, and it was especially delicious over rice.

Every now and then I seem to pull something out thin air and make it delicious. I think it's because when I keep tasting something and it lets me down, I work extra hard to make it succeed when i have a crack at it. Granted this is my opinion here, but let me make one thing clear-- you don't have your peers or Chef rave about your food every day. You're lucky if you get it once a week.

The Shrimp Etoufee is similar to the Gumbo, just spicier. The "Trinity" (celery, onions and green pepper) are all mixed into a very dark roux, and after that it's time to get heavy-handed with the Cajun seasoning and Tobasco. Very tasty, I must say, but I like spicy.

I don't do pineapple and ham on a pizza, so the Pork dish had very little appeal to me. There's sweet (like say, a Honey Baked Ham), and then there's weird-sweet. I do love me some grilled pineapple though. All vegetables and fruits should be grilled whenever possible.

Succotash may be a new side dish for me. Think Creamed Corn with Lima beans and red pepper in the mix. We're talking five ingredients here, put them in a pot together, stir and boom-- Succotash. Makes a great side at your next family get together.

We end today with the Mushroom Stuffed Chicken. Honestly, I didn't care for it. That's a very weird thing for me to say --I love chicken and mushrooms-- but for some reason this dish didn't do it for me. All signs have to point to the sauce I guess, or perhaps there was a sauce on the mushrooms. Stuffing chicken is a new obsession of mine, but I think I will steer clear of this take.

OK-- all that's left before a four-day weekend starting Thursday is a BBQ in kitchen and a couple of tests/projects here and there. I'd make a point to stop back for the BBQ pics, as we're going all out (Pulled Pork, Ribs, BBQ Sauces from scratch, etc).

I will also wrap up this month of class by finally producing a list of NAME THAT MEAT MASCOT finalists, because I know there's five of you who care out there.

2010 PITT Marathon -- Video of the start

Forgot I had this video of the start of the marathon. It's not the most exciting video (the wall of humanity just surges slowly forward since I'm a ways away from the starting line), but you can get an idea of the atmosphere.

Oh, I saw Molly about 10 seconds after I stopped recording this. Go figure...

PITT EXPERIENCE -- 2010 PITT Marathon

This post is a week or so late as I was waiting for some supplemental pics to come in before writing it up. Yes, the PIT Marathon happened. Yes, Molly ran it and kicked some butt. And yes, we both survived the "bomb" scare, lol.

I must say that the whole experience was awesome, from the Marathon Expo at the PIT Convention Center, to carb-loading the night before (OK, I was just eating), to the pre- and post-race craziness.

The most surreal moment of the weekend for me was that in the time it took me to walk from watching the start back to East Ohio Street near my apartment (about a 20-minute walk), the leaders were already screaming by. That's 4.5 miles in the time it took me to walk about one-- the shape these guys are in is just crazy.

Sorry some of the pics are blurry, and I wish I had some action shots of Molly. Finding a person in a marathon is kinda' complicated. Think "Where's Waldo" in motion. I'm pretty sure I yelled "GO MOLLY!" at a complete stranger. Thankfully she saw me --as you can tell from the pics I was a giant OU ad-- and we managed a low five as she went by.

Really cool stuff though. Maybe the improving weather will get me back to exercising regularly.

Side note: I made chicken (in the style of) fajitas for lunch the day before the race! Mmm...

PITT FOOD EXPERIENCE -- Dozen Bake Shop

After another delicious outing to Fatheads (this time to show it off to Sarah and Evan, who were in town for a night), we walked past Dozen Bake Shop in Pittsburgh's Southside. CP, also with us for dinner, suggested we stop in for some dessert. Who says no to that?

And who in their right mind says no to an enormously-enormous Oreo Rice Krispie Treat? Better men than I...

OK, good-- no more Mexican food.

To be perfectly honest with you up front, I'm glad this food cycle is over. Maybe it's because it followed too close to the Mediterranean cycle, which included Spanish food, or perhaps there is such a thing as too much of a good thing.

I'm Mexi-flavored out.

To make this post even more uplifting, most of the "supplementary dishes" worked on in the previous few days (with a busy weekend in between again fogging my memory) were again off the beaten path of our recipe packets. We have two guys in our class who are Puerto Rican, and we did a lot of authentic cooking based off of their family recipes and styles they grew up with.

Very cool, yes, but some of the Spanish names are lost on me here. Of course, in super-duper professional blog mode, I have created titles for those dishes using quotation marks to set them off.

The "Garbanzo Bean Soup" was supposed to be a bit more stew-like, I believe, but too much stock was added. Oh well, it was still a very flavorful soup. I might have to hit up the Chef or the guys for the recipe because it would taste fantastical on a cold and/or rainy day.

I immediately regret referring to the "logs" in the second picture as "log-like" because they were far from wood in texture. If anything they were very soft, as they were a kind of dough mixed with various flavors (we had two selections-- one savory, one sweet). They were tasty, though perhaps a bit bland. Some of these dishes felt like they were missing something...

The Quesadillas-- still a dish I generally order my first time out at a restaurant if nothing else on the menu jumps out at me-- were pretty standard. Cheese and fixins, heated together on a grilled tortilla. There's millions of ways to make them, and ours were served with a Chipotle Mayo. I'd say that's a win, but they were nothing out of the ordinary.

This Arroz con Pollo I made today was *very* different from the same dish I made in Catering and Buffet kitchen. That one was much more cumin and tomato based, while this one relied more on an array of Mexican ingredients we were in short supply of in the kitchen. The recipe was heavy-handed with the salt a bit today too --BLAH!-- which made the dish less than appealing to me. Other people seemed to enjoy it though.

I don't know if I should be worried about my pallet, but I don't think your food should taste like a salt lick. <> Ugh, the average American pallet has been ruined by processed foods!

The last dish, whatever fancy name it may have, can be adequately summed up in the title I gave it. It was pretty much the exact tastes of Chicken Parm...just with steak. Now I'm not complaining, Chicken Parm is delicious, but it seemed out of place in this food cycle.

By the way, I should clear the air. In my last post I dished on the Apple Quinoa. I assumed it would be blah...and then I tried it today. Not bad...very refreshing...but still not something I could see myself going out of my way to make or order. It's just...strange.

OK...American food is our last food cycle this class, and I still have posts about jobs (if they surface), the PIT Marathon (waiting on some supplemental pics) and documentaries I've been watching via NetFlix (when I can find the time to write the post).

Oh, and also-- I'm sad...names for the NAME THE MASCOT contest stopped coming in about a week ago after a flurry of early entries. I mean if you people are done, I guess I have to produce some potential winners to be voted on (*cough* SEND MORE NAMES *cough*)!