Go meaty, dinner 21/10

Bought some beef sausages from Carrefour last Sunday (special offer!!). Took out the meat & added thyme & chopped onions. Rolled into balls with mozarella cheese filling. Sauce was made of tomato paste, water, red wine vinegar & sugar. Made pork version (below pix) specially for my mum & bro-in-law who don't take beef.
Marinated with dark soy sauce, honey, pepper & salt. Didn't marinate long enough for the taste to penetrate, 3hrs was definitely not enuff. I did once last week marinated overnight & it tasted v good. Tonight was a little blend.

Wii wiiiiiii

Bot wii & wii fit last week. Had been thinking abt getting one since i was in china. why buy now?? cos with wii fit i can have some fun exercising at home, otherwise i'll surely become one fat chef someday, like many friends are trying to warn me of. Hopefully with wii i won't get too lazy... all the best to me :D

Here comes the food....

Lemon Passionfruit curd - I followed the recipe from straits time. Abit too sour but the taste isn't bad.
Tarts made with the lemon curd, mum did the crust. not bad for a start but many commented to sour lol.. will improvise.
1 fine day my mum decided to make sushi so by default I have to help. Brought her to NTUC finest in Bukit Timah Plaza cos CCK NTUC sucks. My mum ended up only cooking the rice & cutting the seaweed, I did the rest. Hmmm... I don't know how to roll properly yet, & the gunkan sizes were all different =( but taste was alright.
My 1st cake - Started with simple fruit cake 1st. I insisted to bake the sponge cake myself instead of mum helping cos I wanted it to be SOLELY my 1ST, lol.... It wasn't as easy as I imagined. I rarely try making pastry, I should start practicing now. Again, not bad for a start, sponge cake was nice & soft, fresh cream almost failed as I overwhipped the 1st round. My classmates liked it :) whereas my bro commented the cake being too um.... 'loose'.

The gift for my hard work

I was voted by my classmates for 'best kitchen staff' & awarded with this recipe book written by our CEO, Chef Megel. I'm thankful to my classmates for their support.

Buffet training


Forbes event


Formula 1

Long time no blog

wooowww... it has been 2 months since I last blogged. Just completed this F&B term 2 weeks ago. Too lazy to edit the photos which is why it took me so long to update :p

Past 2 mths was v busy for school. 1st we had our class tests for F&B, then we had our mock up 1 & mock up 2 for restaurant training (RT), right after was our actual RT with 'guests' from office, chef instuctors who gave us evaluation on our service, restaurant design, etc. After RTs came the end of term written & practical exams. In between all these, we were involved in Forbes event (rich men gala dinner), Formula 1 nite race (i was in the Honda box at the paddock =)) & lastly, buffet training.

RT was a very good training for my creativity, perseverance & of cos service. I'm not a very creative person, but I drained my brain trying to 'create' a nice restaurant. Everybody elses had a theme but I couldn't think of any. Worst or all I fell sick during the actual RT due to late nites designing the menu & over stressed. So I just did a restaurant called Muxe (Muse), meaning source of inspiration. Overall creativity wasn't fantastic but I'm glad that it suits the fine dining feel that I was trying to create. We all played different roles in one another's RT: Restaurant manager (design restaurant theme), servers (as captain), bartenders (create a mocktail), executive chefs & stewards.

School II

Table setting in a team

Menu for a lunch event

Nice table setting

Western kitchen

Having fun in the kitchen

Dinner 28th July

Hmmm, another week has past. School was great last week cos lotsa cooking & cutting, including cutting myself LOL... Today onwards will be fully F&B training & little bit of OJT in kitchen.

Ok, dinner tonite was Sausage patty sandwich with yellow zucchini. I minced the meat of sausage, mixed with sauteed shallots & garlic, dried mixed herbs, egg & flour to mold into patty. This picture is abit colorless.... I dun hv lettuce at home :(

School

ok.. today I have time to write, no morning quiz tmr (yippee!)

Alright, let me recap 1st day: Woke up 0545 but not as fresh as last "1st day" haha... 1st day and the 1st half of 2nd day was orientation. I felt nervous as I haven't been to school for a long time. We had a v heart warming welcoming session whereby the CEO Chef M, all the faculty Chefs and main office staffs stand in a line and introduced themselves. After which is the school policies, introduction of each dept etc... a bit boring at the end. Lunch was good. I like the way we have lunch at school. Lunching at the patio in the park, the staffs & chefs will mingle around the students and chat with them. Everyday will be a different duty chef (when they are not teaching) so we can have a taste of the chef's specialties. We have chefs from Indian, Malaysia, Thailand, China, Switzerland, French and of cos S'pore. All nice pple....

2nd day we had a spice garden tour at fort canning park. I never knew S'pore has such a garden. It was fun...then fun was over cos 1st lesson began in the afternoon...Chef M sat beside me with some others during lunch (to mingle), made me so nervous. Nvr had a CEO sitting beside me b4 LOL.....

We have quizzes everyday, today's the 3rd lesson and we already had 4 quizzes. Some graded and some not. Quizzes are not difficult but it has been a long time since I last studied so I'm kinda stress and I wanna do well. Today is the only day I don't have to study for quiz & we were released earlier today. I dun think I'll have such luxury too often especially when practical classes start.

Below is the knives set bought from school, it cost me $535. I've worked 3 weeks temp, earned $746 but paid $535 for knives, $52 for textbook, $171.2 for chef jackets, $21.4 for aprons. I hope there's nothing more to pay, no more temp job to cover :(

All in all, school is fun tho tiring, I'm enjoying it much more than working. Hopefully I can get more pictures to post, esp on the practical.

updates

School started 3 days ago but I haven't got time to sit down and write abt it. everyday is tiring but fun. will talk abt it later... off i go to study for the quiz tmr.......

Dinner 19th June

Diced Beef:

Cooked w butter, seasoned w salt & pepper.

Garlic: sliced and toast or deep fried.

Beer Batter Stuffed Chicken:

Minced prawn seasoned w rosemary, paprika, salt & pepper

Debone chicken wing & stuff with prawn mixture

Beer batter: Beer, plain flour, salt & dried herbs

Cover stuffed wings w batter & deep fry till golden brown

En route to school

Took some pictures yesterday for the '1st day of school'. Was contemplating whether to put up the pix since it wasn't it anymore. But then again, the feeling was there, and i dun think i can take pix again on the next 1st day, so I decided to post them. VOILA.....

wide awake at 6am

last look b4 leaving the house. black n white... can't rem when was the last time I wore like dat

Overhead bridge to the bus stop

190 bus stop. I'm glad to be staying in CCK for once.... just for bus 190 cos it's just 35mins to town.

Crossing the road to Park Mall

Taking the lift to the 4th level

Gotta walk thru this carpark (boring..)

Finally the beginning of more interesting route

From here onwards, I can smell some funny odour. I think it's from the trees around but I didn't smell it when I was here in the afternoon.

4 flights of stairs.... where the panting begins....

I was breathing heavily when I reach the top. Age is really catching up...

Nice trees leading to Fort Canning Centre

Um..... FCC :p

School's main office, classes & kitchens on the left & right

kitchens on the right, ground level. Will be sitting around there for lunches in future.

View to the spice garden

Beautiful sky.... it's a nice place for school :)

After all the walking & photo taking, I was still early..... well, I was 1 mth earlier haha...