Fruit and Vegetable Carving Class: First Week

In my fruit and vegetable carving class, we got right into carving from the first day. On the first day, we learned to make basic carrot flowers. It is a fairly simple process. You want to use the biggest carrots you can find. You square up the carrot. You next sharpen it like a pencil, cutting along the sharp edges to form a point in the center. Then, you cut along the four corners down to the center to form the petals. When you cut the last petal, you slide the tip of the knife inside the flower to cut it away from the carrot.

We then used half an onion as a base, and created a bouquet from them. We arranged them with the largest in the middle, then worked outward with smaller and smaller flowers. The spaces between the flowers are filled in with parsley to hide any visible toothpicks.

On the second day, we did a lot more practice with basic techniques. We made more elaborate carrot
flowers, by first incising lines on the faces of the carrots before cutting the flowers from the squared carrots.

We also made more elaborate bases, by cutting steps in a turnip and a potato.With the turnip, we just cut broad gradated platforms. On the potato, we cut small, spiralling staircases.

We then made some simple characters. We made a fish from a lemon, and frogs from limes.

For the fish, we cut a simple mouth, took off thin slices to form eyes. We used slices of black olive for the pupils. We cut for the gills, and  used carrots to make fins and the tail. We cut strips of cucumber skin to make seaweed. The fish was mounted on the turnip, then some of the carrot flowers and some parsley was added to finish the scene.

For the frogs, large mouths were cut, and small patches removed to make the eyes. Again, slices of black olive were used to make the pupils. the skin of the section removed for the mouth was used to make the feet. A bit of radish skin was used for the tongues. We used carrot to make hats. I made a top hat and a winged helmet for my frogs. The frogs were mounted on the potato, and additional decoration of carrot flowers added.

This is turning out to be a fascinating class. I am curious to see where this takes me.

Spring Semester Grades

I already mentioned I got an A in my sanitation class. I checked the grades on my other two classes.

For my Cooking for Healthy Lifestyles class, we had to do a group practical final. We had to produce a healthy three course meal.

We decided on a Mediterranean style meal, with a pan-Middle Eastern style.I think it worked well. We did a good job working together as a team to produce both the menu and the final project.

For our appetizer, we made hummus, and served it with a variety of crudites.

This hummus was flavored with cilantro and a little jalapeno to give it a kick.

To be healthier, instead of using pita bread, we served it with celery, carrots, and yellow bell pepper. This also gave a lot of color to the plate.

For our main dish, we had a bed of couscous with peas and raisins. On top of that was Lebanese Orange Chicken.

To accompany the meal is a Greek salad with marinated onions and cucumbers, kalamata olives, tomatoes, and julienned carrots.

Also with the dish are spicy Moroccan style vegetables with sweet potato, leek, onion, and zucchini.

For our dessert, we made a coconut milk panna cotta with fresh strawberries.

To make it more vegan friendly, it was made with agar agar instead of gelatin. It is garnished with a little toasted coconut.

We can't complain. We got an a on the final, and with that and 100% on my written final, I secured a solid A for that class.

For my cake decorating class, our final project was to make a dummy wedding cake. The core of the cake was Styrofoam, as the object of this exam was testing decorating skill, not cake baking.

My partner and I chose to make an Indian inspired cake. We used the peacock, lotus blossoms, and henna patterns in the design of the cake.

The cake is covered in a light ivory fondant. We wanted a blank canvas for the elaborate decorations we had planned.

The body of the peacock is made of colored fondant.

The tail is piped royal frosting.

The lotus blossoms are made from wafer paper. They were cut out, air brushed, then assembled.

on the other side are some fondant ropes framing piped henna patterns in purple and gold.

I'm really proud of this cake. I think it came out quite nice. We scored a 9.4 out of ten on it.

I managed an A+ in this class, which was a better grade than I thought I would get. I was expecting a B or at best a B+.

This was a relatively unstressful semester, though I did occasionally get stressed out over my lack of piping skills.

Next up for summer: Sugar work, and fruit carving.