Loving Life

Hope everyone is doing well :)! I am loving life<3 It's the happiest I've been in a very long time! I keep getting 90% or higher in math or my kitchen classes! It's amazing here! I love it so much and I am making so many friends! I am meeting people from so many other cultures! It is one of the best experiences I could imagine happening. I couldn't imagine my life without it! It's weird to say I love going to school, but I do! I love everything here!!!!!!!! :D! I miss my family bunches, but I try not to think about it because then I would be sad all the time! I miss michigan fall and sitting around my house watching football, which I can do here, but it's not the same.  But I hope they don't only think about missing me, I want them to enjoy life in Michigan without me. Hope all is well in the world for the rest of you, if not keep your head up :). Everything turns out ok in the end, if it's not ok, it's not the end.

Peace & Love
-Meg

My first meal

My first meal here was incredible! I had steak with mashed potatoes and vegetables! It was amazing! Here is a picture, it looks really rare, I promise you, it was perfect! I miss my family too! I want to go visit but I know I have to stay here. I have met so many great people and friends! Everyone here thinks like me, I love it! Food network is always playing, in every building, it's heaven! Today I watched someone make french fried while I biked( surprisingly I haven't gained weight!) It's amazing how you can walk down the halls hear and usually you would hear gossip, or just chatting, here you hear what the best salmon you have had or what method would you cook this kind of meat, or what is the best thing you have ever made. It's all about food! I feel like I fit right in. I am so happy to see the second chapter of my life! I have been blessed with all of the people of my past, but now I need to see what my future holds, nothings holding me back, and I won't let anything hold me back. So lets not dwell on missing family or friends, or be sad of the changes in our lives from people we have come to love, instead lets smile and celebrate the good times we have had together. Let life bring on its new beginnings and happiness for all of us. My family will always be my family and I will love them and thank them for the rest of my life for everything they have done for me. I will always be there daughter I just am living in a separate place. I am your daughter and I always will be.There are more changes with people who were like family to me. I will always love and respect you forever and always. Changes can be hard, but sometimes holding on is harder. God bless you all, I love, cherish, and miss you all so much, and I hope you all can be a part of my second chapter of life.

Peace & Love

-Megan

The Culinary Institute of America!

Hey sorry I have not wrote in a while! I have been so busy getting ready and now I am here at the Culinary Institute of America. I will continue to blog, but it will be a lot less, but I will be making great food! I am making french onion soup and beef vegetable soup this week! I will upload pictures if I am allowed to take any!oh and If your wondering how I am doing, I am doing amazing!!! I love it here! It's like disney world for me! But it's school! I have some pictures I will upload :)

Baked Pastas

Lately I've been into baked pastas!I made a pasta with a cream sauce, with artichoke, then just crisped it up in the oven simple easy and Delicious!

Regis and Kelly

As I was watching Regis and Kelly the other day, I heard a great story. It was a man who told the story of a women he saw in a resturant. The women was weaping because the food she ate was the best food she has ever ate. Could you imagine having the power to impact someone by food that much?! I hope one day to do that to someone. If I could do that, I would be overjoyed!

Salmon Sushi Roll

I found a recipe for a salmon sushi roll. I was so excited for it,until I tried it! It was nasty! It is seaweed, cream cheese, sushi rice, cucumber, and salmon. I found it online and thought I should try it. I think I will stay away from random sushi recipes because now all I have is left over grossness! I am going back to my American cooking ways! I have left over chicken from the other night and today I think I am going to make pasta with some of the chicken and I don't know what else! Also send me any ideas or recipes you have! If I like it, I will try it and you will see it up here :)

Baked Italian Sausage Pasta

Now the picture doesn't do this justice. First, I made my somewhat known pasta sauce. It starts with onions and garlic sauteing in olive oil. Then I add about a cup of white wine to add richness to the dish. After the wine reduces add tomatoes to the mix to finish the sauce. I barbecued some Italian sausage until they were almost done. I threw them into the sauce to finish cooking in the sauce. This makes the sauce get the juices and flavors from the sausage and lets the sausage pick up the flavors of the sauce. Add not fully cooked pasta (about a minute underdone) to your sauce in a large pan. Add cheese over top and bake for about 20 minutes. When it comes out, it is so good and rewarding for all the work put into it. I must say it's one of my favorite dishes to make for myself and others. If i were to recommend anyone to make any of my dishes, this would be the one!

Ratatouille Pasta with Baked Salmon

I was so excited about my idea, I went home and made the ratatouille pasta. I found some Salmon in the freezer as well so I made some of that as well. For the pasta I started with cooking up some diced squash, zucchini, onions, garlic, and any other vegetables I found in my fridge. Then I sauteed them in some olive oil. I cooked them down in some white wine to give the dish a nice richness. Then I let the wine reduce giving you a nice rich vegetable sauce. I tossed in the pasta and finished cooking it in the wine mixture. Topped it with some cheese and it's finished! But before I did that I took my salmon and put olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, and a little chili powder on it. I wrapped the salmon in aluminum foil and placed it in the oven for about 20 minutes. In my case after 20 minutes the salmon wasn't completely finished, So I stuck it under the broiler which made it crispy and delicious!

Ratatouille pasta idea

I'm so excited!!!! I have been try to eat healthier so when I get home I am going to create ratatouille pasta!!! I can't wait it will be soo good I couldn't wait until after I posted it to come up with an idea!

Northwood Dinner

So I have this dinner coming up for my Pro-Start class. It's so frustrating because my teacher put me in charge of the menu, recipes, and plating. Every time I do it, she changes it all and shoots down all of my ideas. I can't help but feel frustrated and discouraged. The most frustrating part is that she wants a grocery list but doesn't like any of my ideas for the meal, so how can I make a grocery list if we don't know what we are making? eh! But here's the menu so far it sounds decent.

Appetizers: Still up in the air- either crab cakes, Philly cheese steak pizza, Cajun shrimp, stuffed mushrooms, and southwestern egg rolls.

Salad:Greek, was a leek and loaded baked potato soup :(

Main: Fruit stuffed pork with duchess potatoes and sauteed veggies.

Dessert: White chocolate bread pudding.

Any advice? Anyone?

New Grill+other exciting things

So lately I have been busy with lacrosse, work, and my Northwood class. For some reason I am the one in charge of the whole cooking aspect in the back of the kitchen. It is an honor but so very stressful and frustrating because no one else does anything. Thank God for a few of my friend in the class that helped me out. But I just am a little stressed, I am really excited to be the leader. But that should keep me busy for a while! We also got two new grills, a charcoal and just electric! I can't wait to grill everything this summer!!!!!!

Sick

I wanted to take a second to say sorry for not posting in about three weeks, I have been very sick. I havn't cooked in a week and I've been super stressed. I soon will cook after I get back from my trip to Mexico. I'm sure I will post some pictures of the beach and food! But enjoy your spring break! I certainly will!

Kick Ass Risotto!

Today I made the best risotto of my life. It was cooked with tomatoes and onions first. Then some white wine. So delicious! A hint of garlic and onion powder sets it over the edge. I couldn't have been more happy. It's a good feeling knowing what you can do. I was told not to go to culinary school but I know more then ever if I set my mind to it I will succeed. But I know that even the best chefs like Julia Child were brought down. When she went to culinary school, she was the first women to attend culinary school in Paris. But even she never gave up. Just thinking about Julia child makes me smile. I watched her movie today as well and wow, she gets defeated so meany times but always gets up. The best inspiration I could ask for. I know I will never meet Julia but her story and cook books will always give me hope. You rock Julia and thank you for inspiring me.

B.S.T.Sucess!

Yesturday as I was in my first hour, my teacher pulled out reciepes we had chosen. I chose mine to be the bacon spinich tomato pasta I have written about priviously on this blog. My teacher gave me a doubting look when I woke down the reciepe but when she tasted it there was no more unsure feelings. Every person in the class loved it , personally I was shocked. They thought it was the best thing they had made all year! The feeling of being a successful chef made me feel so wonderful! It was perfect timing because now we are goint to see The Culinary Institute of America today! Yay! I am going the in August so we are checking it out again!

Football food!

Here's are football feast! It was so good!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Snow day soup!

So I made some snow day soup and snow day hot cocoa! Too bad all we had was chicken, noodles, onions, white wine, and tomato paste to make with it! Oh well! We got a foot of snow and its still coming!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Stuffed peppers, potato cakes, and crab cakes (with a hint of dessert!)

I stuffed peppers with onions, garlic, rice, sausage, and put cheese on top! Then I baked them, so good! I then made a potato cake which you have to layer the potatoes and cook them until a crisp on one side, flip them onto a plate and flip it back so the other side. Then bake it until it is soft-so good!!! Then I made some crab cakes with bread crumbs,lemon zest, celantro, crab, mayo and sour cream. Then I covered them in bread crumbs and pan fried them. The sauce I made is. A saracha cream sauce. It is just saracha, sour cream, and mayo. Finally dessert I made my sugar cookie with cream cheese frosting and fruit cake- so good!!! I can't wait for next weekend-super bowl- good food is coming our way!
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

New Blog

Hey everyone, Today I decided to keep this blog strictly for the food I create and make another one for anything I want to write about. It's called life as I know it. http://lifeasiknowitmj.blogspot.com/ is the link to it. Check it out.

Failure of the Hollandaise sauce

I always lately having been craving to make the Godly Hollandaise sauce. The mixture of egg yolks and butter is pure heaven. Today in my Hospitality management though, the mixture wasn't so heavenly. Me and my partner screwed it up. The first try was a broken eggy buttery mess. Second try we actually burnt the mix, who knew that was possible. The third try was a thick beautiful until it slowly broke like the first one.I was defeated. At least my poached eggs were perfect :)

Bay city times

A picture of me in the bay city times!

Roasted Chicken

I cooked this chicken on a rotisserie and then cooked carrots, onions, celery, and potatoes with some broth and white wine.

Broccoli and Cheese Soup

I cooked broccoli with some mire poix (onion,carrots, and celery). Then blended it all up added cream and cheese. I also cooked some cheese and cut it to top off the soup.

Mushroom Turkey Eggrolls

You know that turkey testing I blogged about before? I took the testing and made turkey mushroom egg rolls. To my surprise, I WON! I won a $5,000 scholarship to the Culinary Institute of America based on my video I submitted. I could not have done it with out the help of my friends and family voting for me and of course Erika Collins for filming the video! You can watch my video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSe-fHzVIVo

Stuffed chicken with Rizzoto

I made rizzoto with chicken I stufed with delicious mozzarella cheese-so good!

Apple Crazy

This message has been sent using the picture and Video service from Verizon Wireless!

To learn how you can snap pictures and capture videos with your wireless phone visit www.verizonwireless.com/picture.

Note: To play video messages sent to email, Quicktime@ 6.5 or higher is required.
Today I went apple crazy! I made apple chips, apple cinnamon muffins, chocolate covered apples, and mini apple pie tarts!!!They didn’t all come out the way I hoped but that’s ok. It didn’t come out perfect but that’s ok! I don’t bake well so I knew it wouldn’t be perfect. But just cooking with cinnamon and apples just makes you think FALL IS HERE!!!