Welcome back! Sorry I haven't posted anything in a few weeks, it's been really busy lately with midterms and our March Madness event. This week was supposed to be Spring Break but due to the crazy snow we've received lately and the numerous school closings, weather make-up days have eaten up (pun intended) all but one of my Spring Break days. Since this week was supposed to be Spring Break, we did not have a service so instead, my chef decided to setup an Iron Chef type event. Monday we were given a list of ingredients we could use and we had to come up with an appetizer, an entree, and a dessert. We were broken up into groups of seven with two each working on the app and dessert and three working on the entree. Our group decided to make a Shepherds Pie for the entree, and Orange Souffle' with orange whipped cream for the dessert, and for the appetizer I had planned on making a mushroom risotto. I know i make risotto a lot and i should try to branch out and make something different, but i have yet to make risotto MY way for school so i saw this as an opportunity to finally do that.
Well we had prepped everything we needed for the dish, then at LITERALLY the last minute we were told that rice was not on our list of ingredients. DOH! Such a stupid mistake. Our ENTIRE class period gone to waste. 5 hours of prep time down the drain. I was angry, mostly at myself. I was so dead set on doing a risotto, I failed to notice rice wasn't on the list. We had no choice but to come up with something else on the spot, using the ingredients we had already prepped for the risotto. We had some portobello caps that were originally going to be used as the bowl to serve the risotto in. We decided to use those as a pizza shell instead and just make a portobello pizza. That idea saved the day because they went over really well. We had some diced mushroms, onions, and green peppers with thyme and parsley covered in mozzerella. It was delicious. Our team ended up having all 3 favorite dishes in the entire class, so I am pretty proud of what we did. I may tweak the recipe and try to make these again sometime.
Speaking of recipe, sorry I don't have a recipe this week since everything was made on the fly. But next week service returns to normal and i should have a really good recipe for you guys to try out. Also, I am working on an idea to where if someone decides to make something from any of these recipes and they bring it in to Acme for the employees to eat, you will win a prize or a discount or something. I'll let you know if the Higher-Ups approve of the idea since my last contest didn't go over too well. Until then, Happy Eating!
Eggcelsior!
