My First You Tube Demo

   If you haven't already seen it, here is my first attempt at a cooking demo. I recorded it myself using my laptop. Got to love apple! It wasn't rehearsed, and since I have recieved a lot of great feedback on how to improve for the next time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvrCtCIw868

The End Is Near

Our Last few Therapeutic Classes

   It is so hard to believe that I am in the home stretch, the last few weeks of Bauman's Natural Chef program. Soon I will be a certified natural chef! I can't say its been an easy ride, or that I wish that it wouldn't end. I can say that I have learnt so much, and worked harder than I ever have before. Still have a few big hurdles to climb - the final project on childhood obesity, a business plan and the class showcase dinner. 
   The last few weeks were jammed with such important and fascinating information. We learnt how to prepare food for specific needs - heart health, diabetes, weight management and cancer. These are the tools that will propel me into becoming the thoughtful, caring, and well educated chef I want to be.

   Some of the better recipes were a Red Beet Rice, Raw Butternut Squash Salad, and my favorite was a Sweet Potato and Sauteed Kale. 

Thereuptic Cooking Month

January is Therapeutic Cooking Month


   We began the new year with Therapeutic cooking, the very essence of Bauman's Culinary program and for what I had been waiting. It is the sum of all the nutrition we have been studying since September, and the reason for attending a Natural Chef school.
   The recipes read kind of blah - boring, not so sexy. I must say though after 2 weeks it has been some of the most fun and best food we have made in our class. But also these foods have major health benefits and have taught me how to cook for people with specific health issues.
   There are some definite standout dishes, recipes I would have never dreamed I'd enjoy.  Some examples - Chicken with Cilantro-Pistachio Pesto, Roasted Curried Cauliflower, Beetroot Salad with Onion and Horseradish, Kasha and Sauerkraut-Stuffed Cabbage with Honey Mustard Sauce, Russian Cabbage Borscht, Kohlrabi with Spanish-Style Spiced Almonds, Gluten-Free Ginger-Coconut Muffins, and Baked Millet Croquettes with Shiitake Mushroom Sauce.
   Here are the pictures - some are not as visually pleasing as they are pleasurable tasting.

The recipes are as always available. If you don't know how to reach me directly - post a comment and I will respond.

More year end catch up

The rest of the world cusine was interesting, I will write a little about it and move on so I can catch up and begin fresh in the new year. My personal favorites aside from Mediterrean were Japanese and Thai. I wasn't a huge fan of Latin American or for that matter North American as I didn't particularly care for the recipes and regions that were represented. Some of the highlights in photo's will be added as soon as I reach a location with some real internet connection. Advice don't plan on working online while at Canyon Ranch, Tuscon.


The high point of interest for me in the last month  was the raw food day. I was really quite impressed by the recipes, information, the quality, presenatation and overall taste. I also physically felt amazing after the meal. It is inspiring me to do more research and considering adding a good deal of raw into my personal diet.

The start of the holiday season, time to focus

Time to catch up - Globe Trotting at Bauman


I haven't been able to get on this for a couple weeks, I missed it. Where did I leave off - baking? So, I didn't get to the international section we completed before Thanksgiving. So lets see, we did recipes from the Mediterrean, North Africa, Japan, Thailand, South America, and North America. Those who know me can guess that Mediterrean was my personal favorite. I got to make a Risotto using brown rice and mushrooms, plus work with my name mate and pal Julie D., we always have fun working together and create yummy food while we are at it. Those of you who know me, know it wouldn't be like me not to finish it off with a dash of white truffle oil, truffle salt and a little cheese. While I'm not the worlds biggest mushroom fan, this is probably  one of my favorites so far. We made it so creamy, you may not have even realized it was brown rice, and the mushrooms weren't too overpowering. Julie and I were super pleased, adn our classmates seemed to like it a lot.

North African was more interesting to work with than I thought it would be, the resulting foods we prepared that day weren't things I'd be likely to repeat at home except for the Labneh Stuffed Dates. I worked with the always sweet, and hard working Kathy. We prepared Baked Falafel with Tahini Sauce, and the stuffed dates. These were fun to prepare, especially since falafel is normally a fried food, the Bauman twist was pretty cool. The yogurt cheese used to stuff the dates was prepared ahead of time for us, and it is a really cool process allowing the yogurt to drain through a cheesecloth over a bowl so that it drains and turns it into more of a cheese than a yogurt.

A Major Issue - LEGUMES

   I have been eluding through out this blog that I've had personal issues along this culinary school journey. At this point I have determined that I have an intolerance to the legume family. Here comes the BIG problem, almost 80-90% of what we do involves legumes of some nature. Since coming to this conclusion a few weeks ago after a few severe bouts of acute belly pain, I have banned legumes from my body. I am so done with them!
   I tried so hard to like them at first such a great alternate source of protein, so many health benefits. But every time I ate them I wound up sick. I am headed East next week for Thanksgiving and have to see a Gastroenterologist for an endoscope to give me a true diagnosis. Regardless of what my test results turn out to be - no more legumes for this future chef!

Baking Week

Cake, Quiche and Pizza


   For baking week I was very excited, I love to bake. I had great partners and pretty good recipes. Baking spelt pie crust, didn't love it so much. It didn't form well and Chef Julia had to gives us hers the next day for the quiche. The quiche came out tasting and looking really good. I was surprised again that I enjoyed something that had never been in my food repertoire.

Caramelized Onion and Cheddar Quiche

   Our almond cake was easy to make, but it didn't hold together so great and the next class we frosted it. Our frosting was an issue that annoyed me. It didn't stay in a consistency that made it easy and pretty to work with, however in the long run it looked and tasted pretty good.

Almond Cake with Dark Chocolate Decadence Frosting

   Pizza day I was really excited about, Pizza is like a major food group in my personal world, but in the vein of our school and its philosophy all the crust were made with very alternative ingredients. That said a special dough had to be made for me, because all the others had some legume flour in them. You can begin to see my challenges. We all work on different recipes and are supposed to try them all. Due to my issue I can't eat a majority of the foods made, even one's I cook sometimes.

My Whole Wheat Pizza