Thursday, January 12th 2012

I had so much fun cooking today!

Team A had a very challenging menu to prepare today. We were given the tasked incorporate chocolate into all of the dishes we made. Our menu was as follows:  Coke cake, eggplant, mole, salad, baked beans, flanksteak. My partner Miya and I were put in charge of making the Coke cake and salad. 

I must admit, I was apprehensive about having chocolate in every course, but I soon found out that many of the recipes only called for coco nibs. One member of team A decided to bring his grille in order to grille the flank steak as opposed to  bake it. 

When we arrived in the kitchen that morning, we all knew what we needed to do in order to finish by noon. Miya and I immediately started to prepare the Coke Cake batter. It was a fairly straight forward recipe, but time consuming. Once we finally got the cake into the oven we moved onto to icing. We taste tested both the batter and icing and they were both delicious! 

Next we moved onto preparing the  salad. Once again, recipe was strait forward but time consuming. While pealing the pares, I was able to use the knife skills I learned yesterday from the instructional video. The most difficult part of the salad was making the dressing and trying to keep the oil and vinegar portions of it evenly distributed. We taste tested the spinach leaves with the pares and dressing and it was great.

Once team B and the other guests arrived we finally got to eat our creations. Every thing was splendid! The only dish I tasted chocolate in was the cake! Our guests from the church were very pleased.

I think team A worked really well together, and managed to pull together a great meal. When ever a member of team A needed help, another member always offered assistance. We didn't get in each other's way even though there were 12+ people in the kitchen at any one time. Over all, I believe team A "threw down the gauntlet" and set the bar really high for team B to "try" to meet.