After taking Thursday afternoon and Friday morning off from school for being sick (runny noses, coughing and touching food do not mix), I was kind of stoked to get back to school today. The break was definitely needed, but as my weekend baking experiments prove, I can’t stay out of the kitchen for long.

Today’s class focused on a la carte cooking, aka restaurant dishes. When you go to a restaurant, most dishes are prepared and plated a la minute, or made to order. All possible prep work is done before the kitchen starts serving, then chefs are assigned to different stations to complete different dishes. Each chef then fires off their respective dishes as the orders come in.

We were divided into three groups to mise-en-place three courses: an appetizer of tempeh bolognese, miso-glazed salmon as the entree, and sauteed apples in phyllo cups for dessert. I got assigned to the tempeh bolognese, and spent the time mincing garlic and slicing zucchini on the mandolin. My fear of sharp objects dissipates every day…

(I’ll probably lose a finger tomorrow for saying that.)

Once the mise-en-place was en place, we got cooking! Everyone got their crack at each of the three stations. I started with the tempeh bolognese:

Served over whole-wheat pasta and garnished with a few roasted zucchini and some parsley. This was the easiest of the stations; all you did was reheat the pasta with a quick dip in boiling water, put some sauce in a saute pan, and toss the two together before plating and garnishing.

Then moved onto the miso-glazed salmon, served with brown basmati rice and broccoli:

This station was slightly more complicated. Put salmon in broiler -> finish cooking blanched broccoli -> plate a scoop of brown rice -> flip salmon -> heat glaze -> plate salmon and broccoli -> drizzle glaze -> garnish with mint. As you can see, I went for the charred look on my salmon. It’s all the culinary rage. Carcinogens are so hot right now. (GET IT?! Heh heh heh.)

And finally, my favorite station: dessert! Definitely the most fun to make, as well as the tastiest.

We started by sauteeing the apples in ghee (or coconut oil, for a vegan option), then de-glazed the pan with rum, apple cider and maple syrup before tossing the apples back in and adding them to the phyllo cup. The sauce was then thickened with more ghee, poured onto the apple cup, and garnished with walnuts, raspberries and a sprinkling of maple crystals with cinnamon.

The best part was the pyrotechnics from adding the rum:

Aaaand I still have eyebrows. Top Chef over here.

This has nothing to do with anything, but after school I went to dinner with two friends and we split a Crumbs pumpkin cupcake for dessert.

It wasn’t bad, but I’ve definitely had way better from Crumbs. Didn’t even begin to compare to the world’s best pumpkin bread, I should have known…