It’s Raining It’s Pouring

We’re Baking Every Morning!

Stormy weather almost always puts me in a baking mood so the weather this week was perfect! It has been overcast and/or raining every day down here in Texas. When I say raining, I mean it had REALLY been raining hard! We have had a week of flash flood weather warnings and an impressive amount of heavy rain. Apparently this weather is not normal for August. I can’t take credit for all the rain, but I will tell you that it was about 107 degrees a few days before the storms last weekend and I decided all I wanted for my birthday this week was a nice big rainstorm. Holy cow, did I get my wish or what!

On to this week in the kitchen (and yes, yet another format for you to read )

HIGHLIGHTS

1. Describe: What did you find especially exciting, interesting, inspiring, satisfying and/or fun this week in the kitchen?

I love to bake. I’m not even sure when I realized just how much I love to bake, but just about everything we did this week was such a treat. My 31st birthday was Tuesday and that happened to also be the day that we baked cakes and cupcakes in our lab which was a fun coincidence. . and yes, on Wednesday we did Ice Cream. I really like to play around with recipes when I bake. For instance, a recipe might call for two cups of flour and I’ll put 3/4 cup flour and the other 1 1/4 cup I’ll toy around with adding coconut flour, almond meal, flax meal, etc. so it’s a treat to learn why certain flours sub. We have talked a lot about the function of each ingredient and why certain things might work as substitutions and I find that really interesting.

2. Reflect: In what ways have you begun to apply, develop or incorporate this and/or how does this influence your professional goals?

I still feel like I’m really a novice at this, but this last week had given me a great foot up and starting point to try to improve recipes and make them more health supportive by adding in extra ingredients that offer a wider spectrum of nutritional benefits. This relates directly to my professional goals because I’d really like to be proficient enough in these strategies to teach them to others. You can have your cake and eat it too 🙂

CHALLENGES

3. Describe: What did you find especially challenging or difficult in the kitchen this week?

I have mentioned this before, but I would really like to be efficient and focused in the kitchen and as a professional. This is something that I’m continuing to work on each week. Sometimes it can be hard in our labs because we are all looking for ingredients at the same time so it’s just a different flow and dynamic than in your kitchen at home. It will come with time and practice though.

Another challenge is just feeling confident when every day brings so much new learning and every evening involves homework and recipe prep and reading. It’s a bit wearing. The weeks are going by fast though.

4. Reflect: What might you do to meet and overcome these challenges or difficulties?

I think just continuing to remember that I will get more confident and efficient with practice. We are in the lab setting to learn these things and so if I come ready to go and to focus it will happen. Also, I’m trying to read my recipes closely so that I have good questions to ask in class.

And here are some pics of our yummy creations this week (sorry about the bad lighting-my phone doesn’t have a very good camera):