I think that the yeast unit in all was a success. There were many different recipes that we tried throughout this unit. We made bread, one batch that had very minimal time to rise and another that had ample time to rise. Both batches of bread turned out great. My personal opinion is that the dough that had more time to rise had a little more flavor or taste where the dough that didn’t rise turned out more bland. Another recipe that we tried was pizza. On the first day we prepared the dough and sauce. The dough was started by blooming the yeast. This process was done by adding the given amount of yeast into a bowl and putting in warm water. To make sure the water was warm you ran the water on your wrist and if it felt too hot it had to be cooled and vice versa. Over all I thing that the yeast unit was great fun and a learning experience. I did run into a few problems but all minor. I put too much cheese and sauce on my pizza but it was still a delectable treat. Michael C.

In our yeast unit we made rolls. We made an experimental batch, where we didn’t let the dough rise. The second batch we let the dough rise in the fridge over the weekend. We made the dough using flour, water, yeast and salt. We mixed it and then kneaded it until the dough was smooth and slightly soft. After that we cut it into chunks using a bench scraper and rolled it, applying pressure. When the rolls were formed we put them in the oven until they were golden and fluffy. During this process my group worked well together. We had good teamwork skills and in the end our dough came out very good. -Zoe I

My reflection of this Yeast unit is that I think it went really well. In this unit we learned the blooming of the yeast which is to let the yeast sit in water. I learned that the yeast is used as a "Leavening agent". That when we made no knead bread the yeast made the bread fluffier. I even learned how to knead the bread. There was a big difference with the bread we made right away and the bread we made that had yeast sit in it for a couple of days. Some trouble was folding the pretzels ang getting the taste of some foods. Also in this unit I learned what Luke warm water is; it's water that's not to cold or hot. Our Mis en place was set well we got all our ingredients and tools in order to prepare our food. After each meal we cleaned our station and sanitized our pots, pans, spoons, and knifes. And we did everything safely by holding tools correctly and not hurting ourselves on the stoves. Team work for this unit was well everyone contributed and help with the food. Everybody helped one another and help clean the dishes. This unit was a real success. -Dylan S.

During the yeast unit I learned new techniques. First I learned that yeast is a leavening agent, which helps the dough to rise. I also learned how to use a dough hook with the kitchen aid mixer. I learned that depending on they day and how old the yeast is, the amount of flour needed in a recipe can vary, so putting flour in a cup at a time is a good idea. My favorite food that we made was the soft pretzels in this unit. Even though they did not have the proper amount of time in the oven to allow the yeast to rise, I still thought they were delicious. On this particular day, table 31 had to add more flour then the recipe called for because the mixture still had liquid in it. After the dough was ready, table 31 put too much flour onto the table so there was no friction when rolling out the dough into long thin strips. To fix this I learned that you could fold the ball of dough so that the outside becomes the inside and the inside replaces the outside. Our group worked well together through out this unit. We made sure that once we were done using a tool that it was cleaned and put away which would save us time later and keep our workspace clean and neat. We also communicated well and helped one another out through out the unit. This was very important because we were a group of three so we had fewer hands then other groups had. ~ Mary Kate S.

Overall I think the yeast bread unit very smoothly. When making the pretzels the part we had difficulty with was the shaping of the pretzels. Some pretzels were massive while others were tiny so it was difficult to get them to bake in the oven all at the same rate. All of the breads in this unit required blooming of the yeast this means we let the yeast sit in a bowl of WARM water. The ideal temp is measured on your wrist, not your hand. All the bread we made was delicious except one bread we didn't add the salt to which, for me, completely ruined the whole experience. That bread was saved with loads of jam. The pizza was by far my favorite. The grilling was the best part and gave the pizza a great look and taste. I wish I was able to eat cheese because the vegan cheese was really nasty. The no knead bread was great, (when we added salt) but getting it to be in a perfect ball was probably the hardest part of the entire bread unit. I think we had too much flour on our table so we were getting little to no traction so it just wasn't rolling properly. The only major errors in our bread unit are easily fixable with just some careful reading of the recipe. I'm happy with the bread unit. -Emma B.

The yeast unit went well. There weren’t too many problems and everything that was made was delicious. My favorite was the no knead bread. One thing that I learned about yeast during this unit was that it was alive and if the water was too cold or too warm the yeast would not work correctly. The water that was used to make the doughs needed to be lukewarm for everything to work. The pizza was the first thing that was made. Some problems that I had with the pizza was that when we made the dough our group let it sit in a little too much olive oil. Another problem was that our dough was too airy and came out too puffed. It probably should have been formed a little better. I would have also liked to put more cheese and less sauce on my pizza next time. I did not put enough cheese on it and it turned out spotty and more of sauce on bread. The next thing that was made was the pretzels. They were also very good, except for a few problems. One problem that didn’t affect it’s taste was that I had a tough time forming the pretzels into a twisted shape. They never came out how I would have liked them to. Also after we took the pretzels out of the oven, we put a little too much butter on them. Less butter would have made them better. Our dough was good and the process of cooking them went smoothly. During the unit we made two batches of no knead bread. Both sets of dough were made on the same day, but only one of the doughs was cooked that day. The other dough was left in the fridge to sit over the weekend. Although the first batch of bread was very good, the second batch was even better. No real problems occurred during the making of either batch of bread. Nick B.

I feel that the yeast unit was overall a big success. We made dough, soft pretzels, and grilled pizza. This unit was interesting for me because I have not baked with yeast a lot in the past. I learned skills that I will definitely use in the future like kneading and blooming yeast. I found the soft pretzels particularly interesting because I think of them more as a hot, salty treat you get at a sports game than something you could make at home. The process wasn't difficult. My group used a Kitchen Aid mixer to combine the dough. I have had practice using this tool at home; however, this time we used a dough hook. The dough hook was a tool you attach to the electric mixer to knead the dough. Forming the pretzel shape was difficult at first, but once you got the hang of it, it was pretty fun. One mistake my group made was that when we put the pretzels into the boiling water and baking soda, a few unraveled. A way to fix this would be to press harder into the dough when making the pretzel so the sides stick. Other than that, the pretzels were a big success and I definitely plan on making them again!-Kate L

I learned a lot in this bread unit. Making bread was very difficult, and I could never seem to grasp how to make dough into a ball. I tried basically everything. There was even enough flour on my hands. I tried the same techniques everybody else was using. However, no luck. The ball would never come out remotely round. There were only two days in the bread unit. At the end of the day, the bread still came out delicious in my opinion. It did desperately need butter, but I think that was to be expected. The texture was decent, albeit a little chewy. This probably could have been solved by using a little less flour than we did, as I think we used a little much. Overall, I was relatively satisfied with how the bread came out. -Josh B

Soups! As a part of the soup unit for culinary I have learned a lot about the do’s and don’ts to cooking. Stock- while making the stock I had to figure out the hard way that yes, cutting up chicken was definitely going to make me woozy. But all in all, the stock was pretty easy. The only thing I really had issues with was the simmering, and how hot the burner was. I could not tell if it was too high of a flame or not. But speaking about simmering, some of the recipes we were making involved some simmering and I came to the same problem that I ran into while making the stock. I thought I was going to reduce the liquids too much. A very important part of the stock and soups was the nourishing element. As pivotal as the nourishing element is to health it is also well needed when it comes to the color of the soup and it looking appealing. One of our soups, Cheeseburger soup, smelled very good and tasted amazing, but it had a funky look to it. Knowing what I know now I probably would have added more herbs to add color and make it look less like a cheese sauce. A close relative you could say to nourishing elements is the mirepoix, it basically has the same motivation and end result. Again, we did not execute either the nourishing element or the mirepoix very well. But, on the topic of our Cheese burger soup, we pureed the soup to make sure all the vegetables were smaller than a dice but not knowing that we were going to puree it, we took a lot of time making our dicing of the potatoes and other vegetables look uniform. We could have spent more time making sure the recipe was followed correctly and quickly. One of the students in my group also put cilantro on top of his soup after it was over, which was a very nice garnish to add making it just a little more attractive. A very necessary element to all of the recipes we were given is the sweating of vegetables. This is important because the greens would never release that moisture and would end up not soaking in the soup. This was a mistake I had made while making our potato based soup, I did not let the potatoes release any of their moisture and they didn’t absorb any of the flavor from the soup. In order to strain the stocks of their liquids and just keep the chicken and the fat, we should have used a chinois, but we didn’t strain the stock of the chicken or fats. We should have due to the fact that there was a lot of fat in our stock which made it kind of unappealing. And just like the chinois, we didn’t use the cheese cloth either. Learning from this, I know we should the next time.

During the soup unit, I learned many new techniques. I learned how to make stock from scratch which I have never done before. I learned how to make a bouget garni in to make our stock more flavorful and how to make the nourishing element. We had the bouget garni wrapped in some cheesecloth and we let it sit in out stocks. I thought table 31’s soup Thai chicken soup came out ok. We had a late start because we had to reprint our recipe, which took time out from our mise en place. We then had to take time away from the next class to finish cutting our ingredients for the mirepoix, which made us feel rushed during the rest of the process. We had to cut down on our time to garnish our final product, which also made our soup look sloppy. New techniques that I learner were sweating vegetables, simmering, and how to puree to make a vegetable soup. I really enjoyed the soup that we made with the potatoes as our base vegetable. It was exciting being able to see all the possibilities of soups you could make just from vegetables. Our group’s soup came out a little thicker at the end because we added cheese and we decided not to puree the corn. Our team worked well together. We usually had two people managing the station at all times while the other person either gathered materials or washed dishes as we moved along. It was nice having a group of three because we were able to eat more of our soup, however we had less hands then everyone else, which could have helped us along the way. ~ Mary Kate S.

My reflection of this soup unit is that I learned a lot from it. I learned how to make a bouquet garni in order to provide flavor to the stock. I was able to make a mirepoix and the nourishing element. Trouble that I had in this unit was team work because there wasn't any communication. Other problems were that I wasn't sure what to do like I didn't have the confidience to do things. Like with the stocks I always asked if I was doing this or that right. To improve I think that I should have been able to wrap the cheese cloth better around the bouquet garni. With my mise en place I was able to get everything and was prepared. Everything was ready to go in order to make a purée. Since our mise en place was prepared and organized we were also able to do make garnishes to decorate our food. Sanitation and safety was good because we kept liquids from mixing with others and washed and cleaned our station. And the recipe format was easy to read so I was able to under stand how to simmer and how to sweat vegetables. Overall I think I did well in this unit. -Dylan S

Soups are so interesting because there are so many different kind and verities of flavors. For my group’s first soup we selected a chicken-tortilla soup. This was a new experience for me because I have never made a Mexican soup before. The first step was to make the stock. Stock’s can be vegetable based or meat based but for our soup we made a chicken stock. We made the mirepoix and the bouquet garni which was wrapped in cheesecloth. The bouquet garni consisted of herbs and vegetables. This allowed the liquid to move through it to add flavor to the stock. The next class was used to prepare our misenplace. This is where my group had some trouble. Our recipe had not been printed out the night before and we were not prepared. By the time we got into the kitchen we had missed instruction of where ingredients were kept so we struggled finding what we needed. This caused us to lose even more time and when the bell rang we had not finished gathering and cutting. When we began our soup, however, we were more prepared. We knew what we were doing and worked together to get it done. We had good teamwork so it the process went much quicker. We pureed vegetables along with corn tortillas in a food processer. This is a technique to have a smooth pulp. The nourishing element in our soup was the chicken. In the end we had left over soup because we forgot to convert the recipe for four servings. That is something to remember to do for next time. To top off the soup we added a garnish of basil and the deep-fried tortilla strips. Our other soup was a potato-leek soup. The vegetables were pureed in the soup also. For this soup I thought it tasted a little strong and in the future I would add fewer scallions. My group was generally good in terms of sanitation and safety. We mostly divided up the cleaning but sometimes one person did more than another. Over all I thought the results were positive and in the future the main thing I would work to improve is the preparation. -Kate L

In the soup unit I learned a lot. My group had some common mistakes. My group needed to make sure to read the directions more carefully. Our mise en place for the first soup, cheddar chicken chowder, was cheddar, chicken, corn, red pepper, potato, onions, garlic, and broth. The knife skills unit helped us a lot. I got to cut up the peppers and chicken the correct way, while the rest of my group split up and cut up the other ingredients. I cut up the chicken too big though. It wasn’t that bad that the chicken bites were too big, but it would have been nicer to have them smaller in the stock. Since they were so big they took out the other tastes in the stock. Another taste issue was we put too much pepper in the stock. Some of us didn’t know that we were supposed to cut the recipe in half. Leading back to following the directions. While making this stock, we were sweating the onions and peppers. But we sweated them for too long. The red peppers became a little too crispy. The half burnt chopped peppers made the stock have a distinct taste to it. This soup could have been less liquidly. In the second soup it was very liquidly. In this Vegetable pureed soup we added carrots, onions, celeries, red peppers, and shredded chicken. Then the entire mise en place was blended together. At the end of the soup we garnished the soup with shredded cheddar and crotons. The cheddar and crotons really gave an extra taste to the soup. The crotons became warm and filled with soup. Our mistake for this recipe would be that we added too many carrots. Also we did not add enough vegetables.-Jaimy F.

At the start of our stock unit we made our own chicken stock. It was a new experience for me and the rest of my group because we had to make the stock from scratch. We butchered the chicken and cut the vegetable and even made our own bouquet garni. For the bouquet garni we took fresh herbs and wrapped in cheesecloth then placed in the stock. The first soup we did in this unit was a traditional chicken tortilla soup. This soup had a base of a chicken stock. We added tomatoes, onion, garlic, salt and pepper, and a Chile pepper. When the ingredients we done cooking we used a food processor to puree the soup. We added shredded chicken to the pureed soup. The soup was topped with Monterey jack cheese and sour cream and added cilantro as garnish. The element that really tied the soup together was the tortilla strips that we deep fried and place on top of the soup to add some crunch. We had all of our materials cut and really beforehand which made the whole cooking process much easier. The team work within the group made things much easier as well. We were able to split up the tasks so that each person wasn’t carrying such a heavy load. Our group had some slight confusion when it came to the recipe. But when we read it over more carefully we worked a lot better. One trouble spot in this recipe was that our group wasn’t prepared with the recipe at the start of class; this took away from our cooking time. The next soup we did was a potato based soup. We used proportions to get the right amount of everything. We added scallion, which was a nourishing element of the dish, and leeks. The scallions and the leeks gave the soup a really developed flavor that blended very well together. The liquid in this soup was chicken stock. When all the ingredients we added we pureed the soup. This was a really good soup because we as a group picked all of our ingredients and it tasted really good. - Zoe I

I learned a lot about soups and stocks during the first unit. We made a chicken stock and a Thai Chicken Soup. My groups stock was fine. We put our bouquet garni, which was wrapped in cheesecloth, mirepoix, and the nourishing element, which was chicken, into the liquid, which was water, to make a chicken stock. After we let the stock simmer with the other ingredients, we removed the solid ingredients from the stock by straining the stock through a chinois. However, with our Thai Chicken Soup we did run into some problems. Our soup came out as more of a pasta dish rather than a soup. This probably occurred because our group was not really familiar with the recipe and this lead to the soup not really coming out as a soup. A way to avoid this problem next time, we could read the recipe the night before the day we would be preparing the recipe. Even though there were some problems, the end result of our efforts was a success. We also made a vegetable pureé soup. The soup was potato based and we added many vegetables to it, including carrots, onions, and broccoli. After we let the soup simmer for a while, we put a food processor in it and made a puree out of it. At the end we garnished it and it tasted very good. A problem that I think we ran into with it was that we put too many different vegetables in it. The flavor turned out to be fine, but I think it would’ve been better if we had only put 3-4 different vegetables in it.- Nick B

The soups unit as a whole, in my opinion, was a success. The basic stock we made went very smoothly. We had to butcher a chicken, which thankfully I sat out. Next we chopped up herbs and vegetables, but them in a cheesecloth and made a bouquet garni. We let that all simmer in a stockpot and then it was done. Very easy and our group made virtually no mistakes. My group made Thai Chicken Soup for the recipe we got to decide. The first day we were just gathering and chopping up our mise en place but we accidentally started our stock. Class ended and our stock was not ready so with a miscommunication with Mrs. Hoagland we ended straining our stock with a chinois. We were left with scraps of chicken and some onions. The next day we ended up just getting 2 cups of pre-made chicken stock which was not nearly enough for our soup. We boiled rice noodles and then poured our “soup” over the noodles. To me, this did not seem like a soup. Next time I know that we can follow directions better and make a stock with a lot more liquid in it. It was 90% noodles and 10% liquid/soup. I did not eat it because if the chicken but my group seemed to enjoy it very much. The second soup we made was a potato based soup with 3 potatoes and a pound of vegetables and let it simmer for a while. The only notable error was the fact that we did not measure a full 1 pound of vegetables for the nourishing element. The soup smelled delicious and I wish that it was a vegetable stock rather than a chicken base so I could eat it! We used some basil as a garnish and the soup looked picture perfect. The soups were easy because although they vary in ingredients the process is generally the same. Every soup we made had mirepoix, stocks and a bouquet garni for a nourishing element and we had to let the vegetables sweat in the pot so they could release moisture in the soup. Our group took our safety and sanitation very seriously and we cleaned as we went and there were no accidents. We worked very well together and I am sad we won’t be together anymore. -Emma Bayuk