This week’s class on soups and sauces was a little more scattered. We had a TON of information thrown at us and it was difficult to keep up with the notes. There will be tips thrown in with general information. If you get confused, let me know and I’ll try to explain further. (If I can remember what she said.;)
A quick overview of soups. There are seven types of soups: Cold, Fruit, Bisque, Bouillon, Broth, Chowder, and Cream. Bisques can be made with flour to thicken them or rice. Chowders should always contain potato to thicken them. Creams tend to have a variety of vegetables in them to thicken. Egg whites can cleanse a murky broth. So if you ever make a broth soup and want the liquid to be clearer, toss in a couple of egg whites and stir. It’ll draw the ‘bits’ out of your soup, leaving a clearer broth behind. Then all you have to do is scoop out the egg whites and throw them away. Always try to use organic broth when making soups.
If you want to make your own stock, here are a few things to keep in mind: For light stock, keep chicken base and add bay leaf, thyme and parsley. If you don’t want your stock to be orange, use leaks instead of carrots. Gives the same sugary sweetness, but doesn’t color the stock. Dark stock requires roasting bones in the oven before you can add veggies. You have to reduce the bones for several hours before you can use them. Veal and mutton bones work best. If you want to make a brown sauce from dark stock, you have to add tomato paste. NEVER salt homemade sauce. For fish stock, you can use clam juice in a bottle or white fish. If you want shrimp stock, then always buy the shrimp with the skins and/or skins and heads on. When you peel them, dump the heads and skins in some water and bring to boil. Once you’ve cooked them a while and the ‘water’ has reduced, you can pour them into an ice cube tray and freeze them. Once they’re frozen, dump the cubes in a baggie for later use.
Now onto the Mother Sauces. There are five mother sauces, which just means that all sauces spring from these five: Demi-Glace/Brown (this is the one made from roasting the bones), Veloute (imagine an accent over the ‘e’) This one is wine, butter, fish sauce., Tomato (To cut the acidity in a tomato sauce add carrots. They absorb acid.), White Sauce/Cream (Tend to be made with flour, milk and butter. Always start this sauce by combining flour and butter first until you can smell a nutty aroma, then add the milk/cream.), and last, but not least, Hollandaise. Hollandaise tends to be made with butter and tarragon (sp). You cannot reheat hollandaise without destroying it in some capacity. If you’re making a sauce and you break it (ie it separates), then add more warm water. If you break mayo/hollandaise, then either add egg white or mustard. Most of the time with hollandaise (which is almost the same exact recipe for homemade mayo) if you break it, then you have to start over.
Odds and ends:Blanch all your veggies (ie carrots, peas, broccoli, cauliflower, green beans, etc.) before you put them in the refrigerator. It will not only keep their color nice, but it will make them last longer. Oh, and when you blanch, don’t blanch them all together. You need to blanch carrots with carrots, peas with peas…you get the picture. Blanch the veggies for 30 seconds to a minute. Broccoli and Cauliflower will take longer. Test them with your fingers to see if they’re done. The longer you leave them in the water, the softer they’ll become. When you’re done cooking remove them from the water and place them in an ice bath to cool. Pat dry on paper towels and refrigerate.
Where gloves when cutting hot peppers. The smaller the pepper, the hotter pepper. Remove seeds if you’d like a more mild taste. Peppers cannot be blanched and peeled like tomatoes. (Tomatoes are easy to peel if they’re blanched for 30 seconds to a minute.) To peel/remove the skin of a pepper burn them under a broiler (skin side up). You can then take a paper towel and scrap the skin off. This gives the pepper a milder a taste/flavor.
Flip a potato peeler upside down (ie use the handle side) to remove the seeds from a cucumber easily. Always peel ginger with a spoon. It’s fast and doesn’t tear the fibers. To prepare an avocado, take a knife and cut into it at the top and follow it all the way around vertically. Once you’ve circled the avocado, give it a little twist and it should easily split into two. Pop your knife blade into the seed and it’ll come out easily. You can scrape out the interior using a spoon. Sprinkle citrus juice on it to keep it from browning. Preferrably lime juice. If you want to put it back in the fridge, then sprinkle it with lime juice, put the seed back inside, fit it together and wrap it tightly with cling wrap. It’ll last for a couple of hours.
I think that’s about it. Like I said it was a bit of a blur because we ended up making Roasted Butternut Squash Soup, Chicken Tortilla Soup, Fish Chowder (you can use any kind of fish you like in this), Gazpacho, Bearnaise Sauce (over chicken breast), Mornay Sauce (over veggies), and Caramel Sauce (over ice cream). So it was a busy, busy night.
I plan to make the tortilla soup tonight for dinner, except I’m going to make it a little hotter. 
Archive for January, 2008
Yep, not only am I borrowing this Meme from John Scalzi, I’m pretending that I posted this on the 15th. Hey, it’s close enough. So with that in mind, let me start by saying Happy Birthday to Kathy Love. I had it wrong last week. Doh! What can I say? I’m a bad friend.
Now onto the Meme. According to Mr. Scalzi, it’s titled Ten Things I’ve Done You Probably Haven’t. He actually titled it Ten (More), but since I didn’t have a previous list I’ll just call it the above.
Now to the list in no particular order:
1. Had a beer with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols.
2. Got kissed by David Lee Roth and Richard Grieco on the same night. (Both were on the cheek and it was the 80’s so get your minds out of the gutter.)
3. Chatted with Gene Simmons about his kids’ karate classes at a BBQ.
4. Was a guest on a radio talk show in L.A.
5. Chatted with Tommy Chong in Capital Records.
6. Ate borscht made by Gorky Park.
7. Went to college with Brad Pitt.
8. Was interviewed in an acting class by Robert Forster.
9. Got change from Robin Leach for gum.
10. Had a member of Corporate Avenger spend the night at my house.
Bonus answer: Got kissed on the cheek by Peter from the Monkees, while working on an airplane. I had to go into the bathroom afterwards so that I could scream like a little girl. LOL! Now it’s your turn. What’s your ten?
First there is this rather amusing entry from Gennita Low. It’s funny and runs through the timeline of all the hair-pulling fun. Then there is this insightful entry by PBW. As always, I think she hits the nail on the head by reminding us how very little we’ve progressed as a society.
As for me, I have a book to write.
The following list outlines the events I plan to attend in 2008. Some of these may change, but so far this is my schedule:
March 28-30th– I’ll be at the Novelist Inc. conference in New York. They do not hold booksignings. It’s strictly a business conference.
April 16-20th–I’ll be at the Romantic Times Convention in Pittsburg, PA. I will be speaking on a panel about monsters in romances and I will be signing my new Blaze, OFF LIMITS (along with a couple of my EC titles).
May 29-Jun. 1st–I plan to attend BEA in Los Angeles. I’m not sure of the details yet, but I’m going to try to sign while I’m there. We’ll see. This one isn’t set yet.
July 30-Aug. 3rd–I will be at RWA Nationals in San Francisco. Again, I will be signing my Blaze and possibly ARC’s of RED.
I may attend one or two more small conferences, but that will depend on my writing schedule and tolerance for air travel. *ggg* I look forward to seeing you all on the road. 
I’ve written 6265 words in the last three days. I’m not happy with all of it, particularly the latest chapter, but I’m hoping that I can fix it in the edits. I plan to get another ten pages or so done tomorrow and over the weekend, which should put me at a little over a 100 pages, since I’d already written fifty something earlier. Then all I’ll need is 250 more. LOL! Head hits desk.
See the problem is that I haven’t managed to get into this book yet. Why? Because my head hasn’t left the urban fantasy, even though I mailed it off on Tuesday. I’m hoping by the halfway mark that things will click and I’ll get on a roll. If not, this is going to be a rough book to write. I don’t anticipate the next Tor book to give me as much trouble since it has already been talking to me for a while. Things work like that sometimes. :/
I bought my ticket to N.Y. today. I’m going to the Novelist Inc. conference there in March. I am really looking forward to this conference because I get to meet my new agent, Ginger while I’m there. Should be a good time.
Well last night the Cooking Skills class started. I actually thought it would be an overview lecture, but we ended up learning knife skills. I’ve always wanted to know how chef’s cut food and now I do. The key is rocking the knife almost like swinging on a swingset. You start with the top of the knife (ie the tip) resting on the cutting board and swing forward in one smooth motion. This is where it pays to have razor sharp knives.
Anyhow, we practiced slicing, dicing and julienning vegetables and fruit. We also learned how to fan fruit for plate presentation. The chef taught us which knives to use for certain jobs (ie always use a serrated knife on bread, tomatoes and lemons because it’s less likely to dull your knive. Those fruits in particular will dull a regular chef’s knive quickly because of the acid eating tiny holes into the steel. We learned that when slicing meat (any meat) that you should ALWAYS cut against the fibers. It makes the meat more tender.
They also passed on a lot of general tips like:
Don’t leave food outside of the fridge for more than two hours.
Food is only good for four days in the fridge.
Anything in vinegar lasts longer than four days.
Don’t cover hot food in the fridge. If you have to cover hot food and put it in the fridge, then make sure that you poke a hole in the wrap so that there’s air exchange.
Dry herbs are stronger than fresh herbs.
Never keep herbs for longer than two years.
If your dry herb is old and you need to use it, heat it in a small pan first until it releases its oils, then go ahead and use it.
When cooking with fresh herbs, add them last. That way they’ll maintain their color and flavor.
Clean everything (ie cutting boards, counters, etc.) in bleach and water or white vinegar and water. This includes the inside of your dishwasher. The chef suggested spraying a dishtowel with bleach and water and tossing it into your dishwasher with the dirty dishes. It sanitizes everything as it washes.
White vinegar will kill the bacteria on lettuce. So if you’re going to make a salad, place your lettuce in a boil and fill it with water first, then toss in a teaspoon or so of white vinegar. Drain the water after a minute and you’re good to go.
When using a cutting board, turn it over if you’re cutting fruits and vegetables. Fruits on one side, veggies on the other. That keeps your fruits from taking up the odor of the veggies. Also, use a separate cutting boards for meats and always spray them with the bleach and water mixture after you’ve finished using them.
I suppose that covers just about everything. Like I said, we learned a LOT. I’ll leave you with a writing trend link that I got from Sarah McCarty. These are publishing predictions for 2008. I think they’re quite interesting.
I know I’ve been apologizing a lot for not being around lately. It can’t be helped. I just finished typing in the changes I made on the final read through of my urban fantasy. In the end, I added 9530 words to the manuscript (or 44 pages). It’s now boxed and ready to go out in the mail tomorrow. I wish I could say that I’d be back to blogging regularly now, but that probably won’t happen since the Tor book is due Mar. 1st and I have a LOT left to write. I hope you all understand. I will drop in when I can. More once the book is finished. Until then, happy reading and happy writing.
I finished typing in the notes at 7pm tonight. I’ve been working all day. In the end, I managed to add 48 pages to the manuscript. Gulp. Tired. Going to bed now. Will try not to drool on the keyboard. Head hits desk.
Man, I have to come up with a better way of taking notes. Let me give you a little background. My agent asked me to add some things to my urban fantasy. The task took longer than I’d expected because ‘I’ ended up making a LOT of changes. See it’s been a while since I’d read the manuscript, so I found all kinds of stuff to tweak. Some of it covered what she’d asked for–and some of it didn’t. Anyway, I’m getting off topic. Back to the notes.
I’m not one of those writers who can edit a manuscript online…UNLESS it’s someone else’s work. I know that’s weird, but take my word for it, it’s the truth. I have to print out a hardcopy of the book and read through it, while making notes along the way. Did I mention that I have to read it aloud? I think you can see where I’m going with this. My manuscripts end up looking like a treasure map with arrows and lines scribbled all over them. I write horizontally, vertically, on the front and on the back. This wouldn’t be a problem IF I didn’t have to type the notes in afterwards. That’s where I find myself. It took me five (yes, you read that right) FIVE hours to type in 136 pages of notes. I still have 252 pages to go. Gulp. Did I mention it needs to be done today, so that I can read it over the weekend and mail it off on Monday??? Head hits desk.
Do you have a good way of taking notes? If so, share. Please.
