CCA: LCB Favorites of Foundations 2

Consumme in the making

French Fries :)

California Culinary Academy: Le Cordon Bleu has 6 week courses in our curriculum. Foundations 1: knife skills, Safety Sani: Safe food handling, Foundations 2: Stocks, Soups, Starch& Veggies, Foundations 3: plating full entrees with protein component, starch, veggie, sauce, and garnish. Baking&Pastry: pastries and cakes, Cuisine of cross cultures: Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Thai etc., and finally banquets& catering: hotline, hot holding food, and made to order food.

Consumme strained

Today I'll be talking about Foundations 2, which is the most current course I've completed. Yay me! :) so anyways. Foundations 2 is where the cooking began. Even though we started off with stocks, sauces, roasting veggies, and eventually soups it was still the excitement that we started cooking. Trust me, after cutting up onions and potatoes for 6 weeks straight it does get old!!

A quick over-view of Foundations 2: I made....from scratch: Chicken&Fish Veloute, Lobster (shrimp) bisque, consumme, Potage parmentier (potatoe leek soup), Creme dubarry (cauliflower soup), asperges froides with hollandaise (asparagus&hollandaise), Salade depinards (spinach salad with poached egg & Bacon), salade de lentilles ( lentil salad), gratin dauphinois (scalloped potatoes), roasted veggies, soupe a l'oignon soup (french onion soup), panzanella salad (bread salad) and many more.

My favorites would have to be: Spinach salad with poached egg and bacon, lentil salad, scalloped potatoes, french onion soup, and the panzanella salad.

Yummy scalloped potatoes

The spinach salad for starters is a healthy size of spinach with two poached to perfection eggs, bacon and a house made vinegrette. The creamyness of the poached egg and the crunch from the fatty bacon make this salad!! I love poached eggs and im not much of a salad person BUT the bacon and poached egg adds another level to the salad ...compared to putting a slab of protein on my plate and calling it dinner.

French Onion Soup

My favorite bean salad would have to be the lentil salad! The dijon mustard and cream makes a nice yummy sauce with the lentils, bacon, and mirepox ( carrots, celery, and onion diced really small). I like that the mirepox adds a crunch factor to the moist and soft lentils.

Palm Duchess

Scalloped potatoes like mom or dad could NEVER cook them!! OMG have I been having scalloped potatoes the wrong way my ENTIRE life!! who woulda thunk it!? They are super easy to make! Super cheapy! AND SUPER YUMMY! Garlic, butter, cream, potatoes, and cheese is all you need to make this comfort food! The potatoes come out SOO creamy with extra cheese piling over and the hint of garlic. I could eat these scalloped potatoes ALL DAY!!! Simple, fast, yummy and CHEAP!! I love it!

The french onion soup was made for my class by my Foundations 1 chef when I first started school. BOY did I fall INLOVE with it!! Veal stock is the key!! the onions are so sweet and caramelized from the butter but the stock puts it over the edge!! with some toasted baguette and melted cheese and I'm in heaven!! Food Coma here I come!

Roasted cauliflower w/bread crumbs

Consumme finished product

Panzanella salad!!! Oh my gosh! Carb overload! Its like one of those weeks were you tell yourself your going to cut back on carbs and then you just have that overload of cravings for some bread you MUST eat this salad!! Basically its a bread salad! You toast your baguette (to add crunch and dry it out), cube up your bread and set aside. Make a bitchin vinaigrette with red wine vinaigrette, oil, salt, pepper, basil, diced tomatoes, red onion and then add all your bread in the bowl to soak up all that vinaigrette goodness. Your bread should be crunchy but chewy and moist on the outside from the vinaigrette. You'll definitely get your bread fix with this salad! Super easy, super yummy!!

There were plenty of cool recipes that were just as yummy but those had to be my favorites of foundations 2!

Bon Appetit!