Monday Funday

Hi guys!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Monday. I actually love Mondays at work because its so quiet and peaceful. The club is closed for dinner on Monday night and a lot of times, its just Adam and I alone in the kitchen working hard to prep for the rest of the week. It’s laid back though and I love that….and today was a shorter day! I left at around 2:15 rather than 3 because I had finished my list and there was nothing left to do. But more on that in a bit!

First…..I was SOOOOO hungry last night!! Yesterday my metabolism must have been on overdrive or something! It was 9:30, I was about to turn off my lights, but my tummy was growing. What’s a girl to do?! Have a small bowl of Kashi H2H with silk vanilla of course! I also had a few bites of Betty’s pumpkin creme brulee. After that I slept like a baby 🙂

This morning I woke up bright and early and made some cottage cheese oatmeal to give me fuel for the morning to come:

I used 1/2 cup rolled oats, 1 cup water, a pinch of salt, 1/2 cup whipped cottage cheese, 1 bananer and a spoonful of almond butter…with a few raspberries on top! It was deeeeelicious!

Lunch was pretty basic today—-a boar’s head turkey and pepperjack cheese sammie on protein bread with an apple, carrots and a yogurt. I had the yogurt mid-morning per usual. 🙂

Since I got home earlier than usual I had time to get more stuff done this afternoon. I snacked on some pb&j kashis around 3:00—

And hit the gym around 4:00 for an upper body workout. It ended up being rather brief because of two reasons: 1) I forgot my ipod! I HATE that! I just cannot get into my gym rhythm without it! 2) It was “that time” when all the quote-un-quote “meatheads” were flooding the gym. Probably senior guys in high school or something….I shouldn’t let that make me feel uncomfortable but I didn’t have my ipod and I was lifting weights right next to a pack of like 5 of them. I swear, some people just seem to use the gym as a social spot to pick up girls! Bleh!

Anyways, here’s what I did (it wasn’t so bad—at least I went!):

a couple minutes on the arc-trainer to warm up

2 sets of seated row—50 lbs, 15 reps

2 sets of triceps pulldowns—-50 lbs, 15 reps

2 sets of lat pulldowns—60 lbs, 15 reps

2 sets of shoulder press—12 lbs, 15 reps

2 sets of lat raises—5 lbs, 15 reps

2 sets of hammer curls—10 lbs, 15 reps

2 sets of chest press—40 lbs, 15 reps

3 sets of reverse crunches—20 reps

total time = about 30 minutes

When I got home from the gym it was about dinnertime. I had a big piece of leftover baked salmon on top of a huge spinach salad with goat cheese (could salmon + goat cheese be the most perfect combo ever?!) and leftover sauteed garlic green beans & red peppers. I also had a cup of tomato soup and a piece of multigrain bread.

For dessert—rice pudding and almondina cookies 🙂

So, I totally forgot that today was my first day of a-la-carte dessert production instead of breads! No more breads—sad!!! Adam has me on a two week rotation of doing every station/production so I get experience in ALL areas of pastry. I wish it could be all bread and cookies (can you tell what my favorite thing is?!) but I must practice everything else! Today I really just prepped for a dessert buffet happening tomorrow at around lunchtime.

First thing when I got in, around 6:45, I started on some chocolate moussse while Adam rolled pumpernickel rolls.

I had to fill 60 tiny glasses for the buffet tomorrow! They turned out pretty well although I have to say, there were a ton of steps involved in making this mousse….it took about an hour to do!

After the mousse, I filled the almond macaroons I baked a couple days ago. 30 with dark chocolate ganache and 30 with white chocolate ganache. Drool!

And then I worked on tempering chocolate to make filigree to top the opera cake petit fours:

(I ate a few chocolate chips in the process. Shhh)

I also baked a pumpkin pie:

A key lime pie with a pistachio crust:

And my personal fav—an apple oat tart:

I LOVE this tart because I have a serious addiction to streusel. I think everyone in the kitchen is aware of it now. I just can’t stop nibblin’ on this stuff! I know its just butter and sugar and oats…..but when it bakes it gets all crunchy and its like heaven on earth. I made the apple filling for this pie last week and topped it with a GENEROUS amount of streusel! 😉

And finally…I rolled 60 truffles for tomorrow’s buffet:

These are mocha truffles that I made a few days ago and today I rolled them in tempered chocolate and chopped, roasted pistachios.

Adam and I switched days off this week. He needs Wednesday off so I’m taking tomorrow off instead and holding down the fort on Wednesday (my usual weekday off) while he’s out of the kitchen. I don’t really have any plans at all tomorrow other than tackling my laundry and chocolate-stained uniforms! The rest of this week is sure to be pretty crazy because this weekend we have another wedding cake to do…….and this one is four tiers and stands about 5 feet tall!!! We got the wood base for it today and its just going to be insane. I can’t wait to see the finished product and, of course, take TONS of pictures but that won’t be until Saturday.

I finished The Glass Castle last night and tonight am starting Under The Banner of Heaven-— another book from the library of Betty that she said was fabulous. I LOVED The Glass Castle but it just made me so mad!!!!!!! That mom!!!! I couldn’t get over it all. I wanted to throw the book at the wall but I still loved it anyway.

Have a wonderful night! 🙂