My First Catering Event

Ok I know what you are asking, "What happened to week 4?". Well  week 4 was actually pretty boring. On Monday we finished up our eclairs then Tuesday and Wednesday was spent working on our practical that I received an 89% on. Then on Thursday we got started on our next section, cakes. I also found out that as of right now I still hold my "A" in the class. Despite the practical though I was pretty worried about the up coming catering job I had Sunday night.

On Friday I went out and did all of my shopping for the event and then the second I finished shopping I got started on doing the prep work. I had a large menu so I needed to get my butt moving. So lets start at the top.

The Menu

Crab Salad in Crispy Wonton Bowls

Shrimp Cocktail

Salsa Bar: Pico De Gallo, Mild Salsa, and Mango Salsa

Ham and Swiss Cheese Wraps

Roast Beef and Provolone Wraps

Ham and Ranch Cream Cheese Pinwheels

Roast Beef and Horseradish Cream Cheese Pinwheels

Vegetable Platter: Tomatoes, Celery, Carrots, Broccoli, and Cauliflower

Fruit Platter: Honeydew Melon, Cantaloupe, Watermelon, Grapes, and Strawberries

Lemon Bars

Chocolate Mousse Cups

Pound Cake Bar: Pound Cake, Glazed Strawberries, Sliced Strawberries, and Whip Cream

Overall I worked on prep for 3 days. The first day I cut up all of the fruit, and prepared all of the cream cheese. The second day I made the crab salad, the mango salsa, and cut up all of the vegetables. On the third day I made all the desserts, and rolled all of the wraps and pinwheels which did not go as well as the other days. While making the desserts I started having issues. I had decided to make the lemon bars out of a box to save money, but I quickly realized that wasn't the greatest idea when I tried to remove them from the pan. The bars went everywhere and resembled a trash heap. It was not pretty. So quickly I sprang into action to try and make the lemon bars from scratch. Thankfully I had all the ingredients in my house. While I was zooming around the kitchen I slipped and fell leaving a NASTY bruise.

Around 2:45PM it came to load up my car. At first I didn't think I was going to get it all in there, but thanks to my wonderful husband we were able to get it all in, including 3 coolers. Around 4:00PM I arrived at my Mother-in-Laws house and began setup. With everyone's help I was able to get everything looking pretty good. Once it was all set up the guests started arriving and my sister-in-law's bridal shower started. Now on to the pictures. 

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Baking and Pastry: Week 3

Once again I am posting one super long post based on the entire week. While I wasn't sick this week, I was pretty busy. This last week the Catersource convention was in town, and one of the guys in school let me know that a few extra people were needed to help out a couple of weeks ago. I went down to career services and signed up, well this was the week that I was actually needed to work. Monday morning bright and early I headed down to the newest casino on the strip, The Cosmopolitan, and searched all over the fourth floor looking for the banquets kitchen so I could help out. Once I found where I was supposed to be I discovered that we were needed an hour later and that The Cosmopolitan was also having its first health inspection since opening so the small group that was there with me all headed out into the banquet area and relaxed until our day was really supposed to start. Once the health department finished their inspection we headed back into the kitchen and we got started on our project, tying green onions onto plastic cups. You probably think I am kidding, but I am not, and I actually have photographic evidence of such.

Once we finished tying almost 900 of these little cups we were done for the day. I headed home and proceeded to relax until I had to go to school where I had my first practical. During the practical I had to make 2 french bread baguettes, 1 bâtard loaf, 6 jalapeno cheddar biscuits, and 12 peanut butter cookies. Overall I did horrible on my first practical scoring a 75%. Thankfully though this one didn't count towards much on my grade so I still have an A in the class. Now I just have to make sure I do better on the next practical.

On the next day I was working again at The Cosmopolitan and I didn't have to be there until 10:00 in the morning. I was thrilled I got to sleep in too because it was going to be a LONG day. Once we all arrived we found out that we were going to be at the Marquee Night Club and Day Club helping with setup for a huge party that was going on that night. From 10:00 AM till 3:00 PM we were setting up flowers, moving furniture, and just generally getting things ready for the party.

Once 3:00 PM hit our relief showed up and we boogied. I had to be at school in just a couple of short hours, and instead of heading home only to leave again I just headed straight to school. I still had a couple of hours before class so I decided that would be a good time to relax a bit. I am glad I did too because class was super busy that night. We made a bunch of different doughs and we made a key lime pie. My favorite.

The next night we baked off all the doughs we had made the night before. We made apple pie, quiche Lorraine, and a pear tart. I only got a picture of the apple pie though so the rest are pics I grabbed from the net.

 Apple Pie

Quiche Lorraine

Pear Tart

Tonight was another dough making night, however we did have some fun as well. Raul grabbed my cell phone and snapped a few pictures. First up is what will eventually be eclairs. 

Raul, Daniel, and another guy from class decided to have some fun with my eclairs later on. 

While all of this was going on I was actually rolling our some dough and Raul snapped a pic of the two of us. 

By the way it was really hot in class tonight, so I look incredibly pink and red. Anyways, that brings us back up to date again and next week is another fun filled week in baking and pastry.