Lesson 7: Shopping

Guinea Fowl for Lesson 7

As I had expected, the shopping for ingredients wasn't very difficult for Lesson 7. The best part of shopping was being able to spend some time with my nephew who completed the last minute shopping for the fresh vegetables and a few other ingredients.

I was able to find Guinea Hen a the local butcher, but because of cost and the number of people I was cooking for, decided to buy one Guinea Hen and then substitute a whole chicken for the other hen. This substitution was a fraction of the cost, and for the at home cook did an exceptional job.

So I managed to get the Guinea Hen and Chicken, Polish Sausage and Bacon at the butchers during the week, as well as the ingredients for the dessert.  All of the remaining ingredients I either had already or were fresh produce that we shopped for before cooking.

Before going shopping, my nephew and I reread the entire menu and set up a plan, made a list and then managed to shop for the remaining ingredients.

Pretty easy and straightfoward.

Lesson 7: The Menu

Lesson 7 from page 42 gives me an opportunity to continue to improve my pastry skills with the Choux Puffs, extend my learning of Bavarian Creams, and try ingredients that I wouldn't normal cook in Guinea Hen.

I really liked Gruyere cheese from the Swiss Chard Gratin in Lesson 4 and look forward to using it again. The cheese melts so well I could see it making great grilled cheese sandwiches or macaroni and cheese. If you put it on a pizza you might never be able to get your slice pulled away from the rest of the pizza because of the long string of cheese hanging off!

 Here is the menu:

	Lesson 7
Profiteroles au Gruyere CHOUX PUFFS WITH GRUYERE CHEESE ___ Pintadeaux au Chou GUINEA HEN WITH CABBAGE ___ Creme Fraisalia STRAWBERRY BAVARIAN CREAM

I am interested in the Guinea Hen dish because it seems pretty hearty, having cabbage, polish sausage, and plenty of vegetables. It is interesting to me that each of the parts of the main dish are cooked separately and then combined at the end instead of being cooked all together. The book explains that "the result is a dish in which complementary tastes are juxtaposed, rather than blended together as in stews or one-pot meals" (44).

Again the ingredients for this menu seem pretty straight forward and should be easy to find. I hope to focus on finding the best, freshest, and most local ingredients. The produce will be important for this as well as for the Polish sausage. I am curious about the guinea hen, if I can't find them then I will use a substitute of Cornish Game Hens or Free-Range Chickens.

I have waited some additional time to get ready to cook this meal because I have wanted to cook with my nephew who helped a little bit with one of the previous menus. With schedules, it is just coming to the weekend when everyone is available.

Lesson 7...here I(we) come!

Lesson 7: Some Inspiration

Before I get to my normal sequence of posts for Lesson 7, I noticed that the group on Whisk Wednesday's Blogroll were completing the main course of PINTADEAUX AU CHOU (Guinea Hen with Cabbage) during the past week or so. They have been working through lessons using Le Cordon Bleu AT HOME and I found the timing to be quite nice, being that this was my next meal.

I enjoy checking in on the lessons that they are working on from time to time, and I would encourage you to get a preview of my Lesson 7 from the following places:

Whisk: a food blog

FROM LAPTOP TO STOVETOP

BIG BLACK DOG

Spinach Tiger

HAVE WE MET?

The Wolfepack

Cantbelieveweate's Weblog

At the time I was writing this, the following three had not yet posted about this particular recipe, so I will check back to see how they do:

Grandma's Kitchen Table

KATIECAKES