cravin the low carb lifestyle

The heft of culinary school finally hit me. After a few months of traditional french cuisine and delicious desserts, my body revolted. So I'm trying (keyword: trying) to get back on the low carb lifestyle combined with less fatty foods. I was always particular to the atkins diet since it allowed you to eat meat, but this time around I'm choosing more fish dishes and using olive oil in lieu of butter. 

The new atkins website is pretty helpful, you can make up your own menus, with 3 options for each course, and it has recipes for each course which makes it all easier for people who don't have time for that. Of course I couldn't help myself with some of the recipes or methods, but I'll tell you more about that later. Today for breakfast I had a "southwestern omelet," which was just a regular omelet with some red bell pepper, onions, (turkey) bacon, and cheddar cheese.

 

For lunch, the menu I chose was poached salmon and Caesar salad. They gave me a recipe & method for poaching salmon, but since just this past week we learned the art of the submerge poach with a court bouillon, I chose that method. And instead of regular salmon, I saw that they had wild sockeye salmon in the market today. Chef Clark had told us to buy this as soon as we saw it, and so I did. The color is such a vibrant red, and cooks up just like king or atlantic salmon. I wasn't a fan of the flavor, it was quite salmony (which was obvious since it had a darker color) and more firm than the salmon I'm used to. The stronger flavor & color came from the fact that its a higher activity fish which means it's more oily and the bones aren't good for stock. (yessss I still remember stuff from fish class) I made the caesar dressing from scratch (which used mayo as an ingredient.) I was about to make the mayo by hand too since it is so easy, but decided to be lazy and just used some store bought mayo.

Though I was still full from lunch , I still decided to cook the dinner and eat it a bit late. Since I had missed roast chicken day in class, I used this as an opportunity to practice that cooking method. Any practice is important since we have to take a practical exam before we are allowed to go on externship. For the practical, there are 6 menus, and we are randomly given one and must cook all 7 components within 2.5 hours. Many many people fail this, but hopefully I won't be one of them. So I delved into my meat class skills bank and trussed up the chicken with some twine, and roasted it in the oven with some veggies. Oh my goodness, I am not exaggerating when I say this was one of the best roasted chickens I have had in my life. I don't know if it was because it was organic or because of how I roasted it, but everyone needs to try this for dinner tomorrow. It was so juicy that when i was carving the breast out, juice literally squirted out and it was so tender it melted in my mouth. I used a 4 pound chicken, but you can use a smaller one too. All I did was put some rosemary, thyme, and a bay leaf into the cavity & season with salt & pepper. Then on the outside rub it with some canola oil and liberally season it with kosher salt and pepper. I roasted it at 400 degrees for about 80 mins and it was absolutely delicious.