Down to the Wire!

Wedding plans are in full swing!  Family is up and working on last-minute projects, and the chain is getting shorter!

Not So Chained Up...

Days until the wedding!!!!!!!

Hume Lake Firefighter Couples Conference 2011

After a dinner shift, a dinner shift plus snack shift, immediately followed by a 5:30am breakfast shift, our firefighter's conference is finished.  This week I was able to raise the bar a notch on my garde manger.  I'm actually starting to get the hang of this!  Next step is to get those special knives because there's quite a few things I'd like to try, but can't without the proper tools.  A paring knife and razor blade can only go so far...

Hopefully next week I'll have the knives and some more cool stuff to pull out of my trick bag!

Friday night dinner's carving board.  I kicked off the weekend by doing a fancy squash bird on a fruit basket on a kale-lined board.  I added dill and asparagus to the grapes to blend it into the kale and draw the attention to the bird.

Saturday night dinner.  A swan carved into a single cantaloupe, with beet flowers.  I really enjoyed using the beets in this piece.  Although they were hard to cut (and I feared for my fingers the whole time), they were a glossy, deep red when freshly cut with rings of dark brown running through the flower.  A new favorite.

Sunday lunch.  Fruit basket reincarnation.  This one didn't come out nearly as well as I was hoping it would.  I had originally intended to do a pineapple something display, but last night we used up the last of the pineapples to serve the cheesecake lollipops, so I was forced to begin plan B.  Then, (back story warning: beginning tomorrow all meals will be in the second dining hall while Pondy is shut down for a month to install a new dishwasher) when I went to see what fruit I actually did have, I found that everything had already been transfered to Cedar Hall for the upcoming week, so I only had a couple lemons and zucchini I'd pulled but hadn't used from the previous night.  In a near panic (not really), I scraped together enough usable fruits and veggies to make this, and throw it together with 5 minutes to spare!

Hume Lake Spring Women's Conference 2011

This last weekend we had our spring women's conference up here at Hume Lake.  Despite snowing on the last day, everything went smoothly and we heard a lot of good reviews.  Saturday night I made the alfredo sauce for our alfredo bruschetta chicken and it turned out delicious!  Someone even used "life-changing" in conjunction with it.  Although I hope the alfredo sauce was the least of the life-changing events last weekend, I'm posting the recipe below anyways for your culinary enjoyment.


Since the beginning of our spring conference season this year, I've kind-of inherited the role of garde manger chef.  I've been put in charge of preparing the garnishes for our carving boards and buffet lines, which I've fallen in love with.  I'm still stuck with a paring knife and razor blade as my tools, but our head chef said she'll bring her set in so I can use on the weekends.  Even so, I've found ways to be creative with the materials on hand.

One of my carving boards.  A true fruit basket!

Here's a link to my ongoing album of work, which I keep updated as I make displays.
My Fruit Displays (Facebook)

Alfredo Bruschetta Chicken Sauce

Makes 2 gallons

1 ½ lbs. bacon

1 ½ lbs. ground Italian sausage

1 c. minced garlic

2 lbs. cream cheese

2 lbs. grated parmesan cheese

1 ½ gallons heavy cream

1 gallon milk

¼ gallon heavy cream

1) Render bacon and sausage together in own grease over medium-high heat.

2) Add garlic and saute for 5 minutes, or until garlic is lightly browned.

3) Reduce heat to low.  Add cream cheese and parmesan cheese.  Stir frequently until melted.

4) Add cream ¼ gallon at a time, stirring to incorporate completely before next addition.  Add ½ gallon milk and stir in completely, then add remaining half.

5) Bring to low boil, stirring often and scraping bottom to prevent burning.  Reduce by ¾ gallon.

6) Blend well using immersion blender.  Finish with remaining ¼ gallon cream.