Gearing up for ProStart Nationals!!!

I'm so excited and proud to be taking my extraordinarily management team to represent Wisconsin at the National Restaurant Association ProStart Invitational while cheering on Wisconsin's culinary team from Badger High School.  

 

Our ProStart team demonstrated their knowledge of the restaurant and food service 

industry by developing a business proposal for their new restaurant concept, Posh. The business 

proposal consisted of a comprehensive written proposal, verbal 

presentation and visual display. The team will also tested on their critical thinking skills 

by reacting to potential management challenges related to their concept. Their 

performance during the event will be observed and rated by judges from the food-service 

industry and colleges and universities. 

The Wisconsin team schedule is as follows and coverage of the competition and the Monday night Awards Ceremony will be streamed live at www.nraef.org. Live streaming will begin each day when the first culinary team begins. Awards Dinner coverage will begin at 7:30 pm Monday.

Pulaski High School competes in the Management competition at 7:55 am on Sunday.

Badger High School competes in the Culinary competition at 11:00 am on Monday.

If you want to send some tweets of encouragement to our Wisconsin teams, make sure to include #ProStartNationals2014.

On Wisconsin!!!!!

My big fat Greek cooking day (oh wait, it's wasn't fattening)

Advanced Foods students explored Greek cuisine techniques making pita bread and tzatziki sauce. 

We don't need gifts to WRAP

Whole grain tortillas filled with at least 3 parts of the MyPlate program; we couldn't go wrong! :)

There are places outside Wisconsin?!?

Advanced Food students practiced their mise en place and US regional cuisine skills during their US Regions: Next Advanced Foods Stars project, teaching about a region of the United States and demonstrating a regional dish from their area.

Culinary Institute of America

We were fortunate to have the CIA (Culinary Institute of America) visit to discuss their culinary program.  Students were able to familiarize themselves with the program, admissions, as well as be part of an apple taste testing, identifying attributes of different varieties as they would in class if attending the CIA.

Chicken "Not-so-Fried" Rice

Family Foods students prepared a Weight Watchers version of Chicken Fried Rice, made with whole grain rice and free of any added fats. 

Give us the flavor, not the fat!

Family Foods students demonstrated their quick breads techniques while also reducing the fat of their chosen recipes to make them healthier.  Students either substituted 2 egg whites for every 1 whole egg (reducing recipes by 5 grams of fat per egg replaced), 1 T flax seed combined with 3 T water, or substituting applesauce for oil (1 T oil = 14 g fat).  Final products were evaluated on taste and appearance, including the muffins' cell uniformity, cauliflower-like tops, and texture.