Cucumber Tomato Salad

This week four of my students are competing in a culinary competition, which, in the future could lead to scholarships to a culinary college. For the preliminary competition they will each make a Cucumber Tomato Salad like the one below, and a French omelet. It's interesting making a French omelet; it needs to be almost colorless, a pale yellow throughout, with no browning from the pan. It's tricky, but I have complete confidence in the students!

Southwest Black Bean Burgers

For our unit on fast food at school we watched Supersize Me and made burgers out of beans, bread crumbs, chilis, one egg (for six burgers) and southwestern spices. They had good flavor and (almost) a burger consistency after being dipped in corn meal and sauteed in a small amount of oil. This way we avoided the cholesterol in ground beef using an economical protein substitute.

Margherita Pizza

 I teach culinary arts at a public high school in Los Angeles. Last semester we focused on an introduction to Foods and Nutrition. This semester the course is International Foods. Last week we made margherita pizza, named in honor of Queen Margherita by an Italian chef in the late 1800's who created the pizza using the colors of the Italian flag; green basil, red tomatoes, and white mozzarella. I love how these turned out. The students made their own pizza dough, brushed with a garlic infused olive oil, also made during class, and topped it with fresh, locally grown tomatoes, basil and just enough mozzarella cheese for flavor. Not a single slice went to waste. The recipe is below, along with some beautiful pictures of the students' creations.