I would like a little help from Tst Members.

[sleepersatty99]

OK so a few you know i am an Executive chef at a college university.
I am now coming planning the new menu for the summer/fall semester's. I know there are alot of members on here that college students. So this is where i am asking the members help.If your away at school what is some of the food items that you like to see served and if your not away atschool what do you think would be a good idea to serve. anyones input would be accepted.
Now it could be anything from Entree's, Side's, and dessert's too. anything.
Im just trying to get some others input on this other then my staffs.

Thanks guys

[lownslow95]

I'm at school and I would love to see chicken breast's that actually looked like it came off a chicken. None of that processed **** that has no ****ing flavor.

[jjm4life]

my biggest issue with institutional food is that recipes tend to lose their edge when extrapolated for large quantity cooking. you know what i mean? its like restaurants that try to steal recipes from a cookbook, it just doesn't translate well into a production kitchen.
i never had an issue with the food options when i was at school, just they way they were executed.just out of my own curiosity having never run an institutional kitchen (im an out of work restuarrant manager) what food cost % do you guys try to maintain?

with all that being said, id have to imagine comfort foods are probably a good bet. assuming the majority of the students with meal plans are coming from home cooked meals (in an ideal world), dishes that remind them of home may be a nice touch.

[lownslow95]

yeah, home cooked meals would be awesome, but highly doubtful that they will ever make their way into institutions.

[sleepersatty99]

Well Lownslow95 when i got here i i got rid of all that processed chicken and use only fresh chicken breast which every unit here cleans and trims it themselves And yes we do offer home cooked meals here. the reason why we can do this is (and this will answer jjm4life issue too) in most of the food units i now have them make the food in such small batches that it doesn't lose any quality that it does what you explode it a 1000 times. it is so far scaled back that its just like making to it order.

Now as far as food cost goes that depends on each unit cause a few of them are subsidized so that changes things alot. but the ones that are not i try and have them run a food cost of about 35 to 40 % which is about avg.

[lownslow95]

Huh?

[sleepersatty99]

Originally Posted by lownslow95

Huh?

lol ok you seem lost and/or confused

[lownslow95]

Yes. I was at what you previously said, but I got it now.

[lownslow95]

And the main thing here at my school is, sometimes the food will be undercooked, and you being a chef, know that won't fly in most cases. I have gotten chicken that was still pink, and my teacher ate it, and got food poisoning from it.

[sleepersatty99]

yeah thats a very very bad thing all i can say is that i hope and pray my staff is taking the temps of the food to make sure thats its at the proper temp before servering it.

[den9]

is it true alot of colleges put stuff in your food that makes u **** it out faster just in case its diseased.

pasta with good pasta sauce is good. fresh chicken wraps, cheeseburgers with real meat, grilled cheese is good, add bacon or ham to make it better.

what college do you work at? i only at at 2 schools in my life and Rider wasnt bad, DelVal was ****in horrible though

[lownslow95]

I will have to agree with Den on this one. They must put some kind of laxative in their food to make you **** it out quick.

[sleepersatty99]

Originally Posted by den9

is it true alot of colleges put stuff in your food that makes u **** it out faster just in case its diseased.

pasta with good pasta sauce is good. fresh chicken wraps, cheeseburgers with real meat, grilled cheese is good, add bacon or ham to make it better.

what college do you work at? i only at at 2 schools in my life and Rider wasnt bad, DelVal was ****in horrible though

im at LaSalle and yes we do all of those things now in fact last summmer we just got a few new sandwich grill presses. lol and we dont put anything in food. sometimes its just the poor quality of food and oils used to cook it in.

[rturbo 930]

Originally Posted by den9

is it true alot of colleges put stuff in your food that makes u **** it out faster just in case its diseased.

pasta with good pasta sauce is good. fresh chicken wraps, cheeseburgers with real meat, grilled cheese is good, add bacon or ham to make it better.

what college do you work at? i only at at 2 schools in my life and Rider wasnt bad, DelVal was ****in horrible though

Rowan's food is pretty ****ty too. If you time it right though, you can get some decent (at best) food. But overall, it sucks.

On the note of the pasta sauce, I don't know what it is about the sauce they use in the pizza here, but it takes AWFUL. Doesn't taste like any other pizza sauce I've had before.

[timp]

Degree in Culinary Arts and Restaurant Management here... I'm at a Welsh restaurant now.

Anywho, kids, particularly young women, seem to love pasta, so I agree that some good pasta dishes would be a great (and cheap) idea... perhaps even a pasta bar type thing with a few different sauces, something like that.

Personally, when I first moved away from home, I was happy with whatever I could get my hands on that was greasy, moist, and flavorful... but you're always going to have a hit with good old home-cooking.

[lownslow95]

I would love to see a pasta bar here at my school.

[rturbo 930]

Originally Posted by timp

Anywho, kids, particularly young women, seem to love pasta, so I agree that some good pasta dishes would be a great (and cheap) idea... perhaps even a pasta bar type thing with a few different sauces, something like that.

The pasta bar is a great idea. There's about three things I'll go to in the cafeteria - pizza, burgers, and pasta - not much else I care for. The thing is, they serve just one kind of pasta per day, and it's almost always something I don't like. If there was a bar where you could just load plain noodles on your plate and put just what you want on it in terms of sauces, meats, vegetables, etc. I'd get it much more often.

[lownslow95]

I would to. It's very random that they will serve pasta at my school. If they do, its always with a meat sauce, and sometimes the sauce isn't all that great. I would like to see more of a variety of different kinds of sauces like you said.

[sleepersatty99]

yeah we do a pasta bar at one of the units here. in fact we do any and every kind of pasta and sauce and i make sure all the sauces are made from scratch.Most of my culinary background is in Italian restaurants and im not talking olive garden. So i belive in a good sauce.

[sleepersatty99]

i even serve a vodka pink sauce too. thats was fight for me to be able to do.lol hmm i wonder why