Just a Chef Brandon Bretz: HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012!!!!

Just a Chef Brandon Bretz: HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012!!!!: hello everyone, I just want to wish everyone in amazing 2012! 2011 was an amazing year! My lovely bride was able to stay home in 2011 and ...

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012!!!!

hello everyone, 

I just want to wish everyone in amazing 2012! 2011 was an amazing year! 

My lovely bride was able to stay home in 2011 and take care of our children and that in itself is an amazing thing.   

Our children Connor and Kayla had an amazing year themselves. Connor 13 is caring at 3.7 GPA and is amazing baseball player. My beautiful Kayla 10 is doing great in school and has become a great dancer and singer. I couldn't be more blessed with all the things that God has given me. Each and every day I am grateful for all that I have.

In 2011 I was awarded after painstaking tests certification by the international culinary Federation as a Master Chef!I was also blesses to become the vice president of the culinary department of which I am in the alumni. This coming week I get to have the honor to speak in front of the students of Lake Washington. These are things I only dreamed about. Having a beautiful family and rising to upper echelon of the culinary world. It is true what you dream will become your reality. Your attitude ultimately sets your altitude. Once again I truly have been blessed and I wish you all those blessings that have been blessed upon me. For I could have not become who I am today without knowing each and every one of you and having you in my life.

I spent a better part of my life a mile wide and an inch deep. Trying many many things in the moment they became difficult I would move on to something else. I always knew cooking was something I loved, and when I was 14 I began cooking. I went culinary school and then became head chef. But I spent many years jumping from restaurant to restaurant never quite finding my home but always honing my craft. I took a few years off from cooking to see if there was something else out there for me. But I know it's come back to cooking the thing that I love. Over the last few years I've truly given 100% to becoming the best possible chef that I can. By focusing my energy downwards not being a mile wide and an inch deep but being inches wide and miles deep and having amazing focus on my goal to become a master chef. I achieved my dream!

So so all you out there I wish you the best in 2012! I wish you the ability to focus and achieve your dreams for I am sure you have amazing dreams and the one day become your reality. Because of most people's some days becomes a handful of people's everyday!

thank you and God bless,

eat love and enjoy life!

Chef B.

Just letting it flow

                                                               This one by Eric Ring

                                                             This one by Eric Ring

I got a Ipad

Hey you guys I just got a new ipad for www.Juatachef.org now I will be posting like mad.So get set for it.
Eat, love and enjoy!
chef B.

The True Essence of Chef

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 tablespoons paprika
• 2 tablespoons salt
• 2 tablespoons garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon black pepper
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 1 tablespoon Cayenne pepper
• 1 tablespoon dried Oregano
• 1 tablespoon dried thyme
• 1 tablespoon piquante sesoning

Directions

Combine all ingredients thoroughly. Now just put this in all things to suck the love out of it.
Eat love and enjoy life!
Chef B.

Chef's Green Curry Tofu

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 cup uncooked basmati rice, rinsed and drained
• 3 tablespoons sesame oil
• 1 (14 ounce) package firm water-packed tofu, drained and cubed
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 (10 ounce) can coconut milk
• 2 tablespoons green curry paste

Directions

1. Place water in a medium saucepan, and stir in the rice. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes. Remove from heat, cool slightly, and fluff it up with a fork.
2. Heat the sesame oil in a separate medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in tofu. Stirring occasionally, fry about 20 minutes, until evenly crisp and lightly browned. Season with salt.
3. In a small saucepan, bring the coconut milk to a boil. Mix in green curry paste. Reduce heat, and simmer 5 minutes. Drizzle generously over the tofu and rice to serve.

Eat, Love and Enjoy Life!

Sorry for the delay lets start cooking ( Shrimp creole)

Shrimp Creole

Ingredients

• 2.5 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 2 stalks celery, chopped
• 1 green bell pepper, chopped
• 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 2 cups seafood stock or shrimp stock
• 1 (28-ounce) can whole tomatoes, in puree
• Dash Worcestershire sauce 
• Dash hot sauce
• 2 bay leaves
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 pounds large shrimp (that is about 32), shelled and deveined
• 4 tablespoons green onions, sliced for garnish

Directions

Heat a large heavy Dutch ovenover medium heat. Add oil. Cook garlic, onions, celery, and green bell peppers. Cook until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in cayenne and let caramelize. Add the seafood stock, tomatoes, Worcestershire, hot sauce, and bay leaves. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer for 35 minutes. Add shrimp and cook about 4 more minutes, until they are bright pink and cooked through. Garnish with green onions.

orange iceing

Well if I give you acupcake recipe, you should probably have a icing recipe!
       Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon grated orange rind
• 3 tablespoons soft butter
• 3 tablespoons orange juice

Directions. Mix all ingredients together, starting with only 2 tablespoons of orange juice. If the frosting is to thick then add additional tablespoon of orange juice Eat, love and enjoy life!

Chef B.

Cup Cakes

My vanilla cupcake recipe.

 

Ingredients.

• 2 cups all-purpose flour.
• 1 1/2 cup sugar
• 3 teaspoons baking powder
• half teaspoon salt
• four large egg whites from large eggs
• 1/2cup shortening
• 1 cup 2% milk
• two large eggs
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla

recipe directions.

Preheat oven to 350°. Line cupcake pans with paper liners. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, shortening, milk and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Mix at low speed for two minutes. Scrape bowl. Add egg whites and mix at high speed until fluffy and smooth, approximately 2 minutes. Fill liners half to two thirds full of batter. Do not overfill. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan, then remove from pan and place on wire rack to cool completely. Frost and decorate your vanilla cupcakes as desired. Eat, love and enjoy life! Chef B.  

Creme Brulee

Creme brulee
Prep time 15 minutes .
Cooking time.
One hour.
Ingredients.
1 quart heavy cream.
1 vanilla bean,split and scraped.
1 cup vanilla sugar, divided.
6 large egg yolks  .
2 quarts hot water.
Direction
preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit.
Place the cream,vanilla bean, and inflation into a medium saucepan and set over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Remove from the heat, cover and allow to sit for 15 minutes. Remove the vanilla bean and reserved for some other time.
One medium bowl, whisk together half a cup sugar and egg yolks until well blended and is just starting to lighten in color.
Add the cream , a little at a time, stirring continuously. Pour the liquid into 6 (7 to 8 ounce) ramekins.Place a ramekins into a large cake pan or roasting pan. Pour enough hot water into the pans that it comes halfway up the sides of the ramekins. Bake just until the creme brulee is set, but still trembling in the center, approximately 40 to 45 minutes. Remove the ramekins from the roasting pan and refrigerate for at least two hours and up to three days.
Remove the creme brulee from the refrigerator at least 30 minutes prior to browning the sugar on top. Divide the remaining half cup vanilla sugar equally among the six dishes and spread evenly on top. Using a torch melt the sugar and form crispy top. Allow the creme brulee to sit for at least five minutes before serving.
I truly hope you enjoy this desert!
Eat, love and enjoy life!
Much love,
Chef B.

NO GMOs

Hey guys let me know what you think!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfpApALqtGw

the challenge

As you all know I live to cook and help other so I’m just would like you to look at just one thing you can do to make sure we can all enjoy life longer. I know most of us feel over whelmed with all the green stuff, eat right.... and so on.  Want to just challenge you to just one thing for one day one thing you think you can do that for me and you and the planet? Are you ready to try? I’m going to try for life cold turkey. So here is the challenge go without using plastics for one day! That means no water bottles and no buying things with any plastic at all. That means the bags you use to bring you grocery store.

I have found that it can all be mind numbing when you are just hit with it all day. So, I have just found that if you can just take one thing at a time then it is easy.

So, I’m not sure if it’s I’m 40yrs old or I’m a dad. But the other day I found that I needed to make a big impact in my life and my family’s life. That does not mean I’m selling everything and putting my kids in grass skirts and living in a drift wood house. I’m just going to try to live life better.

Ok, so I’m gone to put something’s in front of you and you can pick can pick one or more:

·         No bottle water

·         Eating only food that list the ingredients with things you know what it is

·         Only shop the 4 walls of the supermarket

·         Shop at co-ops

·          Shop at farmers markets

·         Don’t buy anything with fluoride in it

·         Ask if you water is fluoridated (all bottled water is)try to prove me wrong

·         Make brown bag lunch for a homeless person

·         Challenge me to do things

·         Live outside your comfort zone

1.Why is it that you can buy a meal at McD's for under $5 bucks but it cost more to eat fresh food?

2.Why are kids getting diabetes?

I'll tell you why we are buying and eating processed junk

Please have fun with this and make this a dialog.

Eat, love and enjoy

Chef B.

let's talk food

Zucchini Bread

Ingredients

• 3 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 3 cups sugar
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1/3 cup H2O (water) LOL
• 2 cups grated Zucchini
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 1 1/4 cup chopped walnuts(OR WHATEVER NUT YOU LIKE) LOL

Directions

Ok let's get to it!

Turn the oven to 350 degrees F to preheat. Grab a large bowl, now take all the dry ingredients and put them in the bowl and combine. Ok, now grab one more bowl and put all wet items in and combine (zucchini is wet) LOL! Now mix the wet into the dry, add the nut and fold in. Well how do we make bread? That's right with loaf pans. So, go grab 2 standard loaf pans, spray them with nonstick spray, and split the batter between them, bake for 1 hour, or till tester (toothpick) comes out clean. Well if you would like to use smaller pans or muffin pans then you need to lower the cooking time the smaller the pan.

Once they are done pull from oven and let cool on rack.

I like to slice myself a piece and spread some creamy butter over it and let it melt just so it soaks in but is still cool then I bite and enjoy.

I hope you love this as much as I do.

Eat, love and enjoy life!

Chef B.

New website for Non-Profit

Go to: http://www.justachef.org/


Welcome to JUST A CHEF NON-PROFIT!

Welcome to all,
 I’m Executive Chef Brandon Bretz and I'm just a Chef. I love life, friends, family and food. I'm starting this to get a mindset going that we all need to live more and love all those around us. We all live here and must find a way to help each other. I'm going to reach out to all of you to help me. I have a dream and that dream has a lot of dimension to it. I would like to say thank you to Jamie Oliver for stirring the pot. I'm going to teach young adults that need a point in the right direction and the less fortunate that there is help and they have not been forget. I would like to make a place that young adults and homeless women in need can go to learn a skill set and have someone to give them the time and encouragement that they have been missing. It just takes a moment to change a life. Help us, help others and make new friends while helping to change lives. 

Ok, here is what we are going to do to make this happen:
A new Blog: http://justachef.blogspot.com/
New Web-site: www.justachef.com
I'm making training DVD's for you to teach you all the steps to make you a great cook!
There will be video recipes, with step by step instruction. So, I'll be there each and every step walking you though each recipe. Once we get them made they will be available through donations.
We are looking to start filming very soon. We will let you know when they are ready to go.
I hope that this will help get the word out! You can help make this all happen. If you would like to help make this dream happen please help get the word out! Blog about it, tweet it, facebook about it and anyway you know how. I will be setting up a fund to start backing this movement. If you feel like helping you can send checks to this fund. We will put you name up as a supporter. Please wait till we have all the information for you before you send anything. Right know just please help get the word out.
If there is anything you can think that I missed that could help get the word out please let us know.
Thank you and enjoy,

Chef Brandon Bretz

Hey guy I would love to hear from you!
E-mail. Me at: chef@justachef.org