Pork Stuffed Shrimp with Creamy Polenta and Wrapped Haricots Verts

When I read this week’s ingredients for round 2 of the Virtual Kitchen II contest, I was so excited. I had been anxiously waiting for their arrival all week. When I read ground pork and camembert I was in heaven, the third ingredient (haricots verts) created a little hesitation, but I decided to move forward with what I knew I wanted to do with the pork and cheese and let the beans just kind of happen.

Being from the south and married to an Italian, I have fun marrying the two traditional cuisines to create my own interpretation of “Southern Italian”, so imagine how excited I am to take that and add my own third dimension of French undertones. And this week I’ve used a VERY local ingredient, a marinade which is also available on-line, but created and made by a friend who is also a Tampa resident, Intensity Academy Chai Thai Teriyaki. For my other local flavor I chose Key West Pink shrimp, always fresh and scrumptious here on the west coast of Florida.

While taking the day off from the kitchen Sunday night, I hear someone jump out of their chair and in a very excited voice tell me I need to enter this. This what? Well, that response ended my day off in the kitchen….not such a bad thing for Deb I must admit.

Well, to back up a little, you all are pretty familiar with the fact that I have now rented space as a test kitchen for putting together my first cookbook. Well, I have finally moved all my equipment to the test kitchen, which as it turns out is not so good. When presented with the challenge of creating a dish in 24 hours or less, with 3 ingredients chosen by Top Chef winner Stephanie Izard and RedEye Chicago (Virtual Kitchen Stadium 2), my challenge was what the heck was I going to use to create what I was tasting in my mouth!

Well, after surviving the first week at the Culinary Institute of America, I was excited to be returning for the Advanced Boot Camp. This was going to be my challenge week. I have cooked my entire life, so the cooking part for me was, for lack of a better term, kind of a no brainer, just learned the “proper” way of describing what I have been doing forever. But, this week I was going to have to learn how to “fabricate” meat, poultry, fish, and……deal with LIVE LOBSTER!

First things first, what the heck was this “fabrication” process all about. I kept hearing this word, but what exactly did it mean used in this text. Well, for those of you wondering, it means basically they bring in a side of beef for example and you have to know how to make the various cuts such as a roast, rib steak, tenderloin, etc. My first day and I have the assignment of doing lamb tenderloin. So we watch very closely our instructor, Chef David Bruno, they always make it look so easy! But I’m here to tell you that when you are the one holding that sharp knife that can either produce the most gorgeous cut of meat or the most unrecognizable cut of meat based upon the holder’s ability, it isn’t so easy! But with the guidance and reassurance of Chef Bruno, I DID IT! I managed to cut and trim a gorgeous tenderloin…from an entire loin section of the lamb. Phew, day one….survived and made an amazing lamb tenderloin as well!

After years, actually 40, of cooking and settling into a career as a chef, I was surprised by my husband with an opportunity to attend the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) for a chef’s boot camp course. So like a kid at Christmastime I went to my computer to check out what opportunities awaited me at the Institute.

As I said, I’ve been cooking for 40 years, but have never been classically trained and so I was a little unsure which class to take. So of course, I decided it would be a great idea to take both the basic and advanced chef’s boot camp. So two classes it would be - 5 days in each one. After weeks of waiting, I arrived at the beautful CIA campus in Hyde Park, NY.