Chef Kent Getzin Consulting

07/10/2025

Hey You! I hope summer is treating you well!

Also, there is a recipe hidden in here for you but please read this first!

I’m kinda hung up on thoughts of Breakfast right now. In schools, we could feed kids a lot better at breakfast with some fresh ideas!

Last week I put up a tutorial and recipe on how to make “Sheetpan Pancakes”. If you didn’t see that one, take a quick spin through my feed and check it out! Easy, delicious and kids love it!

I also got some good feedback on the tutorial format that I wrote the post in. I didn’t just post a recipe, I taught you all about how to make pretty much any quick bread!

Recipes without understanding are ok, but where the “Rubber Meets the Road” is SKILLS!

What I mean by that, is recipes are often confusing and hard to understand but they are necessary, important and required in our school food service world.

Thing is, your time is much better spent learning the skills that are within the recipe than just simply how to make the recipe.

For instance, that pancake recipe I mentioned is in the category of culinary preparations called QUICK BREADS. Once you understand the concept and skills associated with making “quick breads” then you basically know what to do and how to avoid common pit-falls when making them.

You didn’t just blindly follow a recipe, you learned the skills associated with making quick breads which will ultimately make you a much better cook!

So, Lets try this concept with BREAD PUDDING:
• Bread Pudding at its most basic is sweet custard and chunks of bread baked together.
• The sweet version is called Bread Pudding and a savory version is called Strada.
• The savory egg and milk mixture is often called “Royale” (eggs, milk, salt and flavoring) and the sweet version is called “Custard” (eggs, milk, sugar, flavorings).
• A good basic Ratio for any Custard or Royal is (eight whole eggs per quart of milk).
• Royale is also what a QUICHE is based on. Pie Crust filled with cheese, meat (ham, bacon, sausage, shrimp, ect) and a savory Royale.

So check this out!
Now you understand the most basic facts about a very important culinary preparation that will now allow you to Riff in the kitchen!

Here is what I mean:
I just explained to you what makes up pretty much any Bread Pudding, Strata or Quiche. I also gave you a basic ratio for the egg/milk mixture, called a custard or royale. I told you what basic main other ingredients you could find in versions of these recipes.

Armed with this knowledge you could: grab that half baguette from the freezer, dig in the fridge for the eggs, milk, that chunk of ham or smoked salmon, those roasted potatoes and carrots leftover from Tuesday’s dinner, the three little hunks of cheese in the drawer and make a delicious Strata for dinner tonight!

Or skip the baguette and buy (or make) a pie crust and pour that same mixture into the pie shell (skipping the bread chunks or leave them in if you want!), bake it off and have a delicious quiche!

I hope you’re getting my point. Focus first on the skills first then the recipes will be a lot easier to deal with!

I’d love to hear your questions and comments about this topic! Please reach out and let me know who it’s going!

07/07/2025

Hey, here is a recipe AND a Quick Bread Tutorial for you!

We tested these Sheetpan Pancakes out on over a thousand hungry students over the course of a week of training at Sierra Sands USD in Ridgecrest, CA back in May.

The response was overwhelmingly positive! Kids really loved them!

From a cooks perspective, we loved them too!

Why? We not only love the taste and texture, but it’s easy to make.
Easy to manage in production through mixing, panning up, cutting and serving.

The other thing I love about this recipe is it gives us access to teaching the concept of quick breads. These are the skills that underpin the activity surrounding the making of quick breads. It may sound simple, but if you follow these few extra tips when making quick breads, you’re going to end up with a much better product than if you were just to dump it all together and mix it willy-nilly.

Here are a few tips and ideas to make this a win for you right out of the gate!

First, props to the chef/author of this one, Chef Petraglia! Thank you!

Next:
This is considered a Quick Bread.
Quick breads come together by scaling up the dry and wet ingredients in two separate bowls, mixing each very well first before combing them.

Then, add dry to wet (or wet to dry if you prefer) and mix JUST UNTIL BARELY MIXED. This is most important.
Over mixing is the biggest potential problem when making any quick breads. The reason we mix the wet and dry very well, and separately, is because we want all the ingredients evenly distributed before combining as we want to do everything we can to avoid over mixing.

Just so you know, over-mixing quick bread batter develops the gluten and makes for a tougher chewier product instead of a tender, cakey finished product, and it also causes what is called “tunneling”. Those are vertical bubble tunnels that are caused from over mixing. you can see tunneling most dramatically when you break open a muffin that has been over mixed and you’ll see vertical tubes running up and down inside the muffin.

Once you have the BARELY MIXED TOGETHER batter, then we scale and pan it up on to prepared sheet pans.

I like to spray the pan lightly with pan spray then apply the paper. This makes it so the paper sticks to the pan and doesn’t move while I apply and spread out the batter. We also lightly sprayed the paper.

We used 9 pounds per pan, which is basically a full to the top, gallon measure, if you want to measure that way instead of using a scale.
We got three sheet pans out of a recipe.

After you have the batter onto the pans, gently spread it out. Beware that every time you touch the battery you’re mixing it more so getting it spread out quickly and efficiently is important to avoid overmixing.

It’s now ready for the oven!
If you’d like, sprinkle on some fresh or frozen blueberries or raspberries or cut strawberries! Even try a little sprinkle of granola or streusel topping for exciting variations.

You can see from the pictures what they’re going to look like when they come out of the oven. Rotating will be important during cooking, for even browning. Also, you might wanna watch that top pan as it’s going to brown faster on top than the bottom one.

As far as the syrup goes, I’d highly recommend brushing on the syrup and serving it without any on the side.
First of all, this is a great way of controlling sugar and gives it an appealing glazed appearance.
And secondly, it eliminates the wasted labor of cupping, and avoids additional plastic waste from serving with pre-packed syrup.

Please consider abandoning the practice of cutting up fruit and condiments as much as humanly possible!

Cutting: the recipe suggests two, 3” inch pieces for 2 Bread/Grains, and that’s great! I really liked the way we served it as nuggets or bites cut in smaller pieces so basically we served six smaller pieces as opposed to two large pieces. Fun and easy to eat that way!

Oh, and one last thing…
Now you understand everything you need to know about making quick breads. That is pretty much any muffin, corn bread, many types or cakes. Pretty much any non-yeast fired batter baking application. By that I just mean, leavened by chemical means such as baking soda and baking powder.

Now you UNDERSTAND the METHOD for the next time you make ANY item like that, and you’ll be much more successful.

Recipes in cooking are important, but SKILLS are THE MOST IMPORTANT!Once you have the skills associated with a recipe under your belt, then the fog is lifted, things become much more clear, and you become a better cook!

I’d love to hear comments and see pictures about your use of this recipe, and let me know your questions!

Also, please remember that you ROCK and that you are doing such important work, feeding our nations children! Thank you!🙏

07/05/2025

Hey Beautiful!

Whatcha got going on your breakfast menu in the coming year?

Check out these delicious ideas from a recent week of training Chef Laura and I did back in late May at the Sierra Sands Schools! All are easily within your team’s reach!

Lavish in this summer! You deserve it!

06/12/2025

Sometimes you just have to take a shift at the farmers market, selling our delicious fresh garlic seasoning salt. Stop by if you’re in the area! It’s a beautiful afternoon!

05/30/2025

Schools are drowning in food waste, and it’s a problem with devastating consequences for, not only the environment, but for student well-being. However, this is not inevitable. By implementing smart strategies and engaging students, it is possible to rewrite the story of school lunches, creating cafeterias that nourish both bodies and the planet. Let’s work together to turn the tide on food waste and create a system that is good for children and the Earth.

School cafeterias can be powerful agents of change. Addressing food waste can shrink environmental footprints, stretch financial resources, and empower students to become mindful consumers and stewards of the planet. It is time to transform our approach to food in schools! Let’s use this daunting issue into a lesson in sustainability.

Let’s talk about it!

05/24/2025

Talk about Custom! Just wrapped up a week of very custom training for a returning client! Love that!

Sierra Sands Unified School District. Love them!

This is my second visit to Ridgecrest, CA to train with the food services team. I love return visits!

This time the amazing Chef and school food expert, Laura Bullene-Jacobo and I collaborated on it!

Our focus was on Breakfast . The big goals of the five-day training week were:

Three, one-day, “Live-Setting”, breakfast-focused trainings, culminating in a special breakfast event just for the districts 200 graduating seniors!

And what a joy to serve this beautiful, fully scratch-made (and fully NSLP compliant) final school breakfast to the literally glowing grads of the of the Sierra Sands USD class of 2025! Wahoo!

Custom, in the sense that we trained the teams at three schools, during their live service day!

We showed them how to make all the items we planned to serve at the “Senior Breakfast”. Then we sampled them with the FS team and the kids during the training, and during the kids regular breakfast and lunch periods, AND, the output of the trainings, resulted in tons of the“prep work” that had the get done for the senior breakfast at the end of the week…. all this happens simultaneously!

It was an awesome example of the way you need to think and plan as you do more and more scratch cooking everyday!

I can go on, on about all the details but it would get really long. It already is a bit long 🤷‍♂️

But I can tell you, the team did a great job and, the food was amazing ! The kids loved everything the team made for them!

Best part though is this Food Service team can now produce all those new, scratch-cooked items they learned to make this week on next years menus! …and because of the amazing response of the kids, I think they feel motivated to do so! That is very exciting!

Hey, one more thing.

Kids are SOOOO hungry for more FRESH, whole-foods based, excessive packaging-free, menus at school. If you’re running, or are a part of a school food service team and you want to serve better, in every way, it’s within your reach! It’s totally possible to do it better, right away. Let’s keep working together to feed kids better, stronger, and faster at school every day!

05/13/2025

04/26/2025

Our “Live-Setting” trainings are just what you need to get the team the skills they need to do more scratch cooking!

✅ Allow you to train any regular school day - no need to wait until a PD day, Half-Day or Non-Student day.
✅ We prepare a full scratch menu, live in your everyday work setting and learn as we go.
✅ Then we serve a fully reimbursable meal to student providing instant feedback!

Here are just a few class ideas:
- Street Tacos with Picadillo and Five Salsas
- Mediterranean Style Pasta (Alfredo and Marinara) with Scratch Focaccia
- Breakfast for Lunch with Cheesy Frittata, Honey-Lime Fruit Salad

Our “Live-Setting” Trainings will really get your team motivated to do more and more scratch cooking everyday!

04/23/2025

With so many details to attend to when running a child nutrition program, it's easy to forget the most important part of any food-focused business, and that's the FOOD!

Your highest priority should always be the food.

Plan your menus with care. Buy and use ingredients
wisely. Cook and serve meals with skill and love, serve the kids kindly. And, while you’re at it, tell your community about the great work you’re doing feeding kids well!

When students are happy with the food, they come to eat more often and then everything else, including budget challenges, get a little easier.

Focus on the Food First for the best outcomes in Child Nutrition!

04/10/2025

Hey, check it out!
The Lovely CherylAnn interviews me about the fresh eyes review.☺️😎☺️

Chef Kent Getzin ConsultingOwner/Director, CherylAnn Crego interviews Chef Kent about their Fresh Eyes Review to find out what it's all about!