Chef Kent Getzin Consulting

02/20/2026

Mmm…. Oven Roasted Beef Picadillo!

In my last post, one of the pictures was of raw, beef picadillo ready for the oven and it received a lot of questions so I thought I would talk about it a bit here

Beef Picadillo is a classic Latin American and Filipino comfort food consisting of ground beef with veggies, tomatoes, onions, garlic, and spices.

Recipes vary widely depending on the region you’re in, and can be used in so many easy and delicious ways!

Taco filling, Nachos, simply served over rice, breakfast burritos, baked potato filling. Sooo many things!

I’m including a few pictures from my recent “Live-Setting” Trainings, and the recipe, also!

When you make this using my oven roasting method, it is really smart cooking! This technique is designed for batch cooking and benefits so much from the hot oven roasting!

The trick is to roast it very hot 425-450 degrees. This develops amazing caramelization that you just can’t get in tilt skillet plus if you don’t use it all, you haven’t cooked it yet so it’s easy to freeze and use next week.

One thing that is a bummer, though… you won’t get that steamy taco meat scented facial you so look forward to every week when cooking over the tilt skillet. 🤣😜😕

That’s it let me know how it goes! I’d love to hear your comments, questions and pictures if you try make it!

You ROCK, and thank you for doing this important work of feeding kids well in our nation’s schools!

02/18/2026

Maybe you didn't know, but this is what were all about!

We are School Food Experts - Instilling Culinary Confidence, Competence and Sustainability in K-12 Kitchens through Skill and Systems Development.

Inspiring School Food Pros to Cook from Scratch More and More Everyday in Their Child Nutrition Programs!

Check out these photos of the live work we are doing all over the country in school kitchens all over the country!

02/10/2026

Headed to Kahlotus, WA on Friday for two days of baking training!

Here is a written summary of the class and a few pics from a few K-12 designed baking classes I’ve done recently!

Can’t wait!! 😝

02/09/2026

I have a problem.....
I talk a lot. In this case though, I wrote a lot of info into a recent post.

My most recent post about reducing sugar was a lot.

But SOO worth your time!

Let's face it, sugar reductions in K-12 are upon us!

I fully support sugar reductions, but I'll bet it will make for some challenges in our school kitchens. So, my thought is, let's start talking about it, and maybe together we can figure out some ways to feed kids even better at school with less added sugar!

The post I'm talking about is says:

"The Fruit Based Sweetener Challenge" at the top.

Maybe you don't need any more challenges. Well, fair enough. No pressure to do a challenge, but I do recommend you carve out a few hours🥴to get through my ridiculously long post.
Give it a read and you will see what I mean!

I think it will help and maybe even inspire some of you to get serious about sugar reductions in your sphere of influence and maybe even do a little bit (or a little bit more) of scratch cooking everyday in your school food program!

I am including the Fruit Based Sweetener Recipe and the No-Sugar_Added Granola here again for your convenience. I also had a request for the nutritional. So those are here too.

Thanks for all you do out there!

Follow and share, Please! Im always posting quality content for school kitchens!

02/06/2026

The Fruit-Based Sweetener Challenge:
You may have see in recents posts that I have been working on developing a
100% Fruit Based Sweetener.

I promised to share it, so here it is!

Except, instead of just handing you the recipe, requiring you to figure out yourself what to do with it, I thought we could have some fun! So, I am suggesting a challenge!

Here's the Challenge:
~ Read through the info I've written about the two recipes.
~ Make the two recipes, just as they are written, either at home or at school. Either way is great!
~ Taste and Evaluate - Consider: Flavor/Sweetness, Ease or difficulty of production, etc
~ Consider ways you could use the FB Sweetener to replace added sugar in other recipes you currently make. I already have three other recipes I am using the FB Sweetener in and am thrilled with the results! I will share those later!
~ Share your experiences and ideas here (and maybe a few pictures)!

You’re going to be making two recipes for the challenge:
~ the Fruit-Based Sweetener, and a small batch of Granola using the FB Sweetener as an ingredient.

So let’s get started!

Fruit Based Sweetener: The recipe is in the pictures included with this post.

This stuff is just Fruit and Juice!

Dates, Golden Raisins, Fresh Apples and White Grape Juice. I chose these ingredients because they are some of the sweetest foods nature provides.

Simply core the apples and cut into chunks, place the apples and everything else in a 3 quart sauce pan.

I would use stainless steel, as I don’t want the potential for metallic flavors to be imparted. Then bring it to a boil, reduce the heat to a simmer, and cook uncovered for about 30 minutes.

Next step would be pureeing the mixture. It is best to allow the mixture to cool before pureeing. Pour the fruit mixture out into a shallow pan to facilitate faster cooling.

Once cool, puree it until it is very smooth. Now it is ready for use! Always store refrigerated and it will last 10 days.

It freezes great for months, too. Consider freezing it in the measured amounts you need for each recipe you’re using it in, for maximum production efficiency!

Now let’s use this tasty, super-sweet fruit puree to sweeten “and flavor” a batch of Scratch Granola!

I say “and flavor” because this sweetener is multi-dimensionally sweet, not just one-dimensional like sugar.

Sugar is, well.... just sweet. Thats all it brings to the party.
But the Fruit Based Sweetener has incredible, rich depth of flavor that goes way beyond only providing sweetness!

A few cool things about this Granola:
* It has no added sugar. It is completely sweetened with natural fruit.
* For the same batch size, the original Granola recipe, I modified for this project, uses nearly 6 ounces of brown sugar plus 2.5 ounces of honey. That’s a 100% reduction in added sugar.
* It’s easy to make and tastes great.
* Granola is incredibly versatile on school menus. It’s a win when one recipe not only stands on its own, but becomes and valuable ingredient in other recipes and menu items!

A word of warning though...
Granola is truly a gateway recipe to the wonderful world of scratch cooking.

To summarize the challenge:
1. Make the Fruit-Based sweetener.
2. Make the No-Added-Sugar Granola.
3. Taste, evaluate, take notes, and take pictures.
4. Follow my page and post your results!

You might even find yourself inspired to start your own in-house sugar reduction project!
..and remember, scratch cooking puts you in control of the food you serve! Work on doing more and more scratch cooking everyday!

02/01/2026

Who doesn't love a flaky, scratch-made biscuit?! Am I right?!

Here’s an excellent biscuit recipe for you, but to me, just having a recipe is never enough.

The best learning happens when we slow down and look closely at the skills behind the recipe. That’s how we understand the how and why it works.

This is not my original recipe. It comes from a must have book called Professional Baking by Wayne Gisslen.

The recipe itself is on the first page, then the highlighted text on the next two pages are the mixing method, and the make-up instructions. Lots of fun, tasty variations in there too!

You can always just make the recipe, but when you read the rest of the info as well, you will learn all about the why’s and how’s of Quick Bread production, and how to avoid common quality pitfalls for all kinds of Quick Breads. Everything from muffins, biscuits and scones, to pancake batter and more!

This book is the best out there and totally worth owning if you ever want to go deeper into professional scratch production baking.

I have used this book for most of my 46 year career and it shows!

While this is a ROCK SOLID recipe, over the years I have found a few tips that make them even easier and more efficient to produce in school kitchens.

Quick Tips to Make It Even Better:

* Skip the sifting: Instead of sifting dry ingredients, whisk them together in a large bowl until well combined.
* Grate your butter: Freeze your butter solid, then grate it (like cheddar cheese) into the dry mix. Choose butter over margarine or shortening when possible.
* Fluff it in by hand: Use your hands to gently toss the grated butter into the dry ingredients until well distributed. Then continue with the rest of the method.

These tips will save time and give you beautiful, light, fluffy biscuits.

One other important thing… this recipe, as it is provided here, is NOT whole grain compliant for child nutrition programs.
To remedy this, you will need to replace ½ of the white flour with whole wheat flour.

My recommendation would be to use a White Whole Wheat Flour variety. This will make your biscuits compliant with CN rules and provide the lightest color end product.

Well, there it is! Hidden within one biscuit recipe are the keys to the entire Quick Bread kingdom!

And please share this widely with any colleagues you know who’d not only like a great biscuit recipe, but who also loves to geek-out on the technical details!

I LOVE answering your questions, so please reach out with them.

01/31/2026

Hey Beautiful!

I’ve been heavily into R&D (research and development) mode for the last month!

Working on some fun, tasty, scratch-made, LOW, and NO added sugar, breakfast items!

Here are a few pics just to tease you. 😜 I’ll be sharing recipes soon!!

Oh, and one more thing.

I know school food service is a hard and often thankless job, but you are doing such important work!

Hang in there, cuz you freak’n ROCK!

01/30/2026

Tomorrow chef Laura and I wrap up another week at Centinela Union High School District in Las Angeles.

We worked with this team in late September, and the loved it and invited us back for more scratch cook training! Love love love being invited back, and these guys are on 🔥🔥🔥!

Our first visit we worked with them on quality and efficiency initiatives in their scratch bakery. Dinner rolls, cinnamon rolls, focaccia, scratch pizza on their own dough, and cinnamon crumb muffins.

We also introduced them to our
Fresh Eyes Review and our original Live-Setting style trainings. Fresh Eyes Reviews are kind of like they sound, we do an in-depth review your entire program, and provide a prioritized, extensive report revealing strengths and weaknesses you can use to make improvements from.

Our original “Live-Setting” trainings are team trainings that happen on any normal school day, making it possible for your team to learning new skills in their live, everyday work environment. The short version is the trainings are done to full production scale, in your own everyday kitchen environments, and we feed kids a full scratch, reimbursable meal during regular service, providing immediate feedback on what kids like! This is powerful learning !

This visit we followed up on the training from September, tweaking and nudging the “homework” we left for them.

Then we added new skills in the form of how to use the amazing new BBQs they recently purchased. We did a fun outdoor BBQ where we featured cheeseburgers, polish sausages, Cowboy Caviar and a beautiful fresh fruit salad. Of course, all paired with milk, water and juice on ice, all the appropriate burger veggies and condiments! 500 fresh, hot burgers served right off the grill. No fake BBQing here! All over live fire and smoke! Amazing!

The kids were so excited and the vibe was so fun and positive! The staff just ROCKED it, too! Such great and motivated people to work with!

And you know what?! They are so happy with the positive growth they’ve made over these ten-days of live, shoulder-to shoulder training with their team that tomorrow as we wrap up the week, they want to set dates for our third, five-day visit (they even hinted at more visits)!

Feeling so grateful! We love this work! It is unbelievably inspiring and motivating to feed kids well!

Reach out with your questions!

01/23/2026

Yah know… Sugar reductions in school meals are upon us!
And, While I fully support reducing sugar in school meals,
wow, is it gonna be a tussle!!

Cool thing is, I am currently working on Recipe Development project through the state of WA Team Nutrition Program!

I’m tasked with creating five recipes and then testing at schools with kids.
They must meet the following criteria:
~ Nothing currently like them on the USDA recipe resource
~ Lowering added sugar and sodium
~ Veggies at Breakfast
~ Emphasize Protein at Breakfast
~ Each must contain at least one WA Produced ingredient
~ incorporate Beans, Peas and Lentils (alt proteins)

To make a long story short (which is very difficult for me), I’m working on a zero added sugar, fruit based sweetener that’s blowing my mind!

As an example, I’ve been able to take ALL of the added sugar out of my granola recipe that I’ve been teaching in schools for years using this fruit based sweetener. And that’s just the beginning!

I have so much to share with you, but I can’t give it all away in one post.

Take a look at the pictures. All of the items you see have sugar reduced drastically or eliminated completely by using this new fruit base sweetener that I developed.

It has so many potential uses and I’m super excited about getting it out there!

So, how are you feeling about sugar reduction?
😃 Ready
😬 Nervous
😤 Frustrated

There are no wrong answers and no judgment. It’s gonna be a big job!

Y’all ROCK out there in school food service world! It’s very hard work and you’re killing it out there! Keep going. Don’t stop! Kids need you!

Happy to answer questions and bounce ideas!

01/22/2026

Funny story behind this little video clip. I asked the Director if they could take a little video of what was going on, on the fancy screen she monitored production from at the back of the room. I wanted to know what was going on, but I also wanted to share it with my wife at home.  She took it during this “milk” bit and it’s just dripping with puns and dad joke jokes.
😂🤷‍♂️😂

It’s kind of hard to hear, so turn it up.

Chef Mataio and I had such a blast writing and shooting this unique production!

It will be a public resource, and I can’t wait to share it with you all!

01/22/2026

I'm currently involved with two really fun video projects!

+ Harvest of The Season for Washington State
+ Understanding and Applying the Five New USDA rules affecting school meals that is just going into effect

I can't wait to share the whole project with you (32 of the videos), but here are a few highlights from the week of shooting. It was quite the production!

Coolest thing is SO MUCH good has already come from the project and it's still not a finished product. Just you wait!

This is just a teaser!

11/12/2025

Azusa USD is really rock’n it! Check out this video about their excellent school meals program!

Way to to Azusa team!!

https://www.facebook.com/share/1CH3LbivJS/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Behind every healthy student is a dedicated team! 🍎 We're proud to showcase the incredible work of the AUSD Nutrition Services team, who prepare and serve d...