In my current phase at L'Ecole Culinaire we have a practical exam every Thursday and the scores are averaged for our mid-term and final practical grades.  That's cool.  There is a lot less pressure somehow this way.  You just don't stress out as much.  The catch is that we can't use recipes and just kind of wing it with whatever is on hand.  It's a healthy cooking class, too, so all of that heavy cream, butter, and salt that we've been using so liberally up to now is out the window and all of the grains are whole.  I like that because it's how I try to cook anyway.  This week Chef made it a little more complicated.  We had to use all of the stuff on the table in the first picture.  No problem.  I had an idea of what I wanted to do and had to change but it's nothing I can't handle.  I've been wanting to try the black glutinous rice anyway.  I used it, the spinach, and cauliflower to make sort of a pilaf.  Everything else plus a couple of extra things (pineapple jelly) went into salsa.  I pureed part of it to marinate my shrimp (not from the table), which I grilled, and left the rest a little bit chunky.  It was pretty dang good if not very pretty!  Purple cauliflower has to make you happy, right?