Week 4

Monday-Starting this a little late at night but I still wanted to make sure to write my report. Tonight I made a few things. With the chicken that I cut up last Thursday I barbecued it and and it tasted pretty good. I also cooked up some steak while I was out there and both turned out great the the steak was a little well done. The steak was ridiculously thick though and it swelled even more more when on the grill so I think I did a good job considering. I cooked it outside in the dark and and how important is is to be able to see the food that you are cooking because once I bought it in for the first time it was still super rare. I made mashed potatoes and a cake also. My mom showed me how to properly make mashed potatoes. She told me that adding the raw potatoes into the water before it boils makes them less starchy and I think it worked pretty well.
Wednesday- I have pretty much settled on a schedule for my cooking now. I have decided Monday, Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays. Tonight I made some pork chops with bread crumbs. Ive gotten a lot better at judging when meat is done now so I have noticed a change of how the meat tastes. This time I got the pork right at the point of a little pinkness and it tasted really good. The breadcrumbs didn't want to stick at first but after a little time spent on that I was able to get a nice coating on them. After that I dribble some lemon juice on it and served it up. The rest of the food was just some steamed vegetables that were leftover from last night.
Friday- Not much happen tonight cooking wise but I did make a few steamed vegetables and some noodles for my sister and me. I out the vegetable in a steaming container that we have that goes into the microwave. I accidentally left it for to long and they were way over done but I guess that is experience.
Sunday- Tonight I learned a lot of new things about new meals. First I started off by making some mushrooms in a frying pan. I always loved the taste of Portabella mushrooms after being cooked in a pan and now I know how to make them. Next I made some artichokes which were a little more complicated than i thought. The artichokes have to be cut in half so that the edible part is more easily accessible. The you have to cut the stock off some and my mom also told me to use some scissors to trim the pricks off of the remaining petals so that I would not stab myself later on. Artichokes have to be steamed so I filled a pot up with about an inch of water and laid the artichokes down on there sides in the water. The pan lid was left a little off so that the steam cook escape. They took about an hour to cook and I had to make sure they didn't stay in to long or else they cook get waterlogged and it ruins it in a way.They did turn out a little water logged but they still tasted fine. Next I made some rice which had to cook for much longer than I thought which was near an hour. My step father told me that it is important no to open the lid when making rice because once all the steam is release it loses its heat and the rice sometimes turns out bad. For the main dish I went outside to use the gas grill which I like much more than the charcoal grill because it is so much easier to handle overall. I cooked up some salmon and some yellow fin tuna which is just Ahi fish. They both cooked really quickly and the Ahi only took about 3 minutes because its usually a sushi but we were cooking it up a little so that the outside looked grilled but the inside had a very distinctive red . I loved the salmon and just garlic salt and some pepper has become my favorite seasoning but Ive never been a big fan of the Ahi even when we get it in Hawaii I have never really liked it so I think Ill stick with salmon and trout.

Week 3

So I've realized that I haven't been doing a very good job in keeping my blog up but next week I going to try my best to stay on top of cooking one meal per day along with following it up right after by writing my daily blog posting. So this last week I was only able to cook a few meals but I think I did a pretty well. On Monday I started off well by preparing lasagna for myself and my family. My mom got me the ingredients and gave a cookbook that I think I'm going to be working out of from now on. It's a Betty Crocker cook book but I like most of the stuff in it so I think it will do. The recipe was pretty straight forward and everything went well until the end because I had different noodles than the recipe called for so I had to improvise. I ended up just sort of throwing everything together and sticking it in the oven. It turned out great for the most part. Around the edges there were a few spots that were dried, but I just cut those pieces off before serving it up. My family complimented me on it which felt a little funny but I guess because it was one of the first meals I had made for dinner they thought they should. I thought it tasted pretty good overall and felt pretty good about not messing it up even after having to make up a few of the directions. I didn't do anything on Tuesday because a sort of family emergency came up. On Wednesday I made stir fry for the first time which was pretty nice. I was really surprised on how easily sir frying can be. Its fun to be able to just sort of throw everything in the pan and it comes out tasting good. I made a vegetable stir fry and through in a few thin slices of steak and I thought they complement each other really well and the whole things taste great. I can’t say if other people thought it tasted good because I liked it so much I ended up eating nearly all of it. Wednesday was a pretty big day and after the stir fry I decided to make a desert which didn’t end up tasting very good. My favorite type of pie is lemon meringue and I thought I would try my hand at that. The pie it itself didn't taste too bad but it was a little too runny and there were far too big of lemon shavings in it. The big problem came when I tried to make the meringue. The recipe calls for the sugar to be added slowly to the egg whites while I was beating them and instead I dumped all of it in at once. The end result was a big lump of sticky goo. So from it I learned to add slowly if you want something to rise up like the meringue and also to watch out for keeping a accurate ratio of liquid and solids so your meal doesn’t come out too runny or too dry. Thursday was the biggest day and my first real learning from another person. My uncle came down from Chico and taught me some basics about butchering. He showed me how to de-bone and butcher a chicken along with lending me a few of his knives which are crazy sharper than any of our knives. I found it pretty easy to cut it up and then I cooked it up.

Week 2

Tuesday-I got a cold over the weekend and ended up in bed for a while. I went to school on monday but after I got home I pretty much just went to sleep and didn't think twice about making dinner. So today is Tuesday and I ended up not going to school today but I figured that I needed to start on my project and I decided that I would just start off by sticking to the easy stuff. Tonight I made a nice and basic dinner for my family of spaghetti and garlic bread. I didn't expect it to be hard and I wasn't wrong, things went smoothly and I was rather proud of myself after making the noodles and sauce. I learn a things, tips that helped everything move along a little more smoothly such as adding a bit of olive oil to the water to make sure that the noddles didnt stick together but other than that the night was uneventful. I tried to call up my uncle but there was no answer so I left a message. I think we are going to go visit him soon and Ill have him help me pick out some knives and show me how to do some basic butchering. I also plan on calling my grandfather up tomorrow to arrange an appointment to show me how to set up my spice garden and to figure out what exactly I can grow right now.