Week 10

Week 9

Monday- Tonight I made meatloaf for the first time. I have never really been a big fan of meatloaf but I thought I might as well learn how to cook it. The recipe called for a lot of new things for me as I had to add croutons, black pepper, cayenne pepper, chili powder, and thyme. I haven really had to use too many spices so far as normally I stay with the basics (salt, pepper, and garlic salt). It took quite a while to cook which ended up being a little over an hour and for the end result I can’t really see myself making too much meatloaf in the future. For the amount of effort and work that goes into making it I just don’t like it that. I did like that this recipe start me off using more vegetables. I used vegetables in my other cooking but I never put too much effort into preparing them as I always see them as a side but I found it only takes about a minute to put them in the food processor which makes the mixture of them taste really nice. I used onions, carrots, garlic, and red peppers in the food processor and pulsed until the mixture was finely chopped, but not pureed. My parents like it but as I said I have never been a fan of it and the spices were a little too much for my sister so all in all the meal really didn't turn out to be that good.
Tuesday- In order t changes it up from last night’s meatloaf I decided to make dessert tonight and let my mom go ahead and make dinner. I made a custard pie for dessert which tasted pretty good but in my opinion the store bought taste better than mine did. Mine ended up tasting a little too much like egg. The recipe was a pretty simple one and all that really need to be done was to add whipped eggs mixture (eggs, flour, and sugar) to the boiled milk. Afterwards I sprinkled some nutmeg on top and baked it in a premade pie crust. I think I like making dessert more than dinners, it just is more fun because the end result usually taste great and everyone looks forward to eating it.

Week 8

Monday- Alright to night I made my first roast which was pretty nice. I got some beef chuck boneless roast and we had all of the vegetables already at the house. The setup was pretty easy and all I did was cover it in salt, pepper and some olive oil so that it would not stick to the pan. I let it cook for about an hour and when I checked it seemed to be done because the little red thing in the side had popped out. I learned tonight not to trust those because the red timer that comes on it popped out far too early and roast turned out very raw but you couldn't tell from looking at it. So after I cut it up and tasted it I noticed how raw it really was and ended up throwing it in a frying pan for 5 minutes to finish it off. I also learned from this to check your food throughout to make sure that everything is going on track. Once the meat was a little more cooked it tasted fine. I also made some mashed potatoes and come cauliflower with melted cheese which tasted pretty good. Here are the ingredients:

1 First-cut brisket (5 lb)
1/4 Cup(s) Corn oil
8 Onion(s), thickly sliced
6 Carrots, peeled
3 Garlic clove(s), minced
2 Bay leaves
4 Tablespoon(s) Tomato paste
16 Ounce(s) Can tomatoes, with juice
1 Cup(s) Dry red wine

Tuesday- I didn't end up actually cooking tonight but I help my mom. It was nice having someone else make dinner after I have gotten used to cooking it myself. She made some raviolis and cauliflower. I didn't do much but I made the sauce with the blender because it was a pesto sauce. It was a really nice, simple meal and I’ve found that a lot of the simple stuff actually tastes just as good as other things if not it better than.
Thursday-Tonight I made some broil vegetables and some Angel hair pasta with lemon and chicken. While I was waiting for the water to come to a boil I started to prepare the sauce and I had gotten a precooked chicken because those things are amazing and I felt kind of lazy. Next I just melted the butter and added some lemon juice and seasonings until I got it tasting pretty good. Before we sat down to eat, I drizzled the sauce over the chicken and added the noodles on the side. My mom made a salad to go with it and it turned out to be one of the nicest meals so far. So I found a pretty cool website that allows you to organize the recipes so that they appear in order of difficultly along with a number of other filters. I have just now started to search by intermediate meals rather than beginner meals so I guess that that is an improvement. The meals aren't exactly more difficult they just take more time and some knowledge of basic cooking which I now have. Another god thing about the website is that it allows you to change the number of servings and then it changes the ingredients accordingly. Besides giving the recipe it also gives you "related meals" which is nice. Ill posts the link to the site at the bottom of this post but overall its one of the best that I have found. Here are the ingredients:

1/2 Can(s) thyme
1 Bunch(s) minced parsley
326/625 Pound(s) cooked, diced chicken breast
137/4377 Quart(s) lemon juice
2/3 melted margarine
17/29 Pound(s) cooked and drained angel hair pasta
1 Ounce(s) salt
1 Ounce(s) black pepper
1 French bread
1 Package(s) tossed salad

Wednesday-Tonight I was a t my dad’s house so I was just cooking for two. I made something called a taco pie which turned out to be more of a mess than anything but it didn’t taste too bad. The recipe pretty much was just mixing to gather the ingredients into a "pie" and calling it dinner which was ok with me. I thought that it could have been better but it was quick and easy and that was the important part. To add a little to it, because it was rather bland, I added some hot salsa and some sour cream which made it taste a lot better. This is a good recipe to save though because if I ever need to cook for my sister when my mom is out I can use this because it is so plain. This can be added to the famous list of spaghetti or Mac and cheese meals to make for younger children. It called for

• 1 (8 ounce) package refrigerated crescent rolls
• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 (1 ounce) package taco seasoning mix
• 1 (16 ounce) container sour cream
• 8 ounces shredded Mexican-style cheese blend
• 1 (14 ounce) bag tortilla chips, crushed

Sunday- Tonight I had my first time to cook for other people. My aunt and her boyfriend came over to dinner so they were able to test out my cooking. I made a few things but the main course revolved around steak, chicken, potatoes and a nice big salad. The steak and chicken were both cooked in a pan because it was raining outside and it just didn’t seem like a barbeque night. The chicken and the steak turned out fine but I used small potatoes which turned out pretty nasty though I think that is because they were rotten. They tasted a lot like strong vinegar and they were bad enough that you had to spit them out. Besides that though everything was a success and all of the food was eaten. That might suggest that next time I make a little more… I guess I’m not used to cooking for more than four people.

As an update to the garden situation, I have dug up the ground but I’m not sure that I am going to plant one. My grandpa came over and told me that because there are so many trees in our backyard there just isn’t a space that would receive enough sunlight.

Week 7

Wednesday- Besides just learning how to cook I have wanted to learn how to cook quickly and healthy. Lately I have been looking up some fast meals that meet just those requirements. There is a fountain of recipes on the internet and it really is great being able to read the reviews on the things that you are making before you get going on to realize that its really not worth it. Plus while reading through the reviews I can pick up on tips that others viewers suggest and can help broaden my knowledge base. Today I choose a recipe called Pan-Grilled Snapper with Orzo Pasta Salad. I cooked the rice without the salt and fat and the fried the fish in a pan for about 8 or 9 minutes then made the sauce following the directions. In total it took about 20 minutes and that included clean up. I like doing these faster meals because even though it is fun to make the more intricate dishes the quick healthy ones are much more practical and these taste just as good.
Thursday-I made bread with one of my uncles for the first time. Bread i alot more complex than I thought it wa and for the amount of work that I put into making it the bread didn't really taste that good but Ill go into the procces that we did. Bob has been making bread for years and he has can make all kinds so he show me a basic one.
Saturday-

Week 6

Well I had some trouble posting last week because Blogger was doing something weird but it’s all working now and I’ll get last week’s blog up soon. This week was a pretty busy week and I got a lot done but unfortunately I wasn't able to do all that I thought I was going to be able to do this weekend. I had planned on setting up a garden but instead I ended up just doing some research on it. While looking online I found a list of a few fast growing vegetables that grow within 6 weeks so I'm going to try and start those up sometime this upcoming week. My mentor also mentioned that a lot of baby vegetables grow very quickly so I'm going to look into those as well.

• Cress
• Lettuce
• Mustard greens
• Oriental greens
• Radish
• Scallions
• Spinach
• Turnip

For cooking not much new happened this week but I'm getting much more comfortable cooking myself meals now and I'm much faster now compared to a few weeks ago.
-Monday I made Raviolis which were very good. They were the premade kind of so all I really had to do was boil them but it still was good. I also made the sauce which wasn't too hard either which was made of 1/2 cup onions; 1/4 cup red wine, 1/4 cup chicken broth, 1 pint grape tomatoes, and 1 clove garlic. It took a little while to cook but tasted really good when it came out but my sister didn't like it too much but everyone else did.
-Tuesday I made a crock pot chicken which tasted delicious. It was probably one of my best tasting meals so far. This is one of the first that recipes that I have gotten online and I really liked it. Ill upload a picture of it though the one I made held the beans because my sister isn't a very big fan. These are the ingredients...

· 4 -5 boneless chicken breasts
· 1 (15 1/2 ounce) can black beans
· 1 (15 ounce) can corn
· 1 (15 ounce) jar salsa, any kind
· 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese

It’s pretty basic stuff but it still tastes really good. This also was the first time that I did a crock pot meal which was a lot easier in my opinion because all you do is plop the chicken down in there and come back in 4 or 5 hours and its ready to go. My mom makes caritas like this all the time and it tastes great so I’ll probably try making some of that up soon. For desert I made crepes. I used to make them with my grandma so I still remember the recipe because we made them so many times. They are pretty simple to make but the only problem is they either taste good or they don't. Some batches for some reason can come out much different than others for better or for worse. I also made some homemade syrup to go along with it but came out tasting far too sugary for me but my sister ended up eating almost all of it.
Thursday- Well tonight I was feeling like Mexican food so I decided to make some enchiladas. I used a recipe online for beef enchiladas which turned out to be, in my opinion, very good. The ingredients were pretty basic stuff and consisted of cheese, olives, and tortillas (of course), cumin, vegetable oil, and some ground beef. There was a recipe to make the sauce that went along with the enchiladas but I didn't use it and went ahead with using some premade stuff. The recipes said to soft fry the tortillas which I had to look up to know how to but that wasn't too hard to do. After that I pretty much added the sauce and vegetables then rolled the mixture into the tortillas. They cooked fairly quickly and overall it only took about 25 minutes for them to finish. I’m now beginning to realize how nice it is to think of something that would sound good to eat and be able to fulfill that request all on your own.

Saturday- I have always like bread and rice pudding and I decided to learn how to make them myself. My grandmother was going to teach me how to make the bread pudding but she wasn’t available so I went with the rice this time. The recipe was pretty basic and there weren’t too many ingredients and I didn’t even have t go to the store t buy and which was nice. I needed:
1Quart(s) Milk
1 Pint(s) Heavy cream
1/2 Teaspoon(s) Salt
1 Vanilla bean
3/4 Cup(s) Long-grained rice
1 Cup(s) Granulated sugar
1 Egg yolk
1 1/2 Cup(s) Whipped cream

The first step was to make an odd concoction out of a combination of the milk, cream, salt, vanilla bean and a 3/4 cup of the sugar. I brought this to a boil and then added the rice. At this point it sort of looked more like a clumpy mess than a pudding (though I guess that just what a pudding look like). Next I added more sugar and egg yolk, after it cooled however, and pour it into serving cups. That was it the recipe barley took anytime to finish and it tasted decent. I wasn't a big of fan as the rice pudding as I had originally thought but I'm still looking forward to trying the bread pudding.

This week I tried a few new things and it went alright. As I have started to cook more things I think that I need to begin to experiment more because the tastes that I’m looking forward to aren’t always there. I keep expecting a dish to taste one way but after using my recipe it taste completely different but that is a part of the experience so everything is still fine