Week Six: Steak and Potatoes

This past week has been a blast for me as I was able to cook one of my favorite meals. I love steak and potatoes, especially the  way my parents make them and so I'm glad I have them to follow as a guide and can ask help from them when I need it. My parents have been very useful in the cooking process as they are always there to supervise and my mom takes pictures of me doing what I need to do.

I have really enjoyed cooking, like getting everything prepared and then just knowing that wow I accomplished this task. It gives me a feeling of accomplishment. I cooked five steaks with eight potatoes cut up into smaller pieces. I put seasoning salt, garlic salt, salt, and pepper on my steaks before I put them into the oven to broil. I chose to broil the steaks because it was cold outside and I didn't want to stand there and grill. I put the steaks in to broil and while they were cooking, I started to fry the potatoes, onions, and jalapeños. Onions and jalapenos were to help give me flavor and a little spice, as my dad told me to only use like eight jalapenos but I used roughly twelve of them. While both of these were cooking, I got my asparagus ready to broil as well. This meal was successful for me as I learned how to cook steak and pay attention to my food so it didn't burn. The steaks had to be watched closely to make sure they didn't burn, as well as the potatoes. I was busy in the kitchen but it was all worth it in the end, to be able to enjoy a meal knowing that you cooked it yourself.

Week Five: Chicken Bacon Ranch

Well, these past two weeks have been a blur for me. I was busy every weekend and almost every weekday. I had three birthdays and a wedding these last two weeks that brought a lot of family into town. With my genius hour being that I'm learning how to cook, I have to be able to have the time to sit down and make my meal. We go out to eat for birthdays so those days I wasn't able to cook, and then with the wedding, we had meals planned out everyday family was in town so we could all catch up and have fun. I was really panicking because I still haven't made a meal these weeks for blogger, so on Monday when my mom said she was gonna make Chicken Bacon Ranch pasta I told her I was gonna make it and it was one of my meals I had planned on cooking. The only issue was I wasn't supposed to make this until next week so I had to move my schedule around.

This week I made Chicken Bacon Ranch pasta. First, I started with getting the chicken ready by getting a pot of water and boiling the chicken until it was cooked throughout. After the chicken was cooked, I drained the water and and got out a bigger pan and put water in it to boil so I could put the noodles in it. I also put oil in the water that was gonna have the noodles inside of it. While the noodles were cooking, I used a knife and cut the chicken into a ton of smaller pieces. After I was done cutting the chicken, the noodles were still being cooked, I grabbed another pan to saute some mushrooms. I was putting red chili peppers into the mushrooms to give them a little spice and when I went to pour them in, I accidentally screwed the whole lid off and a ton of chili peppers ended up in the mushrooms. Let’s just say the mushrooms in the pasta made it a little to spicy. After the noodles were done, I strained the noodles and put them back into their pan where I cut up cream cheese and dump it into the pasta to melt and stir it around. I also added milk and a half packet of hidden valley ranch to give it some taste. I then added the cut up pieces of chicken into the pasta. After I added the chicken, I also added shredded cheese and some bacon bits to give  it a different taste with cheese. I just added cheese as I felt it needed. My family were the testers for my meal and they enjoyed it, except my mom said it was to spicy, so lesson learned is check the lid to see if it’s a screw off lid or if you just lift the top off.

Week Four: First Meal

My first meal went very well in my opinion. I did more than I even planned I was going to. My meal I made this last week was Spaghetti with a salad and a version of French bread, I even made a desert for my family. My family was able to eat my meal as I didn't burn the noodles or the mess up the seasoning.

During my first meal, I started with making the desert first because it had to settle in the fridge for an hour. The desert I made was a jello no-bake strawberry cheesecake out of a box. I wasn't going to make a desert but I saw this box on the counter and I thought it would be fun to cook. The box had three separate packages, the first being the crust which I had to mix together and then press into the bottom of the pan evenly. The second package was the middle where I had to use a mixer to get the cream to a thick paste and be able to fill the pan. After those two steps I had to refrigerate the desert to allow it to harden before I had to spread the strawberry topping. The plan was to allow my whole family to eat the cheesecake but my dad and I ended up eating all eight pieces.

Next, I made a salad to have with the spaghetti. In my salad, I cut up cucumbers, tomatoes, broccoli, lettuce, carrots, and I added in shredded cheese and bacon bits. My family eats a lot of salad and I love salad so it was easy to make something I love. I was trying to be fancy with the chopping like a chef would and I almost stabbed my finger, so I'm going to be sticking to the basics from now on. With the salad, I was going to have a French bread but my mom informed me we didn't have any of that so I had to improvise and use hot dog buns as the French bread. On the bread, I first put butter on it then followed with the garlic seasoning and parmesan cheese. All I had to do next was put it in the oven to broil to a nice crispy bread.

The spaghetti was my favorite part to make. I used two pounds of hamburger and a big box of noodles to make sure I had enough for my family. I started by browning the hamburger and boiling water with oil in it. Waiting for the water to boil was boring but luckily I was able to stay busy with making the sauce. The sauce included a can of tomato paste, two cans of tomato sauce, one can of diced tomatoes with green peppers, onions, and many types of seasoning. I was planning on using jalapeños in my sauce to give it an extra spice but I didn't have any so I used so hot chili peppers instead. After the noodles were done, my meal was ready to be served. I was really proud of myself to be able to accomplish my first meal, with just some advice from my mom who watched so she could take photos of me.