Cooking: Week Two

 

(Photo cc by U.S. Department of Agriculture)

Another week has come and gone, and I am happy to announce that my Independent Learning Project was a huge success! Due to some unfortunate circumstances, I had to go home this week from Thursday-Sunday, and although it wasn’t for a happy family reunion, it did present a lot of happy memories with family. Our house is known as the party house when it comes to holidays, birthdays, anniversaries, games, and so much more, so this weekend was no exception. We had 18 people all over our house every single day, and I loved every bit of it. When there are tons of people roaming your house at all times of the day, chances are, they are going to want to eat, so my family and I did our best to present them with a feast! Here are a few of the dishes that we made!

I will start with the first meal that we made for lunch on Thursday, which was brisket sandwiches, chicken noodle soup, caesar salad, and lemon bars. This was probably the toughest meal I have ever made because the brisket presented a major challenge for me. I find it really difficult to cook large pieces of meat because it is so hard to gauge when the meat is fully cooked and when it is at the right temperature because there are so many different preferences that people have when it comes to the way that they like their meat. Luckily, my dad is very experienced with cooking, grilling, and smoking big pieces of meat, so he helped me to recognize when the brisket was perfectly tender for our sandwiches. The rest of the things that we made for this meal were relatively easy because I had a step-by-step recipe to follow for each of them.

Another meal that we made this weekend was burritos, chips and queso, and cake! This was my absolute favorite meal of the weekend because of how much I love Mexican food. I could eat it for every meal, every day, for the rest of my life. We grilled chicken breasts with a spicy mix of seasonings on them, grilled steak with a Mexican seasoning blend that we found at Safeway, and we made an amazing three-cheese queso dip to go with our tortilla chips. It was my favorite meal that I have ever made because nothing went wrong during the preparation and cooking! We kind of made up our own recipe for the burritos, but I found one that is similar to the one that we used for our chicken and burrito-filling. The recipe is called Homemade Pulled Chicken Burrito Recipe, and I think that it will be a fan-favorite for anyone willing to give it a try!

Overall, this week was filled with amazing food and a lot of time spent in the kitchen. My favorite part about trying new recipes was that I got to cook alongside so many members of my family who were ready and willing to teach me their tricks. I am so excited to continue learning about cooking and finding new and exciting recipes to try.

Thank you for reading,

Kayla