Please listen to this song while reading this blog post. (^.^)
Meals prep:
Replacing market orange juice with home blend orange juice
On Feb 19 (Fri) spent three hours straight cooking and prepping potatoes salad, cutting cantaloupe, meats sauce tortillas wrap to replace hot pockets and cooking pasta for that night
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| Getting groceries out |
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| Started with cutting the cantaloupe & peeling potatoes |
Was multitasking like a God. Cooking the ground beef at the same time
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| Sliced mushrooms and diced bell peppers for pasta |
Cook the chicken with lemon& pepper seasoning and honey
Stir fry the vegetables
Made delicious potatoes salad again
Oh....I like the texture this way. Honey chicken~Yum yum
Referred to the nutrition label of a market sold sauce and
was seasoning the tomatoes puree with the ingredients showed
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| Added all the ground beef and chicken into the sauce |
Wrapping the meats sauce with tortillas
Made five in total....Three hours of cooking is definitely a workout.
Cooking drains energy.
On Feb 22 (Mon)
Got this idea from my cooking class. Bokchoy!
Fun fact: Do you know that the English pronunciation of Bokchoy
is literally how we pronounce it in Cantonese?
Direct translation is white vegetable.
Bok (Bak)-White
Choy-vegetable
Mixed my own stir fry sauce for the noodle for the first time
The result was beyond expectation. It was delicious
On Feb 23 (Tues)
RATATOUILLE DAY!
I followed instructions in this video:
Getting everything ready
Blanch tomatoes in boiled water
(At that moment, I still didn't understand why I needed to do this)
Cool down to stop cooking
Later I found out why....It is easier to peel off the tomatoes skin!
New technique acquired: Blanching tomatoes
Preparing to make sauce
Cooked onions, red peppers, garlic with vegetable scraps until jammy
Almost forgot Rosemary before blending everything together
Sauce on the pan
Ratatouille decorating done!
Close up (I only changed the eggplant in the video to mushroom)
Bake for 90 mins.
(Which I really should have gone with my cooking instinct judgement
and bake for only 45 mins.....The size and oven must be different)
I was a bit sad that it was slightly burnt
Breakfast: Egg sandwich+orange juice
Snack: Banana+Benedict eggs+bokchoy a cooking class
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| Learned how to check the quality of an egg |
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| Learned something pretty cool: How to hold up a yolk |
Dinner: Pasta with homemade meats sauce with stir fried vegetables, peppermint tea with lemon
Comment: Was really really satisfied with the meats sauce that I made....I think it is better than the sauce jar I used to buy.
Feb 20 (Sat)- Day 2
Breakfast: Tortilla wrap+fruits smoothie with orange juice
Before leaving home:
Snack: Potato salad
Lunch: Banana and Onigiri
Dinner: Pasta left over
Comment: It was obviously not enough food for myself.....Was kind of hungry before I got to get home from work to eat.
Feb 21 (Sun)- Day 3
Breakfast: tortilla wrap+ Peppermint tea with lemon
Lunch: Egg sandwich+ potato salad+peppermint tea with lemon
Dinner: Pasta left over (Last portion)
Feb 22 (Mon)-Day 4
Breakfast: tortilla wrap+fruits smoothie with orange juice
Before leaving home:
Lunch: Onigiri+Banana
Snack: Potato salad+Onigiri
Dinner: Fried noodle+BokChoy+ peppermint tea with lemon
(Somehow I lost the picture of after I served it all pretty on my plate..)
Feb 23 (Tues)- Day 5/Last day
Breakfast: Tortilla wrap+peppermint tea with lemon
Lunch: Fried noodle left over+orange
Dinner: Lasagna+Ratatouille
Made it with my roommate. Used the homemade meat sauce recipe I created earlier.
Having friends over to eat the food and be experimental subjects.
Ratatouille with sauce and rosemary on top of Lasagna
Comment: Although the ratatouille was slightly burnt, all my friends said that they liked it and it was tasty, especially the sauce. I have enough left over ingredients to make another ratatouille and I shall but bake for a shorter time this time. I will not make the same mistake.
Conclusion:
I definitely love cooking and cooking makes me happy too. However, I did get stress out a little on Monday having idea of I had to cook after reaching home from a long day for both work and school. With the crazy schedule I have, cooking seems to lose its priority. Anyway, this project made cooking a priority for the past five days and I have learned a lot from it. I discovered that I can cook better than I think, I just didn't want to do it. I have also learned that I could actually make and season my own sauces....and it turned out better than the sauce that I bought on market. I was pretty satisfied with all the food I made, a little bit too satisfied that I don't think I want to go back to use those "convenient" sauces and food again. Not sure if I remember how hot pocket tastes like now.....Anyway, I knew what my cooking instructor was trying to do and I think it is working on me after this project. Let's see what happens next.
P/S: Will write a post for the details on how I make onigiri. Stay tuned.
"When there is a will, there is a way"
