Out of the many foods labs I have done there have been a few challenging ones. All of them not horribly bad but, some had a few hiccups along the way. In my opinion the vanilla cupcakes were the most challenging for me. Not necessarily because the process was hard but just because the outcome was not as I was hoping and it did not taste how I imagined. The making of the cupcakes didn’t go easy but it definitely wasn’t hard. The cake part of the cupcake turned out OK but the icing definitely wasn’t as I was hoping. The icing was not as sweet as I intended it to be and I think I had added too much vanilla. My group had to same consensus about this as I did, we all had a fair about to not waste that much but we were still left with quite a bit because the taste was just not up to what we were hoping. I also say that this was one of my most challenging labs because that day (I’m pretty sure) I had just switched partners again and the teamwork wasn’t amazing. As I said this lab wasn’t very difficult but the turnout just was not as I hoped and that was why I said it was my most challenging lab.

Many recipes have been made in the past few weeks but if I had choose a favorite out of the many we have made, the recipe I would choose is not even a specific recipe that was given to me but one that was made in a way. This would be my Mac & Cheese Tacos that I made for the create your own Mac & Cheese lab. To describe this dish simply its just your plain old mac & cheese dish with a little spin. This spin would be that its was put in a taco shell and was made to be more of a taco then mac & cheese. The soft cheesy chewiness of the mac and cheese and the crunch from the taco with the heat of the siracha combined to make a great flavorful dish. I was also fond of this dish because of the creativeness from putting mac & cheese in a taco with other ingredients and having it turn out quite well. I like how our group came together on one idea and executing it so it turned out well and how we wanted. Some challenges we faced were that our group was very uncreative at the start and it took us a while to come up with an idea for our mac and cheese. We eventually started working together a bit more and came up with the idea of mac & cheese tacos. Then after we had this idea it didn’t take very long for us to think of the rest. My greatest success for this dish is probably that our group worked together well and had a great outcome towards the end that was most definitely delicious and looked great. These were successes to me because with this idea I honestly didn’t think it would work out that well buy my group worked together and pulled through to make an amazing dish. I was proud that my group finished well and it was paid off by winning the mac & cheese contest (sadly only based on looks).

For my Breakfast Home Lab, I made bacon pancakes with a side of peaches and a fruity mango, raspberry, and peach smoothie. This delicious breakfast dish I called Pancakes With a Twist. I chose to make pancakes over the other four because there such a simple breakfast but they can changed very easily and edited to make them how you want them. I saw this opportunity and I chose to make pancakes and find a way to make them my own. I added bacon to these pancakes because I usually have it on the side but I thought the idea was interesting to put it inside. I had also thought that with a pancake like this I decided a boring cup of orange juice just wasn’t going to work. So I decided to make a fruit smoothie for a change of taste and to get the fruit and vegetable side on the dish. A good way to describe this dish is flavorful. I say this because with the many flavors of the bacon, pancakes, syrup, smoothie, and peaches, you get many different tastes and flavors. You get the smooth sweetness for the smoothie and syrup, furthermore you get a savory taste for the bacon when it’s in the pancakes and on the side. A challenge I faced and overcame was that I didn’t have the strawberries and blueberries I originally planning on using. So I overcame that by instead editing the recipe by using what I had which was peaches, mangos, and raspberries. I’m proud of the creativeness of thinking outside the box to put bacon in the pancakes and to improvise by using different fruits with the absents of the ones I was hoping for. My parent wasn’t very fond of the amount of char on the pancakes but did like the taste of the smoothie and the syrup and with the peaches.

The lab of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies went quite well. A success was that we made cookies that tasted delicious, we worked well as a group and a team, and the dishwashing was easy. The cookies tasted delicious because we followed the recipe almost the the T. When it came to planning not much was needed but what was needed was planned. As we started we talked about what was going to happen who was going to do what and who was doing the dishes. A challenge was that we didn’t know where where the kitchen equipment was and if one person took something out the other might not where it goes. Other then that there was not that many challenges that we came across while cooking.

In the kitchen I think that the electric mixer or a bowl was the most useful. If a cookie sheet would count as a tool then I would say that but I don’t think it does. I say the electric mixer or a bowl was our most useful tool because the bowl was obviously for holding and mixing our ingredients. The electric mixer was useful for mixing the ingredients and it could be done by hand but it made it so much quicker and easier so I think it helped a lot. I could use the bowl for many different things like something to eat out or use them at a tracer for something like cookies and much more. The mixer could also be used for something like whipping egg whites, mixing ingredients, and a few other things. A fun fact about the electric hand mixer is that it was made on June 10th of 1922 by Kitchen-Aid. Unfortunately I do not have any photos of the cookies because we ate them so fast.

Safety and Sanitation

The lab went well because the outcome looked and tasted pretty good. We worked well as a group/team, we finished fast, and the dishwashing was very easy when we were working together cooperatively. The only challenge or place needed for improvent is maybe finding a way to make the scones less dry because me and my partner didnt like that.

There was not that many safety and/or sanitation concerns in this lab specifically. We made sure that everything was safe and clean. We did that by using oven mits when taking the scones of the oven. We also made that the dishes were clean for the next people that used them. Last (but most definitely not least) we washed our hands quite often so no germs contaminate our food. This is especially important because with COVID-19 going around and all other germs that can be harmful, we need to keep them away from our mouths’ and face to keep us for getting sick or disease.

One of my most memorable food experience was my grandfathers birthday a year ago. It happened in a restaurant where you have to cook the food yourself. We ordered a lot of raw meat and cooked it our self. It was most memorable because of how good the food was, how much food we got and my grandfathers reaction to the cake afterward. We ended up ordering way too much food and couldn’t finish it all but there was not a huge fee for not eating all the food that was ordered. After the restaurant we went to his condo for desert. My grandfather is a geologist and for his birthday we got him a geology cake made of fondant, sugar crystals and more. (This is an image of the cake below)