Final Meal

I planned for my meal to be strong in flavour, enticing with smell, and containing a satisfying texture. My meal ended up with all the appropriate textures, and all the flavours worked well together to make an excellent combination. Practically everything was how I wanted it to be, but perhaps I would add additional flavoring to some of the dishes because they were just the slightest bit weak. I showed strength in the skills of perseverance and improvisation because when I accidentally burnt the garlic for the garlic prongs, I was able to figure out how to save it without causing any more problems. I believe the greatest connection that this meal has to my personal and cultural identity is that all of the recipes were taught to me by my mother, therefore they were family recipes.

Clam Chowder

The dish I made this week was clam chowder. The broth of the soup was smooth while the clams themselves were soft and easily chew-able. There was no written recipe for this, but instead I followed verbal instructions. I don’t think I would change anything next time. The challenge I faced was having to learn how to skin a potato with a knife. However, it was also my greatest success and what I was most proud of since it was a new skill.

Pizza

The dish I made for this week’s assignment was pizza. The crust was just the right amount of crunchy, and the cheese melted pleasantly i n your mouth. This tradition of home-made pizza only started a couple of years ago. It reminds me of the fact that my family’s origins are fully Italian. The best part of this tradition would be the great tasting pizza. One challenge was kneading the dough properly, but that was an easy fix after I was taught the correct technique. My greatest success and thing that I was most proud of would be how delicious it turned out.

Accidentally ate some before remembering to take a photo, oops!

Manual Food Processor

The tool that I used for my dish was a manual food processor. I used it to efficiently slice cauliflower into small pieces. It could be used to easily cut most things into small pieces. One safety concern was making sure not to go anywhere near the blade. The proper way to use this tool is to rotate the blade using the lever then to dump out the contents every once and a while to make the blade wouldn’t get stuck. You could use a knife for the same purpose. I followed verbal instructions for my dish, which was cauliflower fried rice. I wouldn’t change anything for the dish. I didn’t have any real challenges. My greatest success would be that I didn’t have any challenges. I’m most proud of that too.

I didn’t take a picture of the tool, but one of the food that it was used to make.

Buddha Bowl

The process of making a Buddha bowl was interesting. The biggest struggle was honestly deciding what to put into the bowl. This was solved by a few suggestion. After that part was finished, I think my greatest success would be putting everything together in a neat way. The texture of my dish was both crunchy, due to some parts of the lettuce, cucumbers and corn, and also soft, due to the couscous and other parts of the lettuce.

Sweet Chili Thai Pineapple Chicken

For this week’s dish, I made sweet chili Thai pineapple chicken, which is an amusingly long name in my opinion. The dish had a tender texture accented by the slight scent of pineapple. The recipe was a verbal one from my mother. I’m not sure what I would change, perhaps I would add more pineapple as I love the flavouring it gives. There was no real challenge for this dish as it was pretty straight forward. I’d say that my greatest success here is learning how easy it is to make this recipe. I’m most proud of how strong the flavour turned out to be.

Roast Beef

One of the dishes that I cooked this week was roast beef. This dish had a lovable texture that just melted in your mouth. There was also the familiar and enticing smell of cooked meat. I did not use a recipe; instead, I was given verbal instructions. Honestly, I don’t think I would change anything for this dish. I really enjoyed it. There wasn’t any particular challenges either. My greatest success, and thing I’m most proud of, would have to be that aforementioned texture, as that is exactly how I like my meat.

Garlic Potatoes

One of the dishes I made this week were garlic potatoes. They had a faint scent of garlic, which was what I used for flavoring. The texture was crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. I did not need a recipe for this dish as it was quite easy to make. If I were to make these potatoes again, I would add more garlic. I love garlic, and as such, it was my opinion that there was not enough to impact the taste all that much. Due to this recipe being pretty straight forward, there were no challenges that I can think of. My greatest success, and also the thing that I am most proud of, would have to be making something that I liked using potatoes, which is a type of food that I’m not the most found of.

Bacon and Onion Rice

For this assignment, I made a dish with rice, onion, and bacon. The result was quite delicious, with the familiar and strong scent of bacon mixed with the fluffy texture of rice caused a more than satisfying meal. I did not use a written recipe for this, instead my mom gave me a verbal recipe before I started cooking. Maybe I would add more bacon if I made this dish again, because you can never go wrong with bacon. There was no particular challenges with this dish, but it took me a bit to come up with the idea of what to cook in the first place. My greatest success would perhaps be the idea of adding bacon in the first place (I really like bacon). I’m not sure what I was most proud of, but maybe making sure that there was minimal clean up.

Safety and Sanitation

The lab that I will be using as an example for sanitation and safety is the omelette lab. This lab managed to proceed pretty smoothly, although we were a bit behind in time. Still, we were able to all finish and clean up before school ended. The safety concern for this lab was the stove as it would be extremely easy to burn yourself. The sanitation issue was the fact that a couple members of our group were sick so we had to take great care to prevent the spread of germs. For the safety problem, we cooked our eggs in shifts to avoid having to reach over the stove in awkward angles. For the sanitation problem, we all made sure to wash our hands thoroughly both before we started cooking and before we started eating. These precautions are important because they keep us from getting each other sick, or having to deal with burns from the stove.