Week 7

   I am very pleased with the way this week turned out. My grandma and grandpa moved to Miles City this year and since then we have started the tradition of Sunday night dinner. I was excited to be able to cook for Sunday dinner. My grandmother is a very accomplished cook so the stakes were high. For this meal I made salmon with mashed potatoes and salad. I also made Red Lobster biscuits. I started with the salmon. I seasoned it with lemon garlic salt and butter. I also chopped up a red pepper and an onion. No, I did not cry. I threw all of that in the oven and let it cook for 45 minutes. I prepared the potatoes and set them to boil on the stove. Then I made up the biscuit mix and set it aside. I finished with the salad. While everything was cooking I was busy setting the table. I cooked the biscuits for the last fifteen minutes. I served the salmon and the salad. Then I mashed the potatoes and added butter to the warm biscuits. This was probably my most in depth meal yet. It was helpful to have my mom and grandma there to answer questions. I treasure these Sunday night dinners because I know the life moves fast. It has been a lot of fun spending time this year with my grandparents.
   I included a picture of my dog because this is a really cute picture and it deserves to be seen by everybody.

Week 6 Cooking

   Once again I have made food. This week I incorporated a little bit of culture into my meal. I made Norwegian shrimp sandwiches. I have never been to Norway but I am fifty percent Norwegian. When my parents traveled to Norway they decided that their favorite dish was the fresh shrimp served on warm bread. We are not in Norway and as such our shrimp is not nearly as fresh but the frozen bag from Walmart was still good. This meal took me a total of twenty minutes and so it is handy for times when you need food that can be readily made. I started by thawing the shrimp. I estimated how many I thought I would eat and thawed them in the sink by running cold water over them for five minutes. Then I grabbed a pan and added a slab of butter and some cooking oil. I added shrimp and sauted them until they turned pink all the way through. Shrimp are easy to prepare because they turn color when cooked so you know when to safely serve them. As I was making the shrimp I put the loaf of French bread in the oven at 350 degrees Fahrenheit and baked it until it was warm. It is important to note that wrapping the bread in tinfoil allowed it to cook much faster. When I had the bread warmed up and the shrimp were done I put them on the table with the Norwegian mayonnaise. Norwegian mayonnaise is a light yellow color and different in taste compared to American mayonnaise but it was still very good. I had fun making a meal that deviated from tradition and tasted good all at the same time. Due to the minimal time spent on this meal I would probably make it again. Now I just have to go to Norway to see what fresh shrimp tastes like.

I Cooked but Only Sort of Successfully Week 5

   Well this week did not go as well as I had planned. I made food twice but it was rough both times. I did not get to make a desert but I did make another salad. I like salads because they are easy. I made breakfast for my friends one morning using a bunkhouse kitchen. My supplies were limited and I had to use very different appliances. The stove was old and the pan I found was mediocre at best. I did not have any no-stick cooking spray and my poor sausage suffered as a result. It stuck to the bottom of the pan if I did not keep it moving around and as a result I burned some. In the end it turned out all right and there was still plenty to  make a meal even after I burned the sausage. When I completed the incineration of the sausage I grabbed some tortillas and shredded cheese to make breakfast burritos. All in all it was not a bad breakfast. 

   Last night I made hamburgers. Well, I tried to make hamburgers. This time I was at home so I cannot blame the kitchen. I softened the ground beef and that was the last part that went smoothly. 

Instead of putting the meat in a bowl and grinding it up with the seasoning in the mixture like a normal person, I simply made the patties and threw the seasoning on top. Then I set the stove to a high temperature. The temperature was too high. The burgers cooked very quickly on the outside and very slowly on the inside. Had I set the temperature a little lower they probably would have cooked much more evenly throughout. However, I did not know this until too late and charred the outside. I threw some cheese on to distract you from the black hockey pucks my family kindly ate. This certainly has been a learning week full of trials and errors. Oh well, there is always next week. 

I Made More Food! Week 4

   I have cooked again successfully! This meal did not actually require any heat so I was not in risk of burning down the house. I made chicken salad sandwiches for dinner this evening. This was not entirely the meal I had in mind when I first started my blog project but it was a good meal nonetheless. This week has been pretty crazy and so I needed a quick and easy meal. I grabbed a couple of croissants and some salad greens to round out my meal. The salad was much like last week's and consisted of lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, and ranch. For the chicken salad sandwiches I just needed mayo, some seasonings, chicken, and craisins. I started out by throwing the chicken into a bowl and shredding it into bite size pieces. Then I added lots and lots of mayo. This was not necessarily the healthiest meal ever. After mixing the chicken and mayo I added some flavor. I did this by adding dill spice, pepper, and garlic salt. I mixed that all together and then added the craisins.

Once I had all of my ingredients mixed together I piled the chicken salad on a croissant and called it good. This has been a good meal to learn how to make because it is quick and inexpensive, perfect for college life. I had planned to make chocolate chip cookies for dessert this week but I ran out of time and I didn't have all of the necessary ingredients so I will try again next week. Chicken salad sandwiches are really handy and they made a good quick meal. If you guys want to try making them and have questions just let me know.

I Cooked- Successfully! Week 3

   I finally cooked and I did not even burn down the house! For my first meal I made spaghetti. I made a simple, fresh green salad with ranch. Then I made spaghetti with Texas toast. I know I said that I had planned to do it all myself but in reality that did not happen. I wanted to get the groceries myself but I forgot that I have very little time and money. As a high school student I would be able to afford grapes for dinner and that is all. As a result, my very gracious mother bought the groceries for me. I started preparing the meal at 6 that evening. First I made the salad, which required very minimal work. I threw in some spinach and lettuce leaves that I had washed beforehand. To make it fancier like they do in the cooking shows I embellished my salad with cherry tomatoes. Then I put a bottle of ranch on the table and called it good.

   In order to make my main course I first had to gather my supplies. I grabbed some spaghetti noodles and ground beef, along with some tomato sauce. I thawed the meat and cooked it until it was all the way browned. While the meat was browning I brought a pot of water to a boil so that I could cook my noodles. I added a jar of tomato sauce to the meat and put it in a bowl. I used half of the package of noodles. Then I broke the noodles in half, which made quite a mess. While I boiled the noodles I put in the Texas toast. This along with the salad was the easiest part of the meal because I just had to follow the directions the box provided me with. After the noodles and toast were cooked, I put it on the table with proper plate presentation. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out!

Learning to Cook Week 2

    Hey guys! Over this past week I have made some very exciting progress! I have been extremely busy learning all about the different cooking terms and terminology. There are a lot of them! Most of them make sense once you boil it down (see what I did there?) and practice using them. I want to be able to use these terms in my videos once I get to the cooking stage, so it is important that I know what I am talking about. Now that I know some of the basic terminology, I will continue to keep practicing it and advancing my cooking vocabulary with each week that I work on this project.

    It has been a crazy busy week for me. I need to be really good about staying on top of this project as the fall gets even busier. With college and scholarship applications looming over me it is hard to focus on something that does not seem as pressing at the moment. 4H Livestock Judging and a feedlot during the fall run also make it hard to get in some cooking time. Despite these setbacks, I want to stick to my original plan and be very organized when it comes to this project. To help alleviate some of the time constraints, I'm going to break this week up into smaller, more manageable chunks. I plan to go get my supplies early and know what I am going to make earlier in the week, that way when the time comes to make the food, I won't have so much on my plate. 

    I hope my schedule works out a little better in the weeks to come so that I can have lots of trial runs when it comes time to actually make the food. I am excited by the little progress I have made and can't wait to keep growing in my project! If you want a glossary on some basic cooking terms, I found a good website that helped me a lot. Just go to

https://www.d.umn.edu/~alphanu/cookery/glossary_cooking.html   

Let's Cook! Week 1

   Hey everyone! I am very excited to start my journey into cooking and can't wait to get started. Before I feel like I can start actually making food, I should probably familiarize myself with the basics of cooking, including utensils and terminology. That's what I have been working on so far this week. Well, that and getting myself organized which is a project within itself.
   Getting myself organized took a while, but I found that the planning sheet helped quite a bit. If I stick to my plan then I should be able to make steady progress, assuming all goes as planned. I plan to make four meals in all, with an appetizer, main dish, and of course, dessert. Knowing me, I will put the most effort into dessert. The planning sheet helped me a lot and I hope I will be able to stick with it.
   Presenting is very stressful. My shark tank pitch was short and sweet but I was still a little nervous about it. Getting up and talking in front of people is a critical skill though so it was good to practice it. I will need to keep practicing for the Ted Talks which seem really daunting! All in all I think it will turn out okay.
   I am ready to start learning a new skill, one that will be very rewarding if I am successful. If I am not, there is always ramen. I will keep updating my blog as I make progress and look forward to seeing how I progress!