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.