Thursday, November 8, 2007
Top Blogger in Cooking
A top blogger in the field of cooking is bfeedme.com. The site has many different recipes and pictures of what the recipes turn out to look like. It is easy to maneuver around the site and to find the perfect recipe. It has a wide variety of recipes fitting every kind of genre. It is also informative in every aspect of cooking. It talks about cook books and common technical difficulties. It covers junk food addicts to Indian food to vegan recipes. The writing style is to the point but does not leave anything out. It informs you without boring you. It also has a lot of different writers which gives the blog a wider range of perspectives and advice. However you do not feel the contradiction, it flows as if it is one single writer. It allows readers to have an active role in the recipes and makes it easy to share experiences. The website is appetizing and grabs your attention.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Chicken & Vegstable Stir Fry
This week I mad a chicken and vegetable stir fry on rice dish. First I pounded the boneless chicken to allow for a faster cooking time. Than I cut away the fat and sliced the chicken into strips. I then stir fried the chicken in House of Tsang’s, Sweet Ginger Sesame Grilled Sauce. I cooked the chicken till it was cooked all the way through, about ten to fifteen minutes on high. I also added slices of red, green, and yellow peppers and slices of onions to the pan. I also cooked rice by following the directions on the on the box. I put the chicken and vegetable stir fry on top of the rice and served. My parents were my guinea pigs this week and took the daring steps to try my concoction. Miraculously they actually liked it, now I am fearful that I will be cooking dinner more often.
I conquered my fear this week and touched raw meat, a fear I have always had. It was not as bad as I thought it was. It is more mind over matter than anything. I was also very careful washing everything thoroughly with hot water, because working with raw meat is dangerous and can cause people to get really sick. Salmonella is a dangerous bacterium on raw meat that when ingested into the body attacks the stomach and the intestine. It can cause a person to become severely ill.
That leads me to this week’s lesson: Salmonella is easy to avoid as long as you are conscious of what you are doing. There are a few basic steps to avoiding salmonella:
1. Always wash your hands with warm water and soap before preparing food.
2. Continuously wash your hands after moving from working with one food to another.
3. Wash your utensils properly with hot soapy water.
4. Use a new dish towel everyday and wash dish towels at no cooler than 60 oC.
5. Always store food in the refrigerator, never leave meat out. If you follow these steps you will not have to worry about salmonella. It helped me overcome my fear of touching raw meat.
I only had one injury this week and that was with the knife. I am still getting used to using the knife to slice things. I missed when slicing the pepper and sliced my thumb. Nothing a band-aid can not fix.
Works Cited
Rutherford, Dr. Dan. "Salmonella and Food Poisoning." NetDoctor. 16 Feb. 2005. 5 Nov. 2007.
I conquered my fear this week and touched raw meat, a fear I have always had. It was not as bad as I thought it was. It is more mind over matter than anything. I was also very careful washing everything thoroughly with hot water, because working with raw meat is dangerous and can cause people to get really sick. Salmonella is a dangerous bacterium on raw meat that when ingested into the body attacks the stomach and the intestine. It can cause a person to become severely ill.
That leads me to this week’s lesson: Salmonella is easy to avoid as long as you are conscious of what you are doing. There are a few basic steps to avoiding salmonella:
1. Always wash your hands with warm water and soap before preparing food.
2. Continuously wash your hands after moving from working with one food to another.
3. Wash your utensils properly with hot soapy water.
4. Use a new dish towel everyday and wash dish towels at no cooler than 60 oC.
5. Always store food in the refrigerator, never leave meat out. If you follow these steps you will not have to worry about salmonella. It helped me overcome my fear of touching raw meat.
I only had one injury this week and that was with the knife. I am still getting used to using the knife to slice things. I missed when slicing the pepper and sliced my thumb. Nothing a band-aid can not fix.
Works Cited
Rutherford, Dr. Dan. "Salmonella and Food Poisoning." NetDoctor. 16 Feb. 2005. 5 Nov. 2007
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Cookies, Omeletes, & Cooking Spray
This week’s lesson is about cooking spray. Always spray a cooking sheet or fry pan before baking cake cookies and omelets. Cooking spray prevents food from sticking from the surface you are cooking it in. Cooking sprays contain fewer calories than vegetable oils because they are applied in a thinner layer. Two of the most popular cooking sprays are PAM and Crisco.
This week I made cake cookies, a recipe I found on the Pillsbury cake box. Everything went relatively well, I was successful with the blender something that had been the bane of my existence for many years. I was able to mix everything together without it all flying around the kitchen making a huge mess. I than evenly spaced the cookies onto a cookie sheet and placed it in the oven. The first time I cooked the cookies for 10 minutes, but I learned that is too long and ended up burning the cookies. The second time I did not cook them long enough. The third time was the charm however, I cooked them the right amount of time. The problem came when I tried to get the cookies off the sheet, they were stuck. Which is where the lesson of the day comes from; you must spray the sheet with cooking oil in order to prevent the cookies from sticking. I also learned that the time on the box is just a general idea and that you need to check on cookies to make sure that they are not burning. All, in all I think I was very successful in making my cookies.
The second thing I made was an omelet. I made it on how I thought I had seen my mom make omelets for years. I whisked an egg up and poured it with a little bit of water into the frying pan. I never realized the arm muscle you need to whisk something. I added green and red peppers, onions, and cheese, and allowed it to cook for a few minutes. Than I tried to flip it over, however, I did not use cooking spray, and as we saw from the lesson cooking spray keeps things from sticking. It ended up being a blob of some weird egg concoction. I over cooked it and it was a little burnt. My friend, being a good sport, still tried it. He took one bit and was done. I tried it a second time and using the cooking spray and cooking it not as long turned out much better. I am happy to say I can cook omelets now.
So remember this week’s lesson, cooking spray prevents sticking and cooking time is more of judgment than an actual number.
This week I made cake cookies, a recipe I found on the Pillsbury cake box. Everything went relatively well, I was successful with the blender something that had been the bane of my existence for many years. I was able to mix everything together without it all flying around the kitchen making a huge mess. I than evenly spaced the cookies onto a cookie sheet and placed it in the oven. The first time I cooked the cookies for 10 minutes, but I learned that is too long and ended up burning the cookies. The second time I did not cook them long enough. The third time was the charm however, I cooked them the right amount of time. The problem came when I tried to get the cookies off the sheet, they were stuck. Which is where the lesson of the day comes from; you must spray the sheet with cooking oil in order to prevent the cookies from sticking. I also learned that the time on the box is just a general idea and that you need to check on cookies to make sure that they are not burning. All, in all I think I was very successful in making my cookies.
The second thing I made was an omelet. I made it on how I thought I had seen my mom make omelets for years. I whisked an egg up and poured it with a little bit of water into the frying pan. I never realized the arm muscle you need to whisk something. I added green and red peppers, onions, and cheese, and allowed it to cook for a few minutes. Than I tried to flip it over, however, I did not use cooking spray, and as we saw from the lesson cooking spray keeps things from sticking. It ended up being a blob of some weird egg concoction. I over cooked it and it was a little burnt. My friend, being a good sport, still tried it. He took one bit and was done. I tried it a second time and using the cooking spray and cooking it not as long turned out much better. I am happy to say I can cook omelets now.
So remember this week’s lesson, cooking spray prevents sticking and cooking time is more of judgment than an actual number.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
Top 3
My criteria are that the blog must have recipes on it. It is important to tell what and how you are making the dish. The blog must also have advice on how to cook it due to experience. It has to have an appealing design, learning to cook from a blog must be appetizing or else no one would want to read it. The blog must have many visitors because if people are trying to the cook the recipes and they are not successful at it than the recipes themselves may not be successful.
My top blog is cooking for engineers, it teaches people to cook who “have an analytical mind”. That is how I am. Cooking is more than just math. The other two blogs had appetizing pictures and many recipes.
My audience is mainly women, because they are the ones who take more of an interest in cooking. Young people my age who also don’t know how to cook would be interested. It is mainly anyone who wants to cook but doesn’t know how to .
My top blog is cooking for engineers, it teaches people to cook who “have an analytical mind”. That is how I am. Cooking is more than just math. The other two blogs had appetizing pictures and many recipes.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Introduction
My topic for my blog is cooking. Each week I will attempt to improve my domestic skills by learning how to cook something. I am a horrible cook so this will be a good learning experience for me. It is something I have always wanted to learn to do. My mom is a wonderful cook and so was her mom, she always jokes that the cooking gene must have skipped me. She creates her own recipes and they are always successful, however me just following the directions always ends up in disaster. I can do calculus with out a problem, but when it comes to making an omelet I have the toughest time. I think I am the only person who can catch Macaroni and Cheese on fire... three times. My friends joke that I can not even boil water without causing so sort of catastrophe. I have always been afraid of touching raw meet so hopefully I can get over that fear. I think this is a good skill that will help me for the rest of my life. This will help me become more independent and self assured in my cooking. Hopefully I will not catch anything on fire during this process and learn a new skill.
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