Our last blog!!!!! We decided to make something really good to finish the project. We chose a tasty meal of won tons being served with rice and broccoli.
To start, Jenna and Heidi started making the chicken mixture and combining all the ingredients. After everything was combined, Heidi focused on wrapping the won tons and frying them. She used a mini fryer to cook the won tons while Jenna made the sauce and sides. Jenna steamed the broccoli in a steamer for 30 minutes. While that was steaming, she worked on the rice and dipping sauce. For the rice, she just put it in a pot with water on low heat until the water evaporated, keeping it covered. The sauce was pretty simple to do. Just combine everything and stir basically until the peanut butter was dissolved. This meal took us about 1 hour and 20 minutes. We got a review of 5/5 because of how tasty the meal was. We started a little early around 5:40pm so be could serve the meal at a reasonable time around 7:00pm. Throughout the course of this project, we were told that we have learned how to work together in cooking meals. We've learned time management and some short cuts to cooking faster. There has been some struggles here and there with what to make, when to make it, what day to get together etc. But we pushed through and finished the cooking experience of cooking healthy in a reasonable amount of time by working together. This project was definitely a learning experience. Thank you to everyone who stayed along the journey of this project! You are greatly appreciated. Don't forget that you are AMAZING being you!!!!
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This week we made a bigger meal than the taco salad.
First, we started on the meat. We mixed all the ingredients into the meat and Jenna divided them equally into 12 parts. Heidi decided she wanted baby muffin-like sized meat loaf, so we put them in a muffin/cupcake pan. Then they went into the oven. While the meat was cooking, Heidi started on mashed potatoes and Jenna started on the green beans. The potatoes were peeling and then boiled into water. Then they were drained and mashed. Heidi added some milk to make the mashed potatoes creamy. Heidi cut the ends off of the green beans for Jenna and she started cooking them in a pan with butter and garlic powder. When they were done, she removed them from the heat and placed them into a separate bowl. She added sliced almonds into the same pan and dry roasted them. When the almonds were almost done, she added the green beans back into the pan and mixed. When the meat was done, we took some barbecue sauce and out about a tablespoon on each one. We then put it back in the oven until it was like a glaze. The meal took us about an hour and 15 minutes because there was a bit more to do than the taco salad. We got an average rating of 4.5/5. The meal was good and well served. The only minor problem we had was the green beans got kinda cold while we were finishing up the meat. We didn't cover them while we waited and we probably should have. Stay tuned for ONE more meal!!! This weeks meal was quite simple. Taco salad is very simple to make, here's how we did it:
First we started by cooking the beef in a pan. While that was cooking, Heidi cut up lettuce, tomatoes, and corn. When the beef came close to being done, Jenna added the taco flavoring and some water. Heidi put the lettuce, tomatoes, corn, and fritos into separate bowls for serving. Then the beef was put into a bowl. It took us about 45 minutes to assemble this meal because it was quite simple to make. The basic jist of it was cooking meat, cutting vegetables, and putting everything together. We earned a 5/5 for this meal because it was made quick and it had many flavors. The timing was pretty good because Jenna's family didn't have to wait over an hour to eat! :D This week we decided to make Jenna's dad's favorite meal.
Before we started on the chicken and salad, we had made homemade bread in a bread maker a couple of hours prior to the meal. Jenna started off by cutting the fat off the chicken while Heidi mixed together some bread crumbs, flour, salt, and pepper. After the fat was cut off, we pounded the chicken and then placed them in the dry mixture to fully coat them. We then put them on a pan with oil to cook. While the chicken was cooking, we got started on the salad. Just the usual of cutting the lettuce, peppers, tomatoes, and shredding the carrots. Mixing them all up and rinsing them. We added red sauce to a pot and put that over heat to warm up. When the chicken got crispy on one side, Heidi flipped them and added more oil to the pan for more crispness. After it was done cooking, we left the chicken in the pan and added red sauce, a couple of pepperonis, and mozzarella cheese. The heat was put on low and the pan was covered. We left the chicken on the pan until the cheese was fully melted but not burned. Then we removed from heat and served the meal. Overall the meal took us about an hour and 30 minutes. The review was a 5/5. Everyone liked the meal and thought that it was very flavorful. It was a filling meal, meaning it didn't take much food to fill you up after eating! Hello friends!
This week, we decided to take the week off since we started a week early. We had a lot of homework to catch up on and we just didn't feel like working on genius hour. During this project, it's been kinda rough with the virus going on. We're running out of ideas to make each week. Our times on cooking the meals aren't consistent. Mainly because each meal is different. Sometimes we'll choose meals that will take longer than others, simply because there's more things to do. Time management for each meal just depends on what meal we decide to cook. We have been making sure each week that there's a protein, starch, and vegetable with our meals. Stay tuned for parmesan chicken next week!! This week's meal was vegetable soup. Heidi had decided she wanted to make this one week so Jenna's mom gave her, her favorite recipe.
To start, we had to cut onion, celery, green onion, and green pepper first. We had to put those vegetables and oil in a pot to salute until the onions were translucent. While that was taking place we continued to cut up all of the other vegetables. We used a neat tool that instantly diced the vegetables to make the process go faster. After the onions were translucent, we added the rest of the diced vegetables in the pot except the spinach and lettuce. We had to let this simmer for about 45 minutes. While that was happening we worked on some other homework. When the soup was done simmering, we added the lettuce and spinach. Then we had to wait about 15 minutes for that to simmer. We then started on the croissants when the soup had about 5 minutes left to simmer. For the croissants, we opened the can, rolled them, and put them on a microwave safe pan. We put the microwave on a "bread/croissant" setting and we waited for those to finish. Then we served the meal. Overall we got a 4.5/5. The meal was good but the taste was very bland. It just tasted like mushy bland vegetables (that's kinda what it was). We spent about 1 hour and 20 minutes on the soup. This was longer than what we expected because we didn't realize how many vegetables we had to cut up and what the order was for cooking until we actually started the meal. This week we did steak with asparagus and potatoes. We decided to season the steak and roast both the asparagus and the potatoes. We both used the grill to cook the steak, but we're a lot more off task this week then we have been in the past.
To start, we helped each other season the steak with the seasoning (stated on the community page) before heading to the grill. We turned on the grill to the right temperature and began cooking the steaks. While the grill was heating up, we cut the potatoes and placed them in a bag with some vegetable oil, paprika, basil, parsley, garlic powder, and oregano. We also prepared the asparagus by cutting off the ends and placing them in a line on a pan. When we flipped over the steaks we turned on the oven inside to prepare cooking the asparagus and potatoes. For both the asparagus and potatoes we set them out onto a pan and left them in the oven until they were cooked to our liking. Before putting the asparagus into the oven, Jenna put some vegetable oil and garlic powder on top to give it flavor. Both sat in the oven cooking while we went to take the steaks off the grill. After all the cooking was done it was time to eat. We got a score of 4/5 for this meal. Some comments were that the asparagus was a little mushy. This meal took about 55 minutes to make. It took longer than we had expected to cook the steak on the grill and it didn't help that we had to change the gas. This week Jenna's brother was home for his school break and his friend was also coming over and they are both huge fans of breakfast. So we decided to make them breakfast for dinner!
We made lots of bacon, eggs, and pancakes with a homemade mango syrup. We started off by both cutting a mango and putting them into a bowl with some sugar and placing in the fridge. You can do that with any fruit of your choice, but we had just bought some mango's so it worked out good. Heidi did not want to do the bacon because of the splatter so she started on the pancake mix while Jenna began cooking the bacon. To make the pancake mix Heidi simply followed the direction on the Bisquick box so it didn't take her long. She began cooking the pancakes on a separate small stove top. For a little while it was just a waiting game until we both got close enough to finishing to where we could start cooking the eggs. While the bacon was cooking, Jenna cracked some eggs then added some garlic powder and basil and whisked it together. When she needed to flip the bacon she handed it off to Heidi and she finished the whisking. Once we only had the eggs left Jenna took out the mango's and put them in a small pot in order to get them a little warmer and just put it on the stove for 5 minutes. Then breakfast was served. We got a score of 5/5 overall. Everyone loved it and the mango syrup added a lot of flavor to the pancakes. Jenna did the bacon to everyone's liking and the eggs were very flavorful. This meal took about 50 minutes to make, but most of it wasn't really going back and forth between different things only waiting for things to cook and then cooking the next set of the same thing. This week we did lemon chicken and served it with a salad and garlic bread. To start, Jenna trimmed the fat off the chicken breasts and cut them into cubes while Heidi started cutting the salad. After the chicken was cut, Jenna put the garlic and butter in the pan that was going to be used to cook the chicken in, as stated in the directions.
Even though this meal was supposed to be served over pasta, Heidi did not want to have pasta again so she decided to make some garlic bread instead. When the chicken was close to being done, we preheat the oven and prepared some bread with melted butter and garlic powder. We chose to broil the bread so the the top could have a nice crispness to it. Overall the meal got a score of 3.5/5 because the chicken sauce was just too watery. The chicken also was a bit dry because it was not served over pasta like it was supposed to have been. The salad and garlic bread were really good though. This meal took about 45 minutes and most of the time was spent cutting the chicken into cubes which took longer because there was only one person cutting and we couldn't really move on until it was ready. This week we made some Greek Burgers with some grilled Zucchini and Orzo pasta. This meal took us about 45 minutes to make and earned an average score of 4 stars for the final product. We didn't really run into many problems this week other than the different parts of the meal finishing at different times.
To start, we split up the jobs that we would do so that w could multi task. Jenna started by mixing the Greek seasoning into the beef in a bowl while Heidi washed and cut the zucchini. We also put a pot of water on the stove to start boiling for the orzo. Heidi finished cutting the zucchini up and began cooking it on a pan, adding some of the Greek seasoning and butter. Jenna finished mixing the seasoning in the beef and split it into 8 equal parts. She took these parts and pat them down into burger sized patties. We added the orzo to the boiling water and then started to cook the burgers. The zucchini finished cooking before the burgers were done so we put the burner all the way down to keep it warm and Heidi moved onto the orzo. After straining it, she mixed in some of the Greek seasoning then added lemon juice and feta cheese. After she finished, there were only a few burgers left so she moved the zucchini into a serving bowl, rinsed off the pan then used it to toast the burger buns. By the time the buns finished the burgers were done as well and dinner was served. |
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May 2020
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