My 2 year adventure, week 99: Butternut sqaush risotto with sugared walnuts

Week 99:
  So yesterday I made butternut squash risotto with sugared walnuts. For the walnuts, I toasted them and the tossed them with butter, sugar, and pepper. I liked them a lot on their own. Then for the squash I tossed it with some oil, roasted it and then added some garlic. I don't really like squash and in addition, I didn't take enough of the rind off so the edges of some of the pieces were hard and stringy. So after I roasted those off, I sauteed bacon, then onion, added arborio rice, and what I thought was white wine. There were to bottle of white wine looking liquid. I totally overlooked the real wine and picked up a bottle of sherry or something that was labeled "wine". Since I am underage and rarely cook with wine, I am unfamiliar with the smell and the bottles. Either way, the product was fine, even with not wine wine. Then, like in most risottos, I slowly added chicken stock that I had warmed up until the rice was cooked. Overall, The dish was good. The walnuts did not work with the finished product but if you left those off, and took and the squash, it was a pretty enjoyable dish. The rice was cooked really well (if I do say so myself) and overall, not a complete fail. My family gave it a 7.5/10. 

See you in the new year internet! Love, Alexa :)        

My 2 Year Aventure, week 75: Oatmeal panckaes

Week 75:
  I'm not making dinner today because I'm going to a concert so I made breakfast instead. The pancakes weren't my favorite. I used the wrong type of oats so the texture was really wrong. On top of that, they didn't really taste like anything. I don't know, I wasn't a fan. I think I'll just stick to my normal pancakes. They got a 6/10. 
 






See you next time internet! Love, Alexa :)

My 2 year adventure, week 20: blue cheese stuffed chicken with buffalo sauce/ brown soda bread

Week 20:
I can't believe I've been doing this for 20 weeks! So the first recipe was the chicken. My dad was really the one that stuffed the chicken with the blue cheese. Then we dredged it in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs. The chicken was pretty easy. Then for the buffalo sauce you just need to mix a couple ingredients. The dish itself was really simple but yummy. my family gave it an 8.5.

The brown soda bread was interesting. I had to buy a giant bottle of wheat germ because I only needed a tablespoon... The bread came out okay but there were green bits in it. Everyone was pretty confused. Also, I didn't have a loaf pan so I went to the store and got a brand new loaf pan!!!!!! Any way, my family gave it an 8. 

See you next time internet! Love, Alexa :)  

My 2 year adventure, week 19: Pear and prosciutto pizza/ Tuscan cake with citrus compote

Week 19:
Do you ever feel like life screws you up in something you love just to test if you'll keep doing it after you messed up so badly? I do. I really feel like life was taking notes to see how I'd react to these barnyard disasters of dishes. The pizza was almost perfect in my opinion, except for one minor detail... I was supposed to top the pizza with baby arugula and I went to the store, completely missed the baby arugula and bought dandelion greens instead. What was I thinking? Those greens were so bitter and nobody ate them. We ended up throwing them all out. This very minor flaw sunk the dish's rating to an 8. Don't even get me started on the cake... I pulled it out the oven and it looked great. Then it sunk, it died, whatever you want to call what happened to it. It sunk, revealing completely uncooked batter and ever after another 15 minutes of baking it was just as raw and we had to eat around the center. The cake itself was pretty good though. The compote... I couldn't eat it because I hate grapefruit and that and oranges were the main ingredients. Great, the fruit I hate and the fruit I'm slightly allergic to. I really do feel like life is laughing at me at times. The cake and compote got a 7. 

See you next time internet! Love, Alexa :)    

My 2 year adventure, week 16: Chili con carne/ overnight honey-almond multigrain cereal

Week 16: 
My poor prep skills have shown the consequences again... There was a lot of drama surrounding the poblano peppers. It ended up making my dish extremely late to the table. This was a veeeeery meaty, comfort food type dish. Personally when I think of chili, I think beans. Maybe I'm just weird that way but that's what I think and there was no trace of beans in this dish although there was a whole lot of meat, poblano peppers, and tomatoes. I wasn't the biggest fan but my family gave it a 8. Then we move on to the cereal... What a train wreck. *sigh* It was pretty much oats and barley with a couple other things mixed in like honey and cinnamon. Too bad that nobody in my family really like oats and barley mixed together. So ALL of it went to waste. :( More out of pity, I feel, than anything else, my parents gave it a 7.5

See you next time internet! Love, Alexa :)   

My 2 year adventure, Week 12: Egg, sausage, cheese, and jalapeno breakfast braid/ Fresh mediterranean salad

Week 12:
Okay. Week 12 was two weeks ago and I'm writing about it now... behind, much? So I made two recipes, a salad and a breakfast braid. The salad was Mediterranean inspired but I'm not sure how. There's fennel, tomatoes, olives, red onions, beans and other yummy stuff. If you guys know how this could be Mediterranean inspired, please tell me because I am very confused. The salad was okay, my family liked it but I wasn't really a fan. I think that they gave it 7/10. The braid was so good!!!!! It had sausage, scrambled eggs, cheese, and jalapenos in it. My the recipe called for pizza dough in a can so I went and got some dough and I got it out of the can and I didn't notice that it was rolled up so I decided to roll it out and it just kept springing back... I went back to the store to get more and I was riding my scooter home and I hit a curb and I splatted on the sidewalk. Sadly, when the pizza can hit the ground it burst open... luckly, I was still able to use it. The braid was much better than the salad in my opinion and I think it got 8.5/10.   

See you next time internet! Love, Alexa :)

baking for fun: pasta

Pasta. I know, I know, you don't really bake pasta but it wasn't part of my 2 year adventure so I put it under baking for fun. The reason I'm making pasta is because I'm about to start a project on international cuisine so I have book all over the place and one of them happened to be: The encyclopedia of Italian cooking. I've been wanting to make pasta for a while but I didn't have a recipe or the machine. When I saw the recipe for pasta, I said "BOOM! I'll make ravioli. You don't need a machine to cut the pasta and there's a recipe." I was looking for a good filling and I came across how to cut pasta WITHOUT a machine. I was so happy. So today for lunch, I made some pasta. Here's how you make pasta:
1 cup flour per serving
1 egg per serving

What you do is you put the flour on a surface and you mound it up and make a well in the center big enough for the egg(s) to fit in. Then crack the correct amount of eggs into the well. Take a fork and start breaking up the egg yolk(s). Then, mix the yolk(s) with the white(s). As you're mixing the egg(s), slowly start pushing the flour into the egg(s). Once you've pushed in all or mot of the flour you should end up with a crumbly dough. Start to knead the dough. Once you've kneaded your dough into a ball cover it and leave it for 30 minutes. I covered mine with an inverted bowl. After the 30 minutes have passed, roll out your dough as thin as possible. Fold the dough in half, then in half again. With a very sharp knife, cut the short way and make each strip about 1/4 of an inch wide. Unfold and separate your pasta. Put the pasta in boiling salted water for 5-7 minutes, depending on how thin you rolled your dough. When your pasta is finished drain and wash it. Then heat up some tomato sauce (homemade or canned, whichever you prefer) and toss the pasta in the sauce. Top with cheese if you like and serve. I know it sounds hard and the hardest past is definitely making the dough but the end result is soooo worth the effort.

See you next time internet! Lover, Alexa :)     

My 2 year adventure, week 3: Baked vegetable lasagna

Week 3:
I had to skip a week! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! But that's OK because I was in Quebec for my schools Quebec exchange. But I'm back now! Today I made lasagna with my dad. Step one: Cook the pasta. That went well. Step two: Make the sauce. That consists of onions, garlic, salt, sugar, black pepper, crushed tomatoes, basil, and oregano. It was a really good sauce! My only concern was that we might of heated the saucepan too much and evaporated some of the sauce because there wasn't very much in the end. Step three: Make the tofu layer. Normally, this would be a meat layer, but because this is a vegetarian dish, the recipe called for tofu. The tofu layer had tofu (duh!), Parmesan cheese, ricotta cheese, one egg, and salt. My dad handled that part and it was great. Step four is were it went all wrong. Step four: Make the vegetable layer. Now this was a really easy step. You cut up bell peppers and zucchini then add salt and saute it. What could possibly go wrong????? Well, I cut up my bell peppers and I cut up my zucchini. I was taking the zucchini off the knife by sliding my finger across the side of the knife and disaster struck. I cut myself. Pretty badly. Needless to say, my dad had to finish the dish himself. The dish in the end was great and my family gave it a 8 out of 10. Today I learned a lot of knifing techniques from my dad today (before I cut myself). Overall, a nice dish to eat with your family.

See you next time internet! Love, Alexa :)  

My 2 year adventure, week 2: Fettuccine alfredo with bacon/upside-down fudge-almond tart

Week 2:
So, I'm already at week 2. The first thing my dad and I made was fettuccine alfredo with bacon. Yes, I said BACON. You needed four pieces of bacon for the recipe. So, my dad and I thought why should we buy crappy bacon at the store that we need only four pieces of? Instead, we went to our local market with organic and locally grown/produced food. We bought 4 nice pieces of bacon. Yum... We also decided to buy handmade fresh fettuccine there instead of buying it at the store. We kind of wrecked the recipe though. WE FORGOT TO WASH THE PASTA AFTER COOKING IT! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! It became sticky, but still, delicious. 

Fettuccine Alfredo w/ Bacon

Next my dad made his 2nd dessert ever. An upside-down fudge-almond tart. It tasted like luscious brownie with nuts on top. I used a new ingredient. Golden cane syrup. At first I thought the recipe said golden corn syrup, but no. Golden cane syrup is pretty much liquid sugar. Yay? 

Upside-down Fudge-Almond Tart

My parents rated the pasta 7/10 (mainly 'cause of sticky pasta) and the tart 8/10. 

See you next time internet! Love, Alexa :)