Happy Holidays!

Hello everybody!
In light of the holidays, I've been doing a lot of something I almost never do: bake. Usually, when someone tells me to bake something, I either tell them, "Well, I'm not a baker, maybe someone else should." Ever since I was little, I've tried time and time again to make a good cake, brownie, pie by scratch and constantly feeling like it stinks. The only thing I've successfully and consistently baked by scratch were sugar cookies; no other cookie, just sugar ones. I've always needed my mom or someone else to help guide my baking.  In the last couple years, I'd lost complete faith that I've ever be able to make a good baked dessert; in fact, I was sure the only way ever could make a good one was by using some mix bought from the market. This year, I decided to give it yet another shot.
Three days ago, I decided to bake three pies that my family could eat around Christmas. I've only baked pies specifically a few times in my life, and always apple or pumpkin. This time, I asked my grandpa for his favorite pies, and through that I decided I wanted to try to make apple pie, lemon meringue pie, and chocolate pie. With so many  pies on my mind, I opted to use store bought dough. Last time I made dough, it took 4 hours and I nearly cried; that would be a feat for another day.
First up was the apple pies, which was almost easy. I used a recipe from an actual pie pan that used to belong to my grandma; apples, sugar, cinnamon, butter, and a little lemon juice. We had the finished product at Christmas Eve dinner, and the pie looked live it came out of a magazine. I was so proud!
Next, I did a lemon meringue. This proved to be trickier. This lemon filling was simple enough; sugar, lemon, cornstarch. It was very interesting to watch thicken, but I'd done it wrong: The meringue should have been whipped before the filling made! This was because the filling needed to go straight into the crust, topped with meringue, and directly into the oven, to retain it's heat and further develop integrity. I covered the filling and frantically went to whip a meringue.
That took a couple of tries. I've attempted meringue before and my problems had been lack of an electric mixer and adding the sugar too quickly. This time, I had an electric hand-mixer and I resolved to add the sugar spoonful by spoonful. Can you believe this time I did it too slow and set my mixer too high? The meringue fell and turned into this thick, sweet foamy thing that was starting to separate. I could have sworn I read you could fix this by cracking a single egg white into a bowl and slowly adding the broken meringue, but that didn't work at all; it only wasted an egg. Turns out, I was thinking of fat based sauces and the emulsifying stage. My final attempt at meringue (which used up the very last of my eggs) proved fruitful! I created a meringue, added the filling to the pie crust, the meringue to the top, and baked.
Finally, I made a chocolate pie. After the meringue, I was tired and really not wanting to mess up, but for some reason I felt like experimenting. The recipe I chose required no actual baking, besides baking the crust before adding the filling; the filling would be cooked on a stove top. This filling was similar to the lemon one in that it was mainly sugar, cornstarch, and flavor (in this case, cocoa powder). I decided to throw in a bunch of coconut shavings too, because I had a bag of the stuff and really like chocolate and coconut. Once it's all in the pot, you're supposed to stir until it thickens; I thought it never would! I stood at the stove stirring and stirring and stirring for 10 minutes, barely thickening at all. I was about to pull it, worried I'd ruined it with the coconut, when it suddenly became hard to stir. I must have cooked the filling for at least 15 minutes, it did most of it's thickening in the last 3 minutes.
The three pies were eaten in the last three days, and everybody said they were good, but I could taste the flaws; the apple and lemon meringue were both runny. Originally, after cutting the apples I set them in a lemonade bath so the wouldn't brown while I prepped the rest of my ingredients, but I think the apples became too moist. Next time, I'll properly drain and pat dry the apples before creating the filling. As for the lemon, maybe I needed to cook it longer? The actual flavor was good, it was just less like a gel and more like soup.
Also, my meringue kind of deflated overnight. I think in the future I'll get better at making a meringue with practice; it'll probably take time before I can identify on my own when my meringue is at the perfect consistency.
Finally came the chocolate pie, which tasted really good and actually came out like a pie slice. The only problem was the texture, which is probably due to the fact that I literally just threw a handful of coconut into the filling. I think next time, I'll try to make a coconut whipped cream using some coconut milk and top it with toasted coconut shaving, so I can keep the smooth texture of chocolate while also having a coconut flavor.
Overall, it turned out to be a very fun day. My pies were far from perfect and need a lot of work, but I think now I'll be more open to baking by scratch; maybe my days of chemically-created "add water and bake" cakes, brownies, and baked goods are finally behind me.
Here is the lemon meringue pie recipe I used.
Here is the chocolate cream pie recipe I used.

Spinach-Cranberry Salad with Apple Cider Vinaigrette

When trying to think of a salad for my dinner party, I immediately looked at the various salads served at my place of mentorship, The Avocado House. There, we have a delicious spinach salad with raspberry vinaigrette, dressed with decadent ingredients such as bacon, feta, and candied pecans. I made some changes to the salad based off of what I had at my disposal and what I wanted to incorporate, so here is my version of a wonderful fall salad:

Vinaigrette
I've never made a vinaigrette before, so I looked at multiple recipes for both basic vinaigrette and specific apple cider ones. My biggest influence can be found here or on page 180 of the Michael Ruhlman book Ratio.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup Apple cider vinegar
• 3 tbs. Dijon mustard
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/2 cup Extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 Canola oil
• 1 minced shallot
• 1 cinnamon stick

Procedure:

Whisk together apple cider vinegar, Dijon mustard, and honey in mixing bowl. Very slowly (almost drop by drop), add both oils to mixture to emulsify; I don't like to use a blender because it's easier to accidentally over mix with one of those. Make sure your whisking is continuous and to add only little by little. Your product should appear creamy.

Pour emulsified mixture into a container, maybe mason jar or dressing glass, and add shallots and cinnamon stick. Shake well and refrigerate for at least one hour.

Here is a (blurry) photo of the finished product. I was so busy
entertaining/being entertained by guests that it was the only
photo I took of the dish.

Salad

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs. Spinach
• 1/2 cup cubed apples
• 1/4 cup dried cranberries
• 1/4 cup bacon bits
• 1/4 cup blue cheese

Place spinach in bowl. Add apples, cranberries, bacon, and cheese. Toss well and drizzle with apple cider vinaigrette.

I actually had several very picky guests (including my 8 year old little brother) who voiced a disapproval for multiple ingredients. To appease the youngest of my guests, I opted for more of a salad bar service, in which I served a large bowl of spinach surrounded by various small bowls of the other toppings. Most of my guests ate the salad as intended, but this way they all got various amounts! One took a lot of bacon while another girl had more apple than spinach! It made the experience more unique to the guest.

Stuffed Mushroom Recipe

Three years ago, my cousin made stuffed mushrooms during Thanksgiving and damn, they were great! My mom and I loved them so much, we've made our own various versions of them ever since. We always mix it up; yes spinach, no spinach, add nuts, change the cheese. It's how we keep life interesting! This is the recipe for what I made the night of my dinner party:

Ingredients*

• 16 Crimini mushrooms
• 2 tbs. butter (or olive oil. To each his own.)
• 3 tbs. thinly diced onion
• salt and pepper
• 1/3 cup bread crumbs
• 2 cloves garlic
• Generous handful of spinach
• 1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese
• Extra virgin olive oil

Procedure
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with oil and lightly drizzle with olive oil.

Remove stems from mushrooms and thinly dice. Set mushroom caps on foil lined baking sheet.

Put about 2 tbs. of butter in a small saucepan on medium heat. Add onion and saute about one minute. Add bread crumbs and continue to cook until onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Add garlic, diced mushrooms, and then spinach. Once spinach is completely shriveled, remove from heat and add as much blue cheese as you would like. I think I used less than 1/4 cup, to be honest.

Immediately** stuff mushrooms, 1-2 tablespoons, with mixture. Bake for about 25 minutes and serve!

*Measurements may be off!! I always eyeball it, and rarely use actual measuring devices, but I think I'm fairly accuarate. If anything, you might need a teensy bit more bread crumbs, but the rest is more for flavor so you can add or take away where you see fit.

**If you want to prepare in advanced and cook later, go ahead and cook the mixture as instructed. Then, allow to cool for about 10 minutes, stuff the mushrooms, and wrap in plastic. Then all you have to so is pop them in the oven just before serving!

My First Dinner Party

This is (more or less) every single ingredient I used for the night.
I am missing bacon and Thyme, and the apple cider got cut off.

Tonight I hosted my first dinner party, but definitely not my last!

It's something I've wanted to do for a long time: invite people over for food I cooked myself and have them have fun and enjoy my food. Having dinner parties was the first thing I thought of when the Independent Component was explained. We are supposed to spend 30 hours working on something related to our project that will help explain or answer our Essential Question. (My working EQ: What is the best way to create a flavorful meal?)

THANK YOU CLAIRE!!
One of my lovely guests was kind enough to bring me all the
utensils and placements seen in this picture.

This party has definitely taught me a lot in many aspect of cooking. One thing I didn't even consider until just a few hours before the party was where we would eat. Clearly, I had a table and a space, but I didn't even think to count how many chairs I had until 6 pm! It wasn't until 3 pm that I realized I needed 8 place mattes, a table cloth, and 16 forks, 8 knives, and 8 spoons minimum for the meal. Then after the part started and I sat down, I realized that if all 8 of my guests had come, I wouldn't have had a seat for myself! These last couple of weeks, I've been planning a party for 8, when I was supposed to have 8 guests and then me hosting. Part of me was very relieved when two people didn't come, especially when my little brother high-jacked our 8th and final seat.

Here we are enjoying appetizers! Cute stories: 3 weeks after
the party, one guest said, "Normally I hat mushrooms, but wow!
Yours were so good, I had like 2 or 3!!"

I think my lack of planning in "front of house" (the place guests see) is what I'm least proud of and think I could have done better for this party. having to ask guests for utensils and place mattes at the last minute was embarrassing, so I'll be sure to look farther ahead for the next party. beyond that, I forgot about sides to the main course until just two days before the part, which seemed bad planning as well. Also, I did a lot of prep work yesterday, but I could have done more; I found myself scrambling to mince garlic and cook bacon as late as an hour and a half before the party was to start. This disappointed me, but I still feel I eliminated a lot of work by doing things like chopping apples and onion or making the dessert and vinaigrette yesterday.

Left: Mushroom stuffing. Right: Pork Loin Stuffing. I prepared
them at the same time about 3 hours before the party. Pre-making
stuffings definitely made me feel like a pro.

I am most proud of my timing. It was thrown off because I put the stuffed mushrooms 10 minutes late, and then didn't put the roast in the oven right away but rather waited 10 minutes after I'd taken out the mushrooms, but It still all went well. There was a comfortable amount of time between each course (though there could have been a little less between the entree and main course) and I was able to accommodate even our latest arrival (who came about an hour late).

Here is a very flattering photo of me setting up our little salad
bar! The apple cider vinaigrette is in the very center of the
photo, to the left of the spinach.

As for the food, everything seemed to be a success! The stuffed mushrooms were a bit strong, so I think a bit less blue cheese would have been better, but all the guests had one or two (which is what I accounted for). The guests really enjoyed the salad, which I served more as a "make your own" salad, with all the toppings on the table and a big bowl of spinach in the middle. Most guests ate the salad the way I had intended; they even tried my apple cider vinaigrette! I wasn't sure how my friends would feel about it, but I actually got a lot of compliments. This second batch included more honey, some sugar, and Dijon mustard instead of brown deli mustard, and was a lot better in my opinion.


The main course was well received! I wasn't completely sure how many of my guests would like apples with their pork, but everyone ate their piece and enjoyed it. No one was licking their plates clean, but everyone finished their meal with nothing more than a bit or two left. I think this time I seasoned the outside of the tenderloin a lot better, and cooked it better; I was sure to baste every fifteen minutes and cooked it to 150 degrees. in it's center, so there was no pink but was still juicy. I think it could have been juicier, but the food overall was good.

I have to say, however, that everyone's favorite course was probably dessert. One girl even asked for seconds! This simple chocolate-coffee mixture was, of course, enjoyed by us 17-year-old girls, and a can of whip cream was delightfully passed from person  to person  multiple times.

Overall, I'd say the party was a success! My guests all had fun and enjoyed the food, as did I. I truly got to visit with them throughout the process, which definitely made the dinner even better. I also learned a lot, about designing a meal, prep, cooking, and service. I look forward to applying my knowledge to more dinner parties, my internship, and future endeavors.

The night ended with a fabulous toast, proposed by my adorable little brother and done
through our coffee-chocolate desserts. The perfect ending to a very crazy yet fun night.

I will be posting recipes (along with the links and proper credit to all the recipes that inspired me) to everything I made tonight on this blog throughout the next month!

For more information on my planning, ingredients, or inspiration for the recipes I used, visit Dinner Party 1 Planner, located at the right side of this blog or here.

Here are the direct links to my Dinner Party recipes:
Stuffed Mushroom Recipe
Spinach-Cranberry Salad with Apple Cider Vinaigrette
Sides
Apple Stuffed Pork Loin

My New Favorite Quote

"You have to love either what you are going to eat, or the person you are cooking for. Then you have to give yourself up to cooking. Cuisine is an act of love."

 I read this in The Flavor Bible by Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg. They were quoting chef Alan Chapel (1937-1990), and I don't believe I've ever read anything about cooking that I felt was so profoundly true: to create good food, you truly need love. Cooking is passionate, full of more than just what you see, and while it is often about what you are cooking, it is often also about why you cook, or rather, who you cook for.

I think the best example of this happened sometime around freshman or sophomore year, when I was 14 or 15. At this point, I had been regularly preparing dinner for the family for 5 years, cooking for around 10. My mom taught me most of what I knew, along with the Food Network. When I reached middle school, my grandpa started telling me about old dishes my grandma used to make. He'd give me vague instructions, like, "Slice the steak and stew it with vegetables and tomato and stuff." Whenever he gave me these simple recipes, I'd replicate it many different times, hoping he'd say "Wow! That tastes just like your grandma's!" The first few tries usually yielded little more than "Try adding some salt" and a half eaten plate, but I never gave up.

I had this sort of need to try to make food the way my grandma did. Part of it was that I wanted to feel more connected to her, this woman that my grandpa and parents felt could walk on water and cook for the gods; I wanted to be able to cook just as well as if she taught me herself. Part of me has always known that if she were alive, I'd know all her recipes by now. The main reason I was so adamant about cooking her old food, however, was because I knew just how much my dad and (especially) my grandpa missed her and her food. I wanted to bring to them the food they ate 30 years ago, just because I knew it would make them happy, and I want my family to be happy. That's what cooking is about.

The first time I made tacos with my papa's vague instruction, my grandpa ate two. Two. Every time I'd ever made tacos before he told me how to do it, he'd only eat half of one, maybe a full one. I knew I was onto something, so I continued to perfect the recipe. Soon, I was devoting whole days to making the perfect taco. Then, one day, my grandpa asked for seconds. And then thirds. He ate six tacos that night.

"I didn't think Papa could eat that much!!" I had exclaimed to my father. "I've seen him eat 10 taquitos from his favorite vendor on Olvera Street. If he likes it, he won't stop eating until his stomach is about to explode. It just takes a lot for him to like something," my father had replied.

Once my grandpa finished his meal, he said, "Just like your grandmother's!"

Blog 11: EQ

1. I reviewed the rule of three for writing an EQ.

2. a. What is the most important factor in healthy weight loss?
             i. You must study weight and the factors that affect it.
            ii."most important" implies a subjective answer.
           iii. The wording is sound. Broad, but still specific enough.

    b. What is most important to securing a conviction in a criminal investigation?
             i. You must study the practice of law
            ii. The idea of something being "most important" implies the answer is subjective.
           iii. The wording is sound, broad enough to give freedom but specific enough to have defined                    answers.

     c. What is most important in creating a hairstyle that best satisfies a customer?
             i. You could study hair styles, but it'd be very hard to study what will "satisfy a customer,"                      because it is too subjective. Therefore, this isn't a good question.

     d. How can an anesthesiologist best treat chronic pain?
             i. Treating chronic pain and anesthesiology is what they must study.
            ii. Something being the "best" is subjective.
           iii. The wording is sound.

3. What is the most important factor in creating a flavorful meal?

Lesson 1 Reflection

1. I am most proud of the reactions I got from the audience during my presentation. Upon asking my hook question, everyone in the room had a response to give. Then, during the presentation, I could see reactions on people's faces. One girl looked horrified at the idea of people eating duck, others appeared confused at terms like "halal," but then I saw their understanding as I explained my topic further. Because the presentation was meant to inform my classmates, my favorite part was seeing the understanding on their faces. I liked my use of cuisine- related vocabulary, as well. I felt it really added to the professionalism of the presentation and my own authority.

2. I think I deserve a P+. I would give myself this grade because I fulfilled all of the requirements on the contract; my lesson plan was typed and submitted, I used multiple mentor and real life references, and in-presentation citations. My presentation was about 9 minutes long, I used a prop, and my introduction was interactive with the audience. Beyond that, my speech was extremely fluid. I went from one topic to another smoothly, including from my introduction into my presentation.

3. The thing that worked best for me was teaching my lesson in chronological order. I described cooking as a process, divided it into six steps, and then broke down and described each step. Using time really helps get points across, so I used that and I think it really made my presentation a good one.

4. If I could go back, I would use more props and possibly find a way to make the lesson more interactive. I'd bring in examples (or at least pictures) of good ingredients and copies of my sources.