Chicken saltimbocca

On monday I prepared italian style chicken saltimbocca with rice pilaf and it turned out great. I had to pound the chicken with this strange cooking hammer so that it would cook all the way through. Then, I put a slice of prosciutto and a little mound of spinach on top of each cutlet. I sprinkled parmesan cheese on top and then began the hardest part of the preparation. I rolled the chicken (cordon bleu style) and secured each roll with a tooth pick. I browned each side in a well oiled pan and eventually added chicken broth, onions, lemon juice, and a few italian seasonings. I let the chicken rolls cook for 8 minutes before removing  them and placing them on a serving platter. I reduced the sauce for five minutes until it was a glaze-like consistency. I poured the glaze over the chicken and garnished with parsley. The meal turned out delicious! I was afraid the rolls would unravel without any cheese inside (besides parmesan) but somehow it magically bonded and it looked great. These cell-phone pics dont do it justice but the pix on my dads camera are sure to impress

Red flag march 17

I spent a considerable amount of time on my project this week! Since monday I have cooked two really great meals. I made chicken saltimbocca on monday and chicken marsala on wednesday. Both meals used to be made at my work, but I used the internet as well as my dad's vast knowledge to make these dishes. I did all of the cooking myself and they both turned out really amazing. I didn't do as much research this week because my dad already knew how to make these meals. I met with my mentor yesterday for about fifteen minutes and it was a really good and productive meeting. We talked about my presentation and plans for next week. I'm still working on this weeks blog entries (sorry). I was in class this week and journaled in my composition book but I will be transferring that. I think I made great progress this week but I need to start journaling more.

Dear Reader

Dear Reader,

This year,  I decided to take WISE class as an alternative to English 12. The idea of doing standard english work for the first half of the year and working on a project for the second was really enticing. I had a long time to decide what my project should be, and now my idea is fully developed and already in motion. For the second semester of WISE class, I will be cooking foods of all varieties and compiling all of my knowledge into a cookbook. I will be cooking a meal for my family at least twice a week, and I will be taking pictures of all the finished products so I can use them in my book. I want to include 32 recipes, which will be printed on high-quality gloss paper at gnomon copy. The end result is going to be professional looking, and it will be the perfect indication of all my hard work. I decided to cook for my project because I believe that it is an essential skill and I have always been interested in it as a hobby and as a potential career. I have grown up in a traditional Italian family, so I fully understand the importance of food. I have already started cooking, and I'm excited to see my book come to fruition.

Red flag entry 3/4/11

Over the past week, I made two family dinners and two lunch/snack meals. I'm very pleased with my work and proud that I made so much food in such a limited amount of time. I had work pretty much every day this week and I was still able to make great progress on my project. I spent around 7 hours on my project this week if I don't include the time that the food was cooking. I also spent an hour looking up recipes I want to complete and blogging all my progress. I was hands-on for pretty much 100% of the work. During my time at home, my time at work and at the school library I used the internet to research some recipes I want to make and what ingredients are involved. My parents have been extremely helpful. Earlier this week my dad asked me what ingredients I wanted and a few hours later I had everything I needed for the week of work. I met with my prospective mentor, and I have a really good attitude about him mentoring me. He has only been my teacher for one class, but I have always appreciated his youthful presence and the fact that he's just an overall nice guy that is easy to talk to. I felt good about my journals this week and the fact that I can do all of this from my phone is my favorite part of the entire journalizing aspect of my project. This week I feel accomplished and excited about next week. Next week I will be making at least 2 meals and I was hoping that one of them will be one of my favorite italian dishes: chicken marsala with linguine.

First polish meal... 3/2/11

I woke up early today so I decided to get another meal made. I knew I had to use a crockpot because I have work tonight and don't have time to make anything on the stove. I decided to make Kielbasa and Saurkraut since it's a pretty easy foreign meal to make. I rinsed all of the salt off of the saurkraut and chopped the kielbasa slightly diagonally. Then I diced a small onion and combined it with the kielbasa in a saute pan. I let the onion caramelize and the meat brown for a few minutes and then put everything into the crockpot. I added around 1/5th of a cup of brown sugar, mixed everything, and turned the pot on low. It is currently cooking itself as I type this. I'm confident that this one is gonna turn out well, but I'll have to wait until later tonight to hear my family's full review.

First day I didnt have work, first day I cooked dinner for the fam.

I made dinner for my family tonight! I made burgers out of raw meat with all sorts of stuff like worchestershire sauce and montreal seasoning. I made 7 patties but I only ended up cooking 6 of them (il eat the other one before work tomorrow). It took me about 30 minutes to make the entire meal. I also made baked beans and I made home fries out of a few baked potatoes. My dad pre-baked the potatos today when I was at school so all I had to do was season them with salt and pepper and cook them in a saute pan with a little bit of butter and some onion I chopped (I cried okay... Sue me). I also made some cole slaw this morning following a recipe by wolfgang puck. I bought the actual lettuce and cabbage and the bulk of the side dish in a bag. All I had to do was make the liquid portion (is that the cole? Or the slaw?) out of mayo, a bit of ranch dressing, and small amounts of a few other ingredients like lemon juice and salt. I'd say the dinner was a success! My sister didn't even realize that I made it, since she assumed that my parents made the daily dinner like always. That was quite the compliment considering my dad has been cooking for 40 years! I took some pretty good pictures with my dads camera, as well as this picture of the burgers with my cell phone. Tomorrow I am making a polish meal! Check the blog tomorrow for the whole scoop

After class entry 3/1/11

Today we watched a documentary on another student's wise project. His project ended up being too ambitious and the barn wasnt raised on time. It said a lot about his character though, and the fact that he took on such a difficult task in such a small amount of time and worked to the best of his ability makes the project a success in my opinion. He eventually got the barn raised and I'm sure its something he will be proud of for the rest of his life. I believe this student truly utilized the wise program the way it is supposed to be used.