Today I spent about half of the class time interviewing people on sides to go along with the pulled pork I plan to cook this weekend.  From the interviews I got the suggestions of coal slaw, corn on the cob, and baked beans.  I don't really know which one of these I want to do yet.  Tonight, when I got home I looked up some recipes for these for about a half an hour and tangled with the idea of having a summer salad for my appetizer.  A couple of people said that it would be nice to have in the cookbook.  However, I hesitate to do it because it almost seems too simple to have in a cook book.  Would it be better to have something else that has to be truly cooked and prepared rather than an assortment of ingredients that would be simply put in a bowl together with salad dressing on top of it?  Then again, I could try and make a dressing for the salad like a raspberry vinaigrette or    something along those lines.  I don't know what to do.

Yesterday I went over to Whaley's house with Zapolski and some other friends.  Zapo and I cooked appetizers and a dessert for the group.  We made home made buffalo wings from the original sauce recipe.  I loved these wings.  They had a great combination of spice and flavor to them.  We also made two family recipes from Zapolski.  The first was a crab cake like dish served on English muffins.  The second, was a layered family salad.  It took about two hours to prepare the appetizers last night.  Finally, we finished off the night with milkshakes.

Tomorrow, I will look up recipes for pulled pork sandwiches and interview people for a side dish to go along with it.  My goal for this week is to stay on top of my blog posts better

Today in class we did our midterm presentations.  Before I went I was really nervous, but once I got up there and people seemed like they liked the pictures of the food I prepared I got a lot less nervous.  I really enjoyed Whaley and Anabel's presentations.  I liked seeing what they were doing and hearing all about their favorite and  least favorite parts.  I am really exited to hear about other people's projects tomorrow in class.

When I got home today I spent about 30 minutes looking up recipes for maple pulled pork(thanks for the suggestion Mr. Igoe).  I'm really excited to hopefully try and cook this one because I love bbq and have actually wanted to try and cook this.  However I kinda forgot about this dish until Mr. Igoe suggested it to me.

Last night I spent about two hours making cup cakes for my presentation today.  I was dissapointed by the cup cakes because half of them turned out really poorly.  I am not really sure why they came out worse than the time before.  I think it was the batter.  It was more soupy at the end of the batter than the last batch.  Half of the cup cakes came out not cooked on the bottom even though I cooked them for two and a half times the recomended time.  I hope people like the cup cakes that came out okay. 

Monday in class I really solidified the questions I was going to be asking people in my interviews.  Some of the questions are "what are your favorite summer time dish?  What is your favorite ingredient to use?  What is your least favorite dish/ingredient?  and what is your favorite and least favorite thing about cooking?"  During my free block on Monday, I interviewed people and asked them these questions.

Today, I spend about 30 mins looking up different recipes for dishes I plan to cook from the interviews.

day two of cooking

Today I spend about three and half hours cooking.  I made a side dish that I got the Recipe from Mrs. Collins.  It was really good.  It was Potatoes and onions on the grill with seasoning.  Also, I made beer can chicken.  I was really exited to try out this recipe because its something that iv wanted to try out for about a year now.   Because of the way the chicken was cooked at a low temperature for several hours and, It was incredibly moist and practically falling off the bone.  Lastly, I made Angel food cup cakes from scratch with homemade frosting.

Yesterday, I spent the whole class going down to the Groton Public Library.  I was hoping to find a book on what flavors and spices mix well together.  I was able to do so only because the librarian at the library was so helpful.  Also, I found a book on grilling.  This book tells all about when to flip diffrent types of meats (if at all), what temperatures to cook them on, rest times and more.  I think that both of these will be really helpful.  Out of class, I spent about 40 minutes shopping for ingredients for this weekends cooking endeavor.  This weekends meal will take a while to cook.  Its estimated cooking time is about one our twenty-five minutes.  Today, when I got home, I was feeling ambitious, and a little hungry, so I made one of the sides for the weekend, Bean Salad.  It was really good and only took about 25 mins to make it.  Tonight, I will finish my proposal sheet.  Hopefully it will only take me about a half an hour or so.

Yesterday I spent the day interviewing more people about their favorite summer foods or ingredients.  Some of my interviews really helpful.  For example Mrs. Collins,  gave me a recipe that her dad gave to her for potatoes on the grill.  On the other hand, another of my interviewees, who I will not mention their name, was not very helpful.  The only thing they said was Hebrew National Hot dogs.  When I got home, I started to look up recipes for the food I am going to cook this weekend.  

First day of Cooking

Yesterday I cooked two steaks with a spicy dry rub on it (at the request of several people for a spicy steak).  I was not a huge fan of the first rub, but the second one turned out even better than I thought it would.  The second one, because of the preparation, kept the steak very juicy.  I also cooked bacon wrapped asparagus.  Besides looking up the cook time, I made up the recipe for this one.  I think I like the asparagus more than the steak last night because I was surprised at how much I liked it.

P.S.  If anyone has some favorite summer recipes or foods please feel free to comment letting me know what it is.

First Round of Interviews

Yesterday I spent the day interviewing people about summer recipes they enjoy.  I interviewed about 10 people and they gave me a page worth of possible dishes to make.

Yesterday I finalized what the layout of the cookbook will be with Zapolski.  Also, Zapolski and I changed our idea on how we are going to work on the recipes.  Instead of doing all the appetizers, entrees, sides, and desserts separate for about a week and a half each, we are going to cook a full meal once a week then spend the rest of the week doing the right ups for the dishes.  I still need to find a book to read on cooking.  If anyone has any summer foods they would like to see in the book please feel free to talk to Zapolski or me.

Cookbook Format

Today I looked threw several different cookbooks.  In class, the cook book that Mr. Igoe brought in made me really think of how I was going to lay out my book.  This is because I really did not like format of The Family Dinner.  I came up with a template I think I am going to do.  Tomorrow Zapolski an I will talk about the exact format of the book.

Appetizer Ideas

Today I spent almost the entire class looking up some cool ideas for appetizers to go in the cook book.  So far some things that have made it onto the possibilities list are sushi, wings, dips, and salt and pepper shrimp with Aioli.  Also, when I went onto the Yahoo homepage at school, I found a list of four ingredients that have good health benefits.  It could be cool to find recipes that incorporate these ingredients.

Proposal sheet

Last night the proposal sheet was more difficult than I thought it was going to be to fill out.  I stayed up until about 12:15 filling it out.