Art Activity — Student Choice, Part 2
On Monday night we made steak, brussels sprouts with bacon, and baked potatoes. The steak was perfectly medium rare and the brussels sprouts were sweet and crispy from being panfried. We don’t remember the last time we had steak so this was a nice treat!
My brother also made this delicious oreo cheesecake from scratch. It was his first time making cheesecake and it turned out to be very delicious. It was sweet and creamy, perfect for after eating steak. The whole family loved it!
On Tuesday night we made hot and sour soup. This was the first time we had made the recipe and it turned out very well. The soup was savory, spicy, and sour all at the same time. Collectively we decided that in the future we would want to make this more often.
On Wednesday night we had beef and lentil soup. It tastes similar to a regular beef stew and gives you a warm sense of being at home. We only came across this recipe a couple of months ago yet it has become one of our favorites.
On Thursday night we made linguini carbonara. This is like fettuccini alfredo with a salty and savory hint from the pancetta. We have this every once in a while because it takes a long time and can turn out bad if you cook your eggs incorrectly.
On Friday we didn’t really make anything in particular because we mostly snacked for the whole day. My mom made this delicious banana almond bread with powdered sugar on top. This recipe has been in our family for years and has never failed. A slice of this with butter and a glass of milk makes a perfect dessert!
As a snack, I had rice and beans on tortilla chips. We usually always have rice and beans in our fridge, so this snack is always an option if I want something quick and simple to eat.
On Saturday my family made taco soup. This is one of our go-to recipes if we wanted something quick and delicious to eat because it’s a fairly simple recipe. The soup has that classic beef taco taste, and with a bite of sour cream and lime, it is so refreshing and hits the spot!
2- For the original vision for this project I just wanted to document what my family made and ate within a week. I wanted to cook, photograph, and give brief descriptions of what the meals were and what they were like.
3- My project differed from the original version because we ended up changing some of the recipes at the last minute. For example, instead of banana almond bread, I was planned to make pumpkin bread. In the end, it didn’t really matter, it just so happened that day we had bananas that were perfectly ripe for banana bread. This was something that we couldn’t really plan for because bananas are relatively unpredictable, but the food turned out all good in the end.
4- I think this project was a great success. I was pleased with the results of all of the meals, especially meals like the hot and sour soup that we made for the first time. None of our recipes failed and everything went well, looked good, and tasted great, so I couldn’t be happier.
5- I think that my project got stronger as a result of the improvements and compromises that I made. Going back to the banana almond bread example, we didn’t plan on making it and had to remove pumpkin bread from our agenda, but it ended up being better than what we had planned and used all of our resources well. This compromise ended up being an improvement in the end!
6- The idea that I was exploring with this project was the diverse flavors of my household. I was trying to explore cooking as an art form and explore how it can reflect a community and share a story. I think that I achieved my goals and I think that my final project communicated this well.
7- If I were to do this project again, I think that I would want to explore other methods of cooking. For example, I would like to try grilling and deep frying because those are some cooking methods that my family has rarely done before. In addition to this, I would like to try making drinks in addition to food. I think it would be fun researching different drinks to make and discovering what story they could tell and what they taste like.
