Day five

Friday, May 9

Today was the fifth day of my senior project.  I woke up at 8:00 AM.  Today was more a catch up day and gave me time to prepare for next week.  Patty Pond had taken lots of pictures of the BLT risotto yesterday when I cooked, so the first thing I did was went threw and edit all of the photographs.  I did this for about an hour and when I was done, I had a great picture a bowl of the risotto that captured all the elements of the dish.  When I was finished working with the photographs, it was around 9:00 AM and I switched directions and began writing up the BLT risotto recipe.  I focused of putting the recipe together for about an hour and at 10:00 AM took a break and treated my self to breakfast at Black Water with Ben.  From there we ventured off to Concord.  The task was to find beef ribs, which I will be cooking next week, but we had no luck.  Patty had told me that Shaws in Concord was the best market around, so I feeling like we might have luck, but it was not a success.  I went to two different Shaws and unfortuently neither of them had beef ribs.  A little disappointed by this time, we decided drive back to school threw Tilton because there a few more markets there.  To make a long story short, no butchers in this area carry beef ribs.  We went three more stores, Shaws, Market Basket, and Hannafords all in Tilton and still could find what we were looking for.  Feeling like or efforts were just for a lost cause; the ride back to school was not fun.  In my sulking state of mind, I called home to touch base and by the end of the conversation I had my mother assuring me that she would find beef ribs by the end of the day.  Sure enough fifteen minutes caller I get a call form mom telling me that the butcher at home would order beef ribs and I would be able to pick them up this weekend.  This was great.  My sudden feeling of wasted time was soon forgotten and the day ended well.

Day four

Thursday, May 8^th

This was the fourth day of my senior project.  Today was a cooking day.  I woke up around 8:00 AM and went over everything that I needed to make the risotto.  I decided to make a BLT risotto, with pancetta acting as the bacon, basil acting as the lettuce, and tomato.  I had gotten most of my ingredients yesterday, but I still needed to pick up a few things.  I made my list, and all I needed was a loaf of bread and stuff to make an easy green salad to serve with the risotto.  As it has been the routine, I made my way over to Hannafords for the third day in a row picked up what was needed.  I returned to Proctor around 10:15 and had an hour and a half until my project sponsor, Patty was coming over to help me cook.  I got right to work.  I prepped all the ingredients for the dish.  I chopped the onion, minced the garlic, julianed the basil, and measured out the rice.  I took my time, so by the time I fished Patty was rolling up on her bike.  When Patty arrived at MLS, I thought it was only polite to give her tour of my test kitchen, which only took .5 seconds.  After the grand tour we started to make the risotto.  This was new for Patty so I was learning experience.  Forty-five minutes later, both Patty and my arms were tired of string, but the risotto was finished and looked delicious.  I had made a fresh greed salad with radishes, which are extremely fresh and in season now, and toasted almonds tossed in a balsamic vinaigrette dressing.  Add a nice loaf of bread of crusty French bread and we had ourselves a feast.  As Patty, Ben, Brooks, and I sat down at Bens lavish dinning table, apparent the silence of voices that the risotto came out great.  And it was, the BLT risotto was delicious,  all the flavors blended well with each the other and I as very happy with the end product.  The day ended as usual…cleaning dishes on a full stomach.

Day three

Wednesday, May 7^th

This was my third day of my project.  I knew it was going to be short because I only had until 11:45 AM to work because we had an away game at Gould.  Because of this I got up at 8:00 AM to start my day.  I decided that it would be most logical to not cook today since I had so little time, but rather to prep for tomorrow.  I chose to make risotto tomorrow, so the first thing I did was make a grocery list for what I would to cook.  Risotto is easy, so the list wasn’t that long.  All I really needed was arborio rice, pancetta, asiago go and romano cheese, and olive oil.  I already had tomatoes and onions at the test kitchen so all the bases were covered, except for a couple.  It seems that Hannafords in New London has a hard time carrying fresh herbs, and for this recipe basil plays a big role.  My other issue was that you need a little wine in this recipe.  Thankfully I have the best project sponsor and assured me that she would take care of the problems.  Along with bringing me basil, wine, and pot to cook the risotto in, she also told me she would keep me company when I cook so there is no time spent worrying about myself cooking with alcohol.  After I had communicated with Patty, it was about 10:30 AM.  I had some time before we had to leave for the game so I decided to edit and write the burrito recipe from yesterday.  This took more time then I thought and finally finished right before we had to go.

STEAK SUPREME BURRITOS

Ingredients

2 pounds sirloin

1 ½ ounce Mexican spice blend

3 cups cook white rice

2/3 cup of chopped fresh cilantro

1 can black beans

2 cups chopped green leaf lettuce

1 8-ounce package grated Mexican 4-cheese blend (about 2 cups)

¾ cup purchased corn salsa

¾ cup guacamole

¾ cup sour cream (optional)

6 burrito-size flour tortillas

Direction

     Trim of any fat on sirloin, and pound meat until it is about ¼ of an inch in thickness.  Transfer tenderized meat to a dish, then coat and rub it with Mexican spice blend. Let marinate for ½ to 1 hour.  Grill sirloin over medium-high heat for about 6 minutes on each side.  Let meat sit for about 10 minutes and cut into little piece, about the size of a fingernail.  

While meat is marinating, prepared the rest of the ingredients.  Mix white rice with chopped cilantro.  Transfer black beans into a pot and heat over medium heat for 10 to 15 minutes.  Chop lettuce into 2-inch strips.

     Working with 1 tortilla at a time, heat tortilla directly over medium-high gas flame (or in dry skillet over medium-high heat) until warm, softened, and browned in spots, about 30 seconds per side.

     Place tortilla on work surface and spoon ¼ cup black beans, ½ cup rice, ¼ cup steak, ½ tablespoon sour cream, 1 tablespoon corn salsa, 1 tablespoon guacamole, 1/8 cup chopped lettuce, and ¼ cup cheese long center of tortilla; fold sides in over filling, then roll up tortilla to enclose filling.

     Place burrito seam side down and serve.  Repeat with remaining tortillas and filling.

Day two

Tuesday, May 6^th

This was my second day of the project.  I started my day at 8:30 AM at the Hannafords Market in New London.  I had made a grocery list the nigh before, so I wouldn’t have to waist time thinking of I needed.  I grabbed a cart and jumped to it, searching for my ingredients to make burritos.  I had only been that Hannafords a couple times before, so it took a while to myself familiar with the store, I was there for about an hour.  I started with the vegetables.  I needed green leaf lettuce, a couple Spanish yellow onions, a couple jalapenos, a tomatoes, and cilantro.  I found everything easily, but there was no sing on cilantro.  I bought some dried cilantro instead because I couldn’t find anything else, but fresh herbs really make difference.  The moved along to meats, I was looking for a lean cut that would be easy to grill, so picked four pounds of sirloin.  This turned out to a lot of meat.  Then came the rest of the ingredients, I got a couple cans of black beans, some sour cream, a chipolte rub for steaks, a great corn salsa that they had made fresh, rice, cheese, but the important was missing…they didn’t have any giant tortillas, which a little important when it comes to making a burrito.  I must have looked up and down every row about three times before I called it quits and checker out.  On my drive back to proctor I was on a mission to find burrito wraps.  The only possibility I could think of was the Blue Canoe, but unfortunately the let me down as well.  I thought I was doomed, I mean a tortilla-less burrito would be a little messy.  A had one more idea.  I remembered that Jake’s Market has the tortillas because that’s what they make their wraps out of.  When I asked the girls at the deli if there was any way could just buy some wraps, they gave me a funny look, but then said, “how many?”  This was great, I had all of my ingredients and I was ready to start cooking. At this time it was about 10:30 AM and I made my way up to Ben’s apartment to put all my groceries away, to find that he was still asleep.  I tried to work quietly not to wake the gentle giant, but there something about pounding steak with a meat tenderizer that you just cant do quietly.  Little to say, Ben woke up.  After I tenderized and season the steaks it was about 11:00 AM.  I went to work on the guacamole, mashing the avocados and a chopped tomato, chopped onion, and minced jalapenos.  After that was done I put Ben to work, he was in charge of cooking the rice.  I chopped the lettuce and grated the cheese, and when I was about to warm up the beans I noted that didn’t have a can opener.  Not a problem, I ran over to dinning hall opened my cans of beans, ran back and by the time the rice was done.  It was 12:30 PM and had everything ready to go in a big assembly line with cheese, rice, the black beans, lettuce, salsa, sour cream, and the guacamole.  The only thing that needed to be done was grill the meat.  I started out grilling alone, but as I was done it felt a class had taken a field trip over the MLS to eat all my steak.  When I was finished, it was time to DO WORK.  I made the burritos and they payoff was delicious.  As Ben, Tyler Swartfager, and I sat on the third floor of MSL devouring these burritos we, it was like we had died and gone to Chipolte heaven.  The experience didn’t last the long, as there was many dished that needed to be cleaned before I had to leave for my game.  Luckily I cleaned the last at plate at 2:35 PM as was off to play some lax.  Later tonight my parents took me out dinner and after went to a cooking supply store at the Tilton outlets, to pick up some things that I still needed.  Fifteen minutes later and a can opener, dish rack, spice rack, two mixing bowls, and a spatula later we were finished, and was spent for the day.

Day one

Monaday, May 5th

This was the first day of my project.  I knew that there was a lot to get together, so I woke up early.  I worked with my mom to plan out what I needed to bring from our kitchen at home to my test kitchen at Proctor.  It was clear that I would need almost everything, pots, pans, and dishes, ect.  It took about two hours to get all of my cooking supplies packed up and ready to go.  I was planed to meet with my project sponsor, Kathy Gunst, today, but unfortunately she had to cancel at the last minute.  Instead I used that time to create a grocery list for my next dish I’m going to make, burritos.  After this I drove back to school.  When I got to Proctor, it was time to do some work.  Since Ben doesn’t own anything to put in his kitchen, it was pretty easy to find room for all of my things, but for some reason it still took a while. Today was basically a maintenance day, getting my cooing supplies all organized and setting up my test kitchen so it will be ready to cook in.