Week Three Reflection

What a week it has been.  For the past seven days I have been working so hard to complete the cookbook.  The only thing I have been doing lately is working on my cookbook and it feels like senior project has taken over me. 

Earlier in the week, Monday and Tuesday, I devote myself and my time to write up all twenty of the recipes that I choose to put in my cookbook.  Even though I took good notes when ever I cooked, this took a while and I was able to get about ten recipes each day.  When I was finished I worked with Lathy editing each recipe and functioning with here to get her advice on what I needed to change. 

            Wednesday I met with Deb McKew who helps me create a template to use in Pages and layout my cookbook how I planed to create it.  During this time many little details were taken care such as pages size and layout, fonts, titles, and choice in pictures.  This set me up to work extremely hard on Thursday, typing in all the recipes and basically putting the cookbook as a whole together.  I finished in the late afternoon and we made a mock-up of the book to give to the printers and Flash Photo.  I could tell already the it was going to look great.  Ahead of schedule I drop the mock-up off in New London on Thursday and was assured that it would be don by the weekend.  I felt great that I was finished working on the cookbook and my part of it was over.  Friday I really had nothing to do for the book, so I spent my time writing my self-evaluation and preparing for my review on Monday.  This weekend I picked up my copies of the cookbook, which might I say look very professional, and cooking all of Sunday for the review and open house on Tuesday.

            It is crazy to think that senior project is over, but as I look back on cant believe how great of an experience it was.

Day eighteen

Friday, May 23

Today was the last official day of my senior project.  I spent most of my time today working on writing my self-evaluation.  This was pretty self-explanatory; all I had to do basically was answer about eight questions based on the time I spent prior to and on senior project.  I talked about my goals and how I attempted to achieve them.  I gave an explanation why I could achieve one goal of men.  I talked about the benefit derived from my experience as well as some negative aspects of it.  I talked about specific skills and procedures I learned.  I tiled about personal qualities I developed and discovered about you.  I talked about people I found exceptionally helpful in making my Project a success.  I lastly talked about if I were to do your Senior Project over again, what I would differently.  The self-evaluation came out well and was good because during writing it prepared myself for my review on Monday.

Day seventeen

Today was one of the most productive days I have had during my senior project.  I stayed at the McKue’s house last night working on my cookbook with Deb and when I woke when right to work.  I worked in Pages from 8:30 AM to about 2:00 PM.  There was a lot to get to say the least.  I had to input all twenty of my recipes in to program and format them all to look the same.  I also had to import all 20 pictures and coordinate witch ones went with each recipe.  Also, I had to create my front and back cover and put the whole book in order.  After I was done working in Pages, Deb and I proofread the entire cookbook and printed out a mock-up to chow to the people that worked at Flash Photo.  This is because they are the ones that will be binding my cookbook and I really wanted them to know exactly how I wanted the cookbook to look.   When we were all done checking over the cookbook we went to Flash Photo in New London to drop on the mock copy and talked to the people there about printing the copies.  I left the store in good spirits feeling that my cookbook was in good hands.  The assured me that the book would be done by tomorrow and I ended the day feeling extremely happy.  

Day sixteen

Wednesday, May 21^st

Today was a great day.  I got in touch with Jack McCue’s mother, Deb, last night and asked for her help.  I had originally planned of using a program called BookSmart that binds custom books, but as I have been working on my project have realized I do not have enough time to use.  This is because the program takes about 7 to 10 days to get the book back.  Deb agreed to help me with my problem of putting the book together so today I drove up to here house and we worked together on creating a template on the program Pages, to use for the recipes I wrote.  After working for a few hours with Deb, we ended up with a great template to work with for the cookbook.  The deal was that if Deb helps me with my cookbook, I would cook her dinner.  I kept my end of the bargain because I so happy with the end result that we came up with and make a feast for us.  The ended by working some more the cookbook, putting the recipes into Pages and formatting the book.  

Day fifteen

Tuesday, May 20^th

Today was a monumental day.  I finished writing and cooking all of my recipes.  It feels really good to be done with that part of my project.  I work all day and finally finished writing tonight and after sent all of my work to my mentor.  I explained my situation to her and the fact that I really needed the recipes back ASAP because the cookbook has to be done within a week.  Fortunately she read all twenty recipes and got them right back to me tonight.  The feedback I go back was great, “THESE RECIPES ARE AWESOME…”  I feel confident in my dishes and where I am in the project and hopefully it will all b coming to end soon. 

Cedar Plank Salmon

I discovered the method of cooking on cedar planks in the fall of 2007 and was amazed on much flavor the wood gave of to the fish, thee taste of.  The smoky flavor the salmon packs in from the cedar couples nicely with the teriyaki marinade and the end result is unbelievable.

3/4 cup light soy sauce

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons peanut oil

1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 tablespoon minced ginger

1 tablespoon minced green onion bottoms

4 (6-ounce) salmon fillets

4 untreated cedar planks

2 teaspoons vegetable oil

Put the soy sauce, sugar, peanut oil, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, and green onions, in a blender and process on low for 1 minute, or until the ingredients are well mixed together.  Transfer half of the sauce to a shallow dish and add the salmon fillets.  Turn to coat well, and refrigerate, turning occasionally, for at least 2 hours.  Transfer the remaining sauce to a non-reactive container and refrigerate until ready to cook the salmon.  Soak the cedar planks in water for 1 hour.

Preheat a grill to medium.  Remove the planks from the water and pat dry.  Place 1 salmon fillet on the top of each plank.  Place the planks directly on grill and close the cover.  Cook until the salmon is just cooked through, about 20 minutes.  While the fish is cooking, place the remaining teriyaki sauce in a small saucepan and cook until it has thickened slightly and coats the back of a spoon, 1 to 2 minutes.  Remove the fish from the grill and serve, drizzled with the thickened sauce. 

Day fourteen

Monday, May 20^th

 

            Today marks that I have one week to finish my cookbook.  This realization was a little stressfull, but good because it has made me go in almost superdrive to get things in order.  I spent the whole day writing up recipes, and feel that got a lot of work done.  As of no I am have writing up my than half of the recipes for the cookbook and olnly have two more dishes to cook.  I finished the Rosemary Rack of Lamb, Country Fried Steak, Orange-Ginger Glazed Cornish Hens, Beef Stir-Fry, Perfect Spaghetti and Meatballs, 20 Minute Maple Glazed Pork Chops, Cedar Plank Salmon, and the Turkey Non Burger recipes.  I ended the day cooking a dish that I plan to use in the cookbook.  The dish was a 2-pound Cowboy Steak.  This thing was massive and took almost an hour to cook, but was delicious and worth he wait.  

Cedar Plank Salmon

I discovered the method of cooking on cedar planks in the fall of 2007 and was amazed on much flavor the wood gave of to the fish, thee taste of.  The smoky flavor the salmon packs in from the cedar couples nicely with the teriyaki marinade and the end result is unbelievable.

3/4 cup light soy sauce

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons peanut oil

1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

1 tablespoon minced garlic

1 tablespoon minced ginger

1 tablespoon minced green onion bottoms

4 (6-ounce) salmon fillets

4 untreated cedar planks

2 teaspoons vegetable oil

Put the soy sauce, sugar, peanut oil, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, and green onions, in a blender and process on low for 1 minute, or until the ingredients are well mixed together.  Transfer half of the sauce to a shallow dish and add the salmon fillets.  Turn to coat well, and refrigerate, turning occasionally, for at least 2 hours.  Transfer the remaining sauce to a non-reactive container and refrigerate until ready to cook the salmon.  Soak the cedar planks in water for 1 hour.

Preheat a grill to medium.  Remove the planks from the water and pat dry.  Place 1 salmon fillet on the top of each plank.  Place the planks directly on grill and close the cover.  Cook until the salmon is just cooked through, about 20 minutes.  While the fish is cooking, place the remaining teriyaki sauce in a small saucepan and cook until it has thickened slightly and coats the back of a spoon, 1 to 2 minutes.  Remove the fish from the grill and serve, drizzled with the thickened sauce. 

Week Two Reflection

Sunday, May 18^th

I was amazed with the amount of work I got done on my cookbook this week.  As of the weekend, I have sixteen dishes complete, but haven’t written up all the recipes yet.  I was cooking a lot this week.  I started off the week grilling some figure lickin’ good beef ribs, then changed directions a little bit and made stir fry, grilled pork chops, meatballs, crab cakes, and grilled lobster.  There so much going on both Ben’s and my kitchen at home, I felt like I was cleaning more than I was cooking.

I feel really good about were I am in the process of creating my own cookbook.  I am almost done cooking all of my dishes and predict that I will do cooking by Tuesday.  I would say the area that I need to devote most of time is writing up the recipes.  It’s not hard to write them, but the problem is that it takes a lot of time to complete a recipe.  I found the format I want to use for my cookbook, am exited to start putting it together.  I have taken so many pictures of each dish that I know that the cookbook will defiantly look good.

The coming week is the last week to on my senior project to finish everything up.  This means that even though it doesn’t seem that I have to do much, indeed I have a lot to get done. From now until Monday, I have to finish cooking all of my dishes, write up all of heir recipes, format the cookbook, and the publish it.  Every day is going to be extreamly busy, I am I just brassing myself for late nights.