So, this would be the last thing i would need to do and it would be the end of the whole coursework .Well, i have to say it has been fun except for all the lenghty worksheets.
What i liked about home economics was that i got to cook! Cooking is probably one of my best subjects as no studying is required. Cooking is not like math or science, it's fun and we do not have to memorise facts. Although home economics has exams as well, the exams seem to be a whole lot less tedious and nerve racking. Also i like having a home economics blog as it is so much better or should i say less tiring than doing those yellow worksheets. And having a blog is something all students can relate too, taking some burden off our shoulders.It was fun posting all of the photo's of our cooking processes and to pen down our thoughts. It was a good experience whether cooking or blogging:)
What i did not like was the abhorring lenghty, yellow worksheets. It gave me nightmares.The worksheet was full of questions, asking us to explain many things, cooking processes and modifying recipes. Although it might have been beneficial, i feel that it was seriously an overload of questions and answering. Maybe we could have done more cooking rather than doing all these worksheets. The practical lessons would have probably been more fun and hands on ,which of course i would much more prefer.We should have more cooking lessons than writing, not to complain but it is really boring:(
From this experience ,i learnt some skills, such as what food is the most ideal for myself and for everyone. I also learnt how to modify my recipe to suit other people's taste and to include several elements such as appearance, taste and the use of colours in cooking.Another thing i learnt would be organization skills.All the coursework required us to write down everything in a detailed and organized manner. This taught me that everything had to have an order, otherwise things would turn out to be a mess.The benefits would have to be, everything that i learnt. From all the wealth of information that i got.I am now more wise and i have learnt many new cooking skills which would help me in preparing tasty and appealing food. Thank you home economics:)
My strenghts would have to be my quick thinking. If i had been slow in thinking, all my coursework would have progressed at a much slower pace, probably causing me to hand up late work.Also, quick thinking helped me to think of dishes to cook when the words "lunch", "food preferences", "healthy" came up i already had a few dishes in mind and executed my plans.My weakness would have to be researching skills, it took me way too much time to find the right recipe that involved the right ingredients that i needed.It was challenging as, in the process of researching, i came across many other recipes that had potential as well and it was hard for me to make a quick decision.
Done by: kimberly ang(14)
class:204
Practical exam(Kimberly)
Q:How did your dishes taste/appear/ mouth feel
The appearance of my dish was very appealing as it had a roasted brown colour to it which made it especially mouthwatering to look at.The different contrast of colours were also fun and daring. The dish tasted good, but at the same time i felt that there were a few areas where i made some blunders. Such as, i only put in the salt when the dish was almost finished cooking, i should have put the salt in gradually instead. And i felt that the biggest fault was that i forgot to put in the red pepper flakes as it would give the dish a more spicy taste and some red colour to it. But the dish still turned out okay without the red pepper flakes, just that it was not spicy.The mouth feel was springy as the spaghetti was cooked just right and the turkey bacon and garlic was not overcooked as well.The turkey bacon was crispy and the garlic fragrant, infused with the springy spaghetti, i would say it turned out quite good.
Q: How did you feel about it
I felt that overall, everything was good and mostly, things fell into place. Usually i would be very nervous whenever it comes to the real practical exam. Even during the trial cooking, i also felt flustered and unorganized. But i was glad that during this practical exam, i managed to compose myself and surprisingly i was even calm. I could set up all my things on the cooking counter, figure out what to do first and the different processes. When i was cooking, i felt that i was quite organized and could think straight therefore i feel that i did good:)
Q: What were the modifications you made to improvise on your dish?
Initially there was some wine in my dish. But there was no alcohol allowed as it was not halal. The wine did not go well with my dish anyway.Therefore i removed it from my recipe.I also added more salt to the dish to make it more flavourful.At the same time, i added bell peppers to my dish as it gave it more colours and vibrancy.The pasta now looked and tasted good.
Q:What are the difficulties you faced while cooking
The turkey bacon seemed to take very long to brown and turn crispy.I also faced some problems with cleaning up. This was because everyone including myself just threw all the unwashed pots and pans into the sink as everyone was busy cooking and left the washing for later. But this made the sink clustered and one of the sinks even got choked because there were food particles stuck inside.Also, after cooking, washing all the utensils took a while as it accumulated from leaving it in the sink.
Q: How did you overcome these difficulties
I told myself to be patient and at the same time i turned the heat intensity up so that the turkey bacon would brown at a quicker speed.As for the utensils i tried to squeeze some time in between waiting for the oil to heat up to wash the knife and the cooking board and after cooking i tried to speed up to set the table so that i could finish washing the utensils and cleaning up that area.
Q: Strengths and weakness.
I felt that my strength was my ability to manage my time so that i had enough time for cooking, setting the table and washing up.I was also very organised therefore all my utensils and ingredients were all neatly set up to avoid confusion.My weakness would be that i tend to get edgy and panicky when things start to go wrong. I get even more confused and irritated when i do not know what to do. That's when people start to tell me to calm down and think of ways to salvage the situation. Otherwise i would be having a panic attack.
Done by: Kimberly Ang(14)
Class:204
The appearance of my dish was very appealing as it had a roasted brown colour to it which made it especially mouthwatering to look at.The different contrast of colours were also fun and daring. The dish tasted good, but at the same time i felt that there were a few areas where i made some blunders. Such as, i only put in the salt when the dish was almost finished cooking, i should have put the salt in gradually instead. And i felt that the biggest fault was that i forgot to put in the red pepper flakes as it would give the dish a more spicy taste and some red colour to it. But the dish still turned out okay without the red pepper flakes, just that it was not spicy.The mouth feel was springy as the spaghetti was cooked just right and the turkey bacon and garlic was not overcooked as well.The turkey bacon was crispy and the garlic fragrant, infused with the springy spaghetti, i would say it turned out quite good.
Q: How did you feel about it
I felt that overall, everything was good and mostly, things fell into place. Usually i would be very nervous whenever it comes to the real practical exam. Even during the trial cooking, i also felt flustered and unorganized. But i was glad that during this practical exam, i managed to compose myself and surprisingly i was even calm. I could set up all my things on the cooking counter, figure out what to do first and the different processes. When i was cooking, i felt that i was quite organized and could think straight therefore i feel that i did good:)
Q: What were the modifications you made to improvise on your dish?
Initially there was some wine in my dish. But there was no alcohol allowed as it was not halal. The wine did not go well with my dish anyway.Therefore i removed it from my recipe.I also added more salt to the dish to make it more flavourful.At the same time, i added bell peppers to my dish as it gave it more colours and vibrancy.The pasta now looked and tasted good.
Q:What are the difficulties you faced while cooking
The turkey bacon seemed to take very long to brown and turn crispy.I also faced some problems with cleaning up. This was because everyone including myself just threw all the unwashed pots and pans into the sink as everyone was busy cooking and left the washing for later. But this made the sink clustered and one of the sinks even got choked because there were food particles stuck inside.Also, after cooking, washing all the utensils took a while as it accumulated from leaving it in the sink.
Q: How did you overcome these difficulties
I told myself to be patient and at the same time i turned the heat intensity up so that the turkey bacon would brown at a quicker speed.As for the utensils i tried to squeeze some time in between waiting for the oil to heat up to wash the knife and the cooking board and after cooking i tried to speed up to set the table so that i could finish washing the utensils and cleaning up that area.
Q: Strengths and weakness.
I felt that my strength was my ability to manage my time so that i had enough time for cooking, setting the table and washing up.I was also very organised therefore all my utensils and ingredients were all neatly set up to avoid confusion.My weakness would be that i tend to get edgy and panicky when things start to go wrong. I get even more confused and irritated when i do not know what to do. That's when people start to tell me to calm down and think of ways to salvage the situation. Otherwise i would be having a panic attack.
Done by: Kimberly Ang(14)
Class:204
So, home econs is about to come to an end. :( So this has to be about the evaluation of my entire coursework.Anyway, what I liked about home econs this year was the blog idea because it's pretty fun to take photos of the processes and share them on a blog. And I also liked all the cooking of our dishes of course.
What I didn't like was the lengthy worksheet we had to do. We had to do alot of questions on food, which I know is relevant, but I feel that this worksheet has too many pages and questions, which bores me. Secondly, what I didn't like was that we did not do much cooking. We mostly did coursework and so on, which I feel that is too long and draggy. I think that cooking should be the focus of the Home Econs lesson instead.
Okay, the learning benefits of the coursework is that I am now able to research for a recipe that is suitable for me, and I have also learnt how to modify my recipe so that it is more suited for everyone.
My strengths for the coursework is my research skills. I was able to research what dish I was interested in doing very quickly as I was able to research very thoroughly on my dish before deciding. My weakness for the coursework is my decision making. I was very unsure of what recipe to pick because each recipe seemed to have both amounts of good points and bad points.
Hopefully this is long enough.. :))
Practical exam(emily)
Q: How did your dish turn out?My dish turned out fine. There were alot of preparation and timing needed to make my dish perfect, so I tried to do all my steps with precision and accuracy, like for example, the eggs had to be flipped at the correct time when the egg whites start to form, but I flipped it a little bit too late. My dish tasted pretty good and recieved some compliments, and the golden brown appearance of the chicken was appealing to my friends. Also, my friends told me that the chicken was very soft and chewy. So,my dish did not turn out perfect, but at I feel that it turned out good.
Q: What were the modifications?
The initial recipe required snow peas and brown sugar, but after trying my original recipe, I realised that the dish did not taste well with this two ingredients. So, I cut these two ingredients off my list and instead decided to add strawberries which not only served well as a decoration, but it also tasted well with my dish.
Q: What were the difficulties faced while cooking?
Well, I am not very good at time management or organisation, hence I faced some problems when I realised that I only had ten minutes left and I hadn't even started to cut my chicken. Also, being disorganised, my work station was a mess, I couldn't even find anything because everything was strewn everywhere, and I forgot to bring my dustbin as well, so I had to replace it with a small plastic bag.
Q: How did you overcome these difficulties?
I immediately started multi-tasking, like for example, I washed and sliced the mushrooms while waiting for the rice to cook, and I also started setting up my decorations as the chicken bubbled away slowly. To overcome my problem of disorganisation, I packed everything in neat ziploc bags in which I labelled. I kept them in my bag until I needed it so that everything would be very neat and organised.
Q: What are the strengths and weaknesses?
I think my strengths in cooking is that I do not panic or come unprepared. When I am cooking, I don't panic when something goes wrong, instead I try to salvage it, so I feel that this is one of the strengths of mine. My weakness is obviously my lack of time management because I tend to do things at my own pace.
Yay! I'm done! Evaluation of entire coursework next...
Firsty
Prepare 4 slices of turkey bacon and put it in a plate, get ready your chopping board and knife and prepare to slice the turkey bacon.Do wash your hands and make sure that the utensils are throughly washed as well.
Secondly
Slice the turkey bacon into thin strips, do not cut the slices unevenly, try to cut the turkey bacon into even pieces and put in in a small bowl, leave it aside.
Thirdly
Wash the chopping board and dry it. Thereafter, chop the garlic , when chopping the garlic make sure that they are chooped evenly so that all the garlic cooks at around the same time .When done, put it in a bowl and leave it aside.
Fourthly
Heat some olive oil in the pan and fry the Turkey bacon over low heat,you may gradually increase the heat intensity according to the speed of which the Turkey Bacon cooks . Fry it until it is golden brown. leave it at the side of the pan
Fiftly
Put more oil into the pan ,fry the garlic, make sure that the fire intensity is at low as garlic tends to burn easily.Saute the garlic until it turns light brown and leave it at the side of the pan with the turkey bacon. The reason why we do not pan fry the garlic first is because it tends to burn easily and it may burn even if we leave it at the side of the pan just for a while .Therefore we only fry it after we pan fry the turkey bacon.
Sixthly
Add in about 2 teaspoons more of olive oil into the pan.Turn the heat intensity to medium.Add in the cooked pasta and fry it for about 5 minutes or so. Put in the salt(taste and add more if not enough)Toss it with the garlic and turkey bacon for a short while. Turn off the fire.Add in the pasta herbs and toss well.
Lastly
Garnish with parsley. Decorate and do up the table setting.Ready to serve :D
Done by:Kimberly Ang (14)
204
Turkey Bacon Aglio Olio
These are the ingredients needed for Turkey Bacon Aglio Olio
3 cloves of garlic
Peel the skin off the garlic cloves, Trim the heads off the cloves and mince the garlic.When sauteing the garlic, make sure that it is not burnt or overcooked.We want a light brown colour to the garlic.Garlic is also full of antioxidents that help fight cancer or cancerous tumours!A garlic a day keeps the doctor away:D
3 slices of turkey bacon
We only need 3 slices of turkey bacon as we do not want to overload the dish with turkey bacon .2 slices would be too little as to even taste the turkey bacon, 4 slices would be too much and not very ideal for health reasons.Therefore 3 slices would be just nice, the turkey bacon should be cut into slices.Turkey bacon is healthier compared to bacon which is full of fats whereas turkey bacon hardly has any fats and us less greasy compared to bacon.
5 teaspoons of olive oil
Approximately, 5 teaspoons of olive oil will be used. As Aglio olio is an italian dish, naturally, olive oil will be used .Olive oil is healthier and better tasting compared to normal cooking oil.Olive oil helps lower bad cholestrol and it also neutralizes the cancer causing free radicals in our body!!!It is also more fragrant so of course we use olive oil!
150 g of pasta
Pasta is the main ingredient in this dish, it provides us with plenty of carbohydrates to keep us energized throught the whole day.Pasta contains folic acid which plays an important role in the body's central nervous system.It has been proven that diets adequate in folic acid may reduce a woman's risk of having a child with brain or spinal cord defects.Therefore pasta is important in our lives.
1 teaspoon of pasta herbs
Pasta herbs are included in this dish because it gives the pasta a special aroma and herby taste.It would not be the same without it.
half a teaspoon of red pepper flakes
The red pepper flakes is to add a tinge of spice into the dish Iif you like your food spicy you may like to add in some red pepper flakes but if you prefer not to, it is fine as well.Also, the red pepper flakes will also add more colour to the dish making it more vibrant.
Salt(to taste)
It is up to personal prefrences how much salt you want to include as some people prefer to have their food saltier while others may prefer it bland.But it is advisable not to put too much salt in the dish as it is increases blood pressure placing you at a higher risk for heart and blood vessel diseases.
Parsley
Just pluck one leaf out from the stalk of parsley. The parsley is purely for decorative purposes.
Parsley
Just pluck one leaf out from the stalk of parsley. The parsley is purely for decorative purposes.
Done by:Kimberly Ang(14)
204
This is when I would post on how to cook Oyaku Donburi, so please refer to the earlier post for the list of ingredients needed. Thank you.
FIRST STEP:
-Chop the chicken thigh into small chunks. Then, put them aside and start chopping the onions into strips. Marinate them with light soy sauce. Pour some oil into the pan then proceed to put the marinated chicken and onions into the pan to fry. Make sure that the pan is dry and that is a non-stick pan before you start cooking. Cook at high heat.
SECOND STEP: 
THIRD STEP: Wash the rice and put them in the rice cooker for about half and hour. When the rice is done, scoop them out and put them in a bowl. Make sure that the short grain rice is not too moist or too too dry.
END PRODUCT:
Decorate the dish anyway you want, and there you have it, simple, healthy and yummy Oyaku Donburi. Enjoy~
P.S: Kim's recipe for aglio olio is coming soon. :P
Modified Oyako Donburi Ingredients
This is the ingredients needed for cooking Oyako donburi, which in short is chicken and eggs with rice.
200g chicken thighThe key ingredient you need is chicken, the best will be chicken thigh. Remember to slice it into smaller pieces like the image on the left. Chicken is a high source of protein which is beneficiary for everyone, as it is low in fat as well.
Four eggsThe next ingredient you need are four fresh eggs, to provide a bright colour to your dish, and to enrich the flavour of your dish.
500g short grain rice
You would also need short grain rice as this dish is a japanese dish, so short grain rice would be a better choice for this dish rather than brown rice or normal rice. It would also fill you with energy and carbohydrates for the rest of the day and keep you full.
300g enoki mushroomsAnother ingredient needed is enoki mushrooms, as this would add flavour to your dish and it is also much more healthy than normal button mushrooms.
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
The next ingredient needed is light soy sauce, it appears to be much higher in antioxidants than either red wine or vitamin C, which is good for our health. This soy sauce is used to marinate the chicken.
2 onions, chopped.
The last ingredient needed is onion. It needs to be cut in strips, and fried witht the chicken and the mushrooms. They are a very rich source of fructo-oligosaccharides. These oligomers stimulate the growth of healthy bifidobacteria and suppress the growth of potentially harmful bacteria in the colon. In addition, they can reduce the risk of tumors developing in the colon.
I will post the pictures of the cooking process and the instructions plus the recipe soon. Please wait as the pictures of the process is taking very long to upload. :((