Chicken Parmesan

For our final cooking blog post, we took on the challenge of making a meal on our own. We both decided on chicken parmesan, not only because we love it but also because it entails us to make our own gravy (with a little help from grandma). 

This time we did NOT follow a recipe and did it on our own, with little guidance.

We started out making a gravy, which came out so delicious. Then we fried chicken cutlets and turned them into parmesan. The chicken cutlets were a little thick, but we know for next time to pound them and slice them thinner. This was our best meal by far!

We have learned a lot through our cooking journey and will continue to grow in time. We hope everyone has enjoyed reading our blog!

TRADITIONAL MASHED POTATOES

We hope everyone had a happy thanksgiving. This year we decided to make a side dish to bring to thanksgiving dinner. The dish we decided on was traditional mashed potatoes, because they are everyone’s favorite and easy to make. Instead of following a recipe we decided to make them on our own. Both of our families have showed us how to make mashed potatoes before so we just tried on our own but with supervision, peeking behind our shoulders every once in a while. The recipe was quite simple.

Ingredients used:

·         1 bag of potatoes

·         2 sticks of butter

·         1 cup of milk

·         Salt

·         Pepper


Directions:

1.       Peel all the potatoes in the bag. Dice the potatoes into medium sized cubes.

2.       Put the potatoes in a pot filled with water. Cover the pot and bring to a boil.

3.       Cook the potatoes for 20 to 25 minutes or until the potatoes are very tender.

4.       Drain the potatoes. Add all ingredients.

5.       Use a hand – held mixer to blend your ingredients and potatoes till they are light and fluffy.

6.       Add salt and pepper to your liking.

Mashed potatoes are one of our favorite thanksgiving side dish. Everyone at our thanksgiving loved our mashed potatoes. The mashed potatoes were our biggest success so far. We will be using this recipe for further cooking. Enjoy!

T.G.I. FRIDAY'S MUDSLIDE

T.G.I. Friday's Mudslide

Alex and Alexa's Mudslide

In light of Alexa’s 21st birthday we decided to make an alcoholic beverage this week. Since both of us enjoy the taste of chocolate, the choice of recipe, in honor of Alexa, was a delicious T.G.I. Friday's mudslide. We found the recipe from food.com, however you can follow this recipe or you can find a pre-made T.G.I. Friday's mudslide mix in most grocery stores. We decided to go the hard route and make it from scratch.

Overall, this was an easy to make frozen beverage, and we very much enjoyed it. To add a little flare we lined the inside of our glass with chocolate syrup. We also added whipped cream to the top and chocolate shavings over the whipped cream. This is a great recipe to bring to a party or even to refer to a friend. We enjoyed making and tasting this drink.

If you are under the age of 21, eliminate the alcoholic ingredients: vodka, bailey’s Irish cream, and kahlua. This will leave you with a tasty chocolate milkshake.

To try this recipe at home go to: http://www.food.com/recipe/t-g-i-fridays-mudslide-213528

BEEF FRIED RICE

Kraft's Beef Fried Rice

Alex and Alexa's Beef Fried Rice

This week we took into consideration of the comment left by one of our followers on our last recipe. They suggested we make a quick and easy low-fat meal. We searched the web and found a beef-fried rice recipe from kraftfoods.com. Even though it required many ingredients, the preparations were fairly easy. The cooking time was very short, taking only about 10 minutes. Overall, the entire time took us approximately 25 minutes.

We found this recipe to be easy but less desirable once we tasted it. Even though it called for uncooked instant brown rice, the rice didn’t cook right, leaving the meal extremely dry and crunchy. The canned mandarin oranges gave the meal a weird taste. However the best (and only) part of the meal was the cooked beef. In the future, we don’t plan on making this recipe again. Although it was healthy, when done right, it has potential to be a quick, delicious, and healthy meal.

To try this recipe at home go to: http://www.kraftrecipes.com/recipes/beef-fried-rice-97866.aspx

QUICK & EASY PIZZA

Bob Evans' Quick & Easy Pizza

Alex & Alexa's Quick & Easy Pizza

Ever feel like you really don't want to put so much time into making a meal, especially when there's preparation before actually cooking? This week we decided to make a quick and easy pizza. We found that it lives up to its name.


Even though the recipe called for sausage, we weren't really in the mood for sausage but we were in the mood for the rest of the ingredients. It also saved us money eliminating the sausage and still was enjoyable.


The recipe was easy to make because it didn't call for much cooking and preparations. For example, we didn't have to make the pizza dough or the tomato sauce. Most of the items were store bought.


Overall, this is a great recipe for a fast and easy meal for college students. It wasn't costly; it wasn't time consuming, and it tasted great!


Here's the recipe if you're interested in trying it out for a quick and easy meal:
http://allrecipes.com//Recipe/quick-and-easy-pizza/Detail.aspx

SPINACH & ARTICHOKE DIP

Paula Deen's Spinach & Artichoke Dip

Alex and Alexa's Spinach & Artichoke Dip

Our first week of cooking consisted of a spinach and artichoke dip. Being

that the football season has approached, we decided that this recipe would
be useful to us and others for family and friend gatherings. The recipe we
chose was from Paula Deen. The recipe we used tended to be very easy and
didnt entail a large amount of ingredients. On top of everything, being
college students, this recipe wasnt expensive at all and involved commonly
used ingredients.

As new chefs, we found this recipe to be very simple. For two girls who
dont known much about cooking, we didnt burn the house down. The spinach
artichoke dip came out very delicious but a tad bit salty, however we did
follow the directions to a tee. Next time in making this dip we would use
less parmesan cheese. Check out the pictures below to see a comparison of
Paula Deen's version and our's.


If you're interested in this recipe, this is the link:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/hot-spinach-artichoke-dip-recipe/index.html
 

COLLEGE STUDENTS LEARNING TO COOK

Our names are Alex and Alexa. We are college students away from home. Living away from home, there are certain areas of taking care of ourselves that we never learned about when being in the same house as our parents. One of those areas that we hinder in is basic cooking. We don't know much about cooking and basically burn boiled water. We both came from families with mothers and grandmothers who did all of the cooking, in which we never picked up on. This blog will be based on our journey of teaching ourselves and each other how to cook. We will be blogging each week about one recipe that we have chosen and our outcome of trying to achieve a great meal. We will also be discussing our positives and negatives of what we experienced, pictures of what the meal is suppose to look like and what our meal looks like, and competitions like battle of the brands and does the meal actually take 30 minutes to make. Follow us to be humored and possibly educated in our obstacle that awaits us.