Spring rolls

Over the weekend, as we were preparing for Ramadan, we had to make spring rolls as well so that at Iftar (the time we break our fast), we can simply take out the rolls and fry them. While making the rolls, I learnt a new skill; rolling the rolls into perfect shape. It was very frustrating at first because the roll sheet would either rip or the stuffing would fall out, but eventually I got the hang of it. And I even started making better rolls than my mom. I truly felt successful when I was able to make my rolls perfectly. My Next step would probably be to learn how to shape samosas because they are a bit more trickier than rolls, and they require a lot of folding to hold the filling in place, and give it a good shape.
The following are the things I used to make the rolls, The pastry sheets were store bought. My mom made the chicken filling and the white liquid is white flour and water, which is used as food glue, to hold the pastry sheets in place, and make them stick to each other

Ramadan

Since Ramadan is here, Muslims, specifically brown muslims cook/make dishes like samosas, pakoras, fruit chat, Dahi bara, spring rolls, roohafza and dood soda. Now the only things you might understand are samosas, spring rolls, fruit and soda, the following are pictures of the things you  might not have eaten or heard of 

                                                                             Samosa: 

Pakora: usually made with potato and onions with one other vegetable like spinach or egg plant. It is covered in flour along with some spices and then fried. 

Fruit chat is basically cut fruits with a little bit of spice, salt and sugar

Dahi Bara: yogurt with fried crisps and sauces. (Very hard to explain in English)

Spring Rolls: I am sure everyone has tried spring rolls at least once in their life and sort of have an idea of what they are. 

Roohafza: Water with sugar and food colouring

Dood soda : Dood= milk with coke or seven up=Soda

Since at least one of these things will be made each day, I think this will be a great time to practice making these dishes. So that is what I am going to do for this week.

SMART GOALS

My first Genius project goal was to be able to cook without burning down the house. 

After revising my goal and making it 'SMART', my new goal is "to be able to cook 5 different dishes patiently, properly and passionately and be able to mix and match different ingredients and left overs to create edible food  by June 2016. 

My First Short Term goal is to cook and practice 2 dishes by the end of March 2016. The resources that I will use are pinterest, and ingredients and utensils specific to each dish. 

My second Short term goal is to again, be able to cook or bake and practice 3 dishes by the end of April 2016. The resources that I will need to accomplish this goal are pinterest, my mom and the ingredients and utensils needed for each group

My third short term goal is to cook or bake and practice 2 dishes and retry other previous dishes that were successful. The resources I will need to succeed in this goal are; internet (websites), Pinterest, my mom and ingredients and utensils specific to each recipe. 

Experimenting a quick lunch

After all the previous practice I have had with cooking, and different ingredients, I decided to challenge myself and create my own experimental dish with left overs

I made mini chicken pizzas with left over chicken, mini naans, cheese, pizza sauce, and capsicums.

The results were great and my mini pizzas tasted pretty similar to an actual pizza. Though the cheese was sort of slipping off because i spread a bit too much of pizza sauce but the rest tasted great. Here are some pictures that I took while cooking.

I made these for my siblings for their lunch the next day, and they loved it as well. My mini pizzas are very delicious and take very little time to make, I think they are one of my favorite food items that I have made so far.

Kababs

Recently, I made a brown dish commonly known throughout the world as "Kababs" or "Kabobs"... It has many names but the one I prefer using is Chapli Kababs. They come in a variety of shapes, and I chose to make flat, and circular ones.

They are like burger patties, and taste pretty similar. 

There were many challenges I faced throughout the process. For instance;

• Onion cutting. Unfortunately, I still have not come over the onion tears. They really make me cry, and then my mom eventually comes along, and helps me cut them. 
• Another Challenge that I faced was mixing the ingredients. Since I was trying to make enough servings to last at least 2 weeks, I needed to use a bit more ingredients than at normal times. I tried mixing everything in a big bowl. but they were not mixing properly. There was always one part that had more spices than the other. Awhile later, while my mom came to check on me, she suggested that I use the big electric mixer we have for larger servings. And I did that, it made life a lot easier. 
• shaping the kababs was another challenge. It was very difficult to shape them in circles, because the kept on sticking everywhere on my hands. I searched up some tips on how to not let the kababs stick and many websites suggested to rub oil over the hands. I followed through, and it did work. The Kababs were somewhat circular, better than what I had made before. 

Here are some pictures of the cooking procedure:

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• Finally, the process of making these kababs was very time consuming. It took a lot of time to wash, add spices, and shape and cook them. 
This is one of my favorite dishes, and therefor if I practice making them a couple more times, I am sure I will be able to make them without any help. 

KULFI ( ice cream )

I just learnt how to make a new dessert called Kulfi. It basically is ice cream but a "brown" version of it. It was really easy to make, with only 5 ingredients, and it tasted great.

This is how its made:

Ingredients:

• Whipped cream 
• Evaporated milk 
• 1/2 can condensed milk
• Pistachios/ Almonds  
• Bread (white or brown)

Steps: 

1. You start off by mixing 2 tbsp. Of pistachios with 1 can evaporated milk and half a can of condensed milk.

2. Next, you pour it into a dish and freeze it. You can add a layer of crushed pistachios for the purpose of decoration but its not mandatory to do so.


 The Kulfi should take a maximum of 8 hours to completely freeze, and thats it. We are done!!!!


I had planned to make this dish, as it was one of our cultural dishes that everyone loves to have at parties. I searched different recipes online, but they all required a lot of ingredients and steps. They also were very time consuming as well, but this was my mom's recipe after years of experience.

So far, my mom has helped and guided me in most of my cooking experiences. She has been a great resource so far. 

A disaster with noodles!!!!!

Over the weekend, I was trying to make noodles for my whole family. I started off with the 2 minute maggi noodles, but while cooking, I realized that they were too less for  the whole family. So I decided to add some spaghetti into it. What I did not realize/ forgot was that spaghetti takes more time to cook than the maggi noodles. So in the next 5 minutes, the maggi noodles were ready while the spaghetti was hard and stiff.

I Learnt a huge lesson from this experience: Spaghetti noodles should be cooked beforehand, and then mixed with the maggis.

My mom helped me fix this problem by adding more water to the noodles, and letting the spaghetti cook. The maggi noodles became a bit too soft at the end, but they were edible :)

While cooking: