Jay's Blog

This week was pretty relaxing because I felt confident in the cooking process. Some successes that I experienced were preparing and cooking the whole meal by myself. I did not experience any struggles this week. Some adjustments I made were adding more butter and cooking for a longer period of time. Next week, I am excited to present to the class about everything I learned during this assignment and hopefully teach someone else how to cook a good steak.

My top three memories in seventh grade is. My first memory that I have was getting an award. The reason why this is my favorite memory is because I don’t really have a lot of memories or just fun times in school but the reason I choose this is because this was my first award. Secondly Is night at the museum that was a fun experience seeing friends and peoples projects. Being in le’Moffats class it’s my favorite class. No offense to my other classes.

This week was fairly calm and relaxed as I cooked the steak. I felt more confident and didn’t need to ask for help as much as I did in the beginning.

This week’s success was making the steak on my own even though I used a thicker cut. I used ingredients that I previously used but this time I used a thicker steak so I cooked it for two and a half minutes longer than I had done before. An accomplishment that I had was not needing to ask for help or any advice and I knew exactly what to do. I also made sunny side up eggs on the side and they came out good.

This week’s struggle was I accidentally flipped the steak too early and I had to flip it back on the side that wasn’t that cooked to cook it evenly.

Next week’s adjustment will be setting a timer to cook the steak enough on both sides to get an even cook.

Someone that has been influential in my life is my mom. The reasons she is influential in my life is. My mom has done everything she  provides for me buy me things like clothes a roof to live under food and many more. The thing is  ever since I was little my mom told me too save my money because she was in banking. So I learned about money saving investments and different kind of jobs but the reason why im saying my mom influenced me and my mom didn’t grow up rich or with money she has to take care of other responsibilities that wasn’t hers and she pushed threw to give me the life I wanted. So thank you mom you really influenced me to do better because I don’t have the responsibility that you did so I will do better in life because of you  thank you mom.

Rad reading April

This month I read a book called Scythe by Neal Shusterman

I have read Part One, up to page 64 (Chapters 1-3) which is called “Robe and Ring”.

The story of Scythe is being told from a journal by H.S. Curie who lives in the future. People became ageless in the year 2042 and the “Scythedom” was created to control the population. The scythes are trained to kill others which is also called gleaning. The government is a version of the cloud that watches over everyone. One of the main characters is Citra Terranova who is asked to be a student of the scythe along with another girl named Rowan. Only one of them can become a scythe. One of them will have to glean the other.

I like this book so far because it is different than any book I have read before. They talk about the idea of killing people freely like its a job. I think it’s interesting, violent, and kind of scary to imagine living in a world like that.

My favorite character is Scythe Faraday because he is respected by the elder scythes and he is a good teacher to Citra and Rowan. My favorite quote from Faraday is “We are all accomplices. You must share the responsibility.” He says this after he gives a knife back to Citra after he gleans her neighbor showing that she needs to be dedicated to becoming a scythe without feeling bad about murdering people.

 

 

This week was decent for my cooking experience.

I was able to accomplish cooking the steak in the right way but this time I added more spices to it and surprisingly it came out good. I was surprised at how good it tasted because I had never used paprika before which gave it a crispy outside. I also cooked the steak for a shorter period of time which made it juicier.

This week was pretty good because I only had a few struggles which happened because I laid the steak down a little too fast and the hot oils sizzled on my hand a little and on the stove.

Since I put the steak down too fast and it burned me a little bit, next time I will remember to put the steak down slower. For next week, I plan to use the same spices and make sure I don’t overcook the steak. I also plan to cook a thicker steak so I will have to adjust the cooking time.

This week was educational. I was able to accomplish cooking a good tasting steak while learning about how different ingredients change the flavor. Some successes that I experienced this week was doing most of the cooking by myself and trying different ingredients to make the flavor better.

I did have some struggles with making sure I didn’t use too much of some ingredients like garlic or onion. I wanted to give the steak a garlic flavor but I didn’t want it to be too strong. While I was preparing to cook the steak my mom’s boyfriend Baber told me that I was adding too much garlic.

Because I wasn’t used to the new ingredients, I struggled with how much of each portion to use. After Baber helped me by telling me the right amount of garlic and onion, I was able to make adjustments. The steak tasted great this week but I know I will need help making adjustments with the new ingredients.

Next week I will be working on having the right portion of garlic, cooking it completely by myself, and marinating it for longer to make it juicier and more tender.

This week I cooked a steak mostly by myself this time. I felt stressed while I was making it but I was proud of myself when I finished. One of the struggles I had this time was that I was worried that I would undercook the steak, so I kept peaking at it, which I should not have done because that can let the heat escape and not cook it thoroughly.

A few things that I did correctly were, making sure the steak was room temperature before I cooked it, making sure the pan was hot enough before I put the steak on, and seasoning it correctly.

When I felt like it was cooked thoroughly, I let the steak sit for a few minutes before I cut into it. When my mom and her boyfriend Baber tried it they both said that it was delicious and I did a good job.

While I was cooking, I did ask Baber to come look at it a few times just to make sure I was doing it right and he said that I was. Next time, I would like to add different seasonings and herbs to give it a different flavor. I am thinking I will do grilled onions and some garlic. I might even try a different cut of steak like top sirloin or tri-trip. I would also like to do the whole thing on my own.

My favorite room in my house is my room because it’s cold. The reason why I like my room cold is because I don’t like wearing blankets it just feels weird. And I have my pc, virtual reality headset, and   ps5 which won’t make me bored at all.and it has my bed so if I’m tired I can go to sleep. If you were my neighbor I would want you to not be super load to the point were i can hear you. Second have kids so I can play with them so I’m not always bored. Third to not be a Karen if I am to loud.

This past Friday I had an amazing time cooking steak with my mom’s boyfriend, Baber. First, we went to Albertson’s to buy steak and we picked up 2 pounds of rib eye steaks.

When we got home, we let it sit on the counter to get to room temperature. Then, we preheated the pan for a few minutes to get it nice and hot. Next, we added butter to the pan and some olive oil. To check if the pan was hot enough, I sprinkled some water on it to see if it would sizzle, which it did. I knew the pan was hot enough, but before we put the steak on the pan, we salted it with fine sea salt. Baber coached me through the whole process. I laid the steak down on the hot pan and it started to sizzle. It only took 2 and half minutes to cook the steak because it was thin, but before it finished, we basted it with butter and garlic. Basting means we soaked the steak in the extra melted butter from the pan with a spoon. When it was finished, we let it sit for a few minutes and then my mom made sunny side eggs and some white rice and we ate it all together with avocado.

One of the challenges or struggles that I faced during the cooking was knowing when the steak was perfectly cooked so I didn’t overcook it. I didn’t think 2 and a half minutes would be enough time but Baber explained to me that it is better to pull it off the pan early because when it sits it continues to cook. Besides the cooking time, everything else ran smoothly and we enjoyed a delicious steak together that I had cooked successfully.

Since nothing went wrong, I would not need to make any adjustments next time. The only thing that I would change next week is to be able to do the whole thing by myself without Baber’s coaching. I’m looking forward to learning how to cook the perfect steak.