For my
final product I made a dinner for my family and mentors. I didn’t have a big
enough house or kitchen to host everyone but my aunt generously let me use her
home. A couple days before the dinner, I decided my menu and went grocery
shopping. My menu consisted of a warm artichoke dip with baguettes, fruit with
jasmine infused syrup, creamy fettuccine with shrimp and bacon, bacon wrapped
asparagus, Caesar salad, and apple pie. I arrived around 3 o’clock and got to work. Since I had prepared the
dough and cut the apples ahead of time all I had to do was roll out the dough
and put the pie together. Once I had finished, I popped it in the oven and let
it bake. Next, I made the jasmine infused syrup. I had seen my mentor make it
but I had never made it by myself before. But there is a first time for
everything, right? I filled a small pot with a little bit of water and let it
boil. Then I put a jasmine tea bag into the hot water and let it steep. I then
added a few spoonfuls of sugar and waited for the liquid to thicken. Next I
started on the artichoke dip. I cut up the artichoke hearts and added
mayonnaise and parmesan cheese. It didn’t really look appetizing, but it tasted
great! After, I cut up the strawberries and the tangelos, I mixed all of them
into a bowl with raspberries. I put them into the refrigerator to wait for the
jasmine syrup.
Now that the pie was out, I took the remaining bacon strips and placed them
on a tray in the oven to cook. Once they were done, I put in the bacon wrapped
asparagus. Afterwards, I moved onto the Caesar salad. I washed the lettuce and
cut it into small pieces. And what is Caesar salad without dressing? It wasn’t
too difficult to make the dressing, but it was time consuming to cut up all the
tiny ingredients and mix them together. Now that the salad dressing was done, I
moved back to the jasmine syrup. To my
surprise it has actually gotten thicker and tasted great as well! I poured it
over the fruit and set it on the table with the artichoke dip. I cut up the
baguette and toasted them in the oven. After ten minutes I took the warm,
crispy slices of bread and put them on the table next to the artichoke dip.
The pasta had been my biggest concern. I wasn't sure how long that it
would take to cook. I was assuming that it would take some time, while my
mother and aunt insisted that it would only take half an hour. I decided to
trust them as they had had years of experience. First I boiled the water and
cooked the fettuccine while in another pan, I sauteed the garlic and shrimp. Then I added the peas and carrots. A couple
minutes later I took the pan off heat. I combined milk, flour, salt, and pepper
in another pan. I added cheese and then let it simmer. I poured the milk
mixture back into the pan with shrimp and let that cook. After a couple minutes
I added the pasta and viola, the pasta was done! I checked the bacon wrapped
asparagus, as it had slipped my mind for while, and saw that the bacon was
perfectly crisp, while the asparagus was a little bit dry. Never the less, I
put all the food on nice plates and set them on the dinner table.
The Main Dish!
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| The Dinner Table |
I would say the dinner was a success!! A special thanks to my aunt and uncle for letting me use their home!
