This week for my blog, I really wanted to do something for Valentines Day! I also have yet to make something sweet. Originally it was my plan to make many different types of food and different courses so eventually I could put an entire meal including dessert together. So this week I made a dessert! I wanted to have fun with it and be a little more creative than I have been previously with my cooking. My one roommate Brittany would not stop talking about how she is craving rice krispie treats (her favorite thing to eat) so I decided to surprise her and make pink, heart-shaped rice krispe treats for Valentine's Day!

Because I had no clue where to get a recipe like this, I turned to my best friend/search engine: Google.com. It turns out that rice krispie treats aren't very hard to make. Their ingredients are marshmallows, rice krispies, butter, food coloring (pink color), wax paper, a cookie sheet and a heart-shaped cookie cutter. Here is the recipe I found: http://www.cafemom.com/dailybuzz/food_party/2818/Valentines_Day_Rice_Krispie_Treats

This recipe was so much fun to make, and I really enjoy cooking/baking for other people. My roommate was super surprise when she got home and found me making these for her! The recipe doesn't say to decorate the rice krispie treats, but I decided to put my own little creative twist on the recipe. So I bought some pink and red frosting to decorate the treats! I tried to be creative and make the rice krispie treats look valentine day themed. The K, J, and B letters on the treats stand for the names of me and my two roommates.

Like I said, I had so much fun making these and because the recipe wasn't very difficult; I wouldn't mind making rice krispie treats all the time! I was a little nervous at first to be dealing with melting marshmallows over a stove...thinking it could turn into a disastrous mess; but it ended up not being messy at all! The only difficult part was cutting the rice krispies out with the heart-shaped cookie cutter. Once the mixture hardens (which is only about 7 minutes after cooking it) it is very difficult to press the cutter into the rice krispies. In the recipe, it says that you can microwave the mixture but I decided not to, and just used my muscles (or lack thereof).

I'm not sure what I want to take on next week, perhaps homemade hamburgers and french fries? I've heard that they are very tasty and not too dificult to make. We'll just have to see!

Week 3, Lasagna!

Ingredients^

Sauce^

Ricotta Cheese^

Layering the ingredients^

Finished Uncooked

Finished!

This week for my cooking experience, I made spinach lasagna. I've been wanting to make a pasta dish because I love any type of pasta. I was feeling a little homesick, so I decided to make lasagna, a dish that my mom usually makes at home. Hopefully it could cure me :) So I emailed my mom asking her for her recipe and she gave it to me. I've always watched her make it but never really paid attention to the ingredients or how she puts everything together. So I knew it would be a little bit of a challenge.

Even though Im not italian, my family tends to make italian dishes at home. Pastas like ravioli, lasagna and spaghetti are my favorites that my mom makes. What I eat at home is probably far different from what Italians make in Italy. But as the culture came to America, the food is Americanized, and changed to fit what Americans like to eat.

Here is the recipe similar to the one that my mom uses:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Spinach-Lasagna-II/Detail.aspx

The only problems I ran into during the process was that I was a little short on sauce and cheese when topping off the lasagna. My roommates were very excited when they found out I was cooking this, but my one roommate doesnt like spinach so I did half the lasagna with spinach and half without. The recipe says to mix the spinach with the ricotta cheese mixture, but instead I just put the spinach on separately. Also you must definitely plan ahead when making this because it takes an hour to cook the lasagna. I started making it at 8:00, so by the time it was finished getting prepared, cooked and cooled it was 9:45! (a little late to be eating dinner, at least for me) So make sure you start a little early when making this! Other than that, the pasta was delicious and I felt like I was just at home again. My mom was also very impressed!