Samira's Food Fun

Cooking in class and having fun, sharing my food finds and blogging about my thoughts.

[samiralovespizza]

The Best Homemade Tacos - The Wholesome Dish

The Best Homemade Tacos - Ground beef and homemade taco seasoning make the best taco meat in this classic easy recipe that's better than take out.

Here is the link to the recipe, so you can make your own!! I hope you guys enjoyed this lab, and I will see you next time...

-Samira :)

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Here is the final result of the taco...we added some salsa on top for a little extra zest and it was amazing!

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How can the foods you made in this lab be modified  - to either be ‘healthier’ or to meet other food restrictions or  avoidances?

I definitely feel that for the most part, this dish was quite straightforward and healthy, however some changes could have been made. I actually changed something myself at the beginning of my lab. Instead of using garlic powder, I grabbed a garlic clove and used this little machine that we have press it, and have it come out in thin strips. I do feel that it is usually better to use the raw ingredient, then a powder one. This is because the raw form of it is processed less and will retain more of it’s nutritional value. I also didn’t put cheese on the tacos, because my family doesn’t eat dairy. This could be helpful for anyone that is vegan, or lactose intolerant. An alternative to cheese could be vegan cheese, or what my family likes to do is just putting on extra avocados. This recipe had quite a few vegetables, but could have also had a lot more. Next time, you could add pepper, cucumbers, corn, zucchini, etc...There are honestly a wide variety of veggies that you could add, to make sure that you’re reaching those daily portions. If you wanted to make this dish more vegan or vegetarian, you could substitute the ground beef for some tofu, beans, chickpeas + more. This recipe is the most set it stone one that you must follow perfectly, in order for it to taste good. You can make your own alterations, so that it works for you and trust me...it will still taste amazing!!

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This is what the meat looked like after all the spices were added and it had be browned.

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Which assignment or class task did this food lab connect to?

I would definitely say that this food lab connected to our herbs and spices class task! One of the main reasons that I chose to make this dish, was because it had a large variety of different spices listed in the ingredients. I thought that this was perfect, because we just had a lesson about that exact topic. The spices used in this food lab were chili powder, ground cumin, garlic powder, ground black pepper, turmeric. Turmeric wasn’t originally in the recipe, but I decided to add it, because I thought that it would make the meat taste even better, and it has a lot of amazing health benefits. It has anti-inflammatory and anti-fungal properties!! There were also some herbs mixed into this recipe, such as dried oregano, and fresh cilantro. The cilantro wasn’t used a herb, but as a garnish to make the dish look (and taste) even better. I noticed that the spices really added an amazing flavour, aroma, and even colour to the ground beef. After doing a little bit of research, I found that some of the most common spices in Mexican cooking were garlic power, chili powder, and oregano. This has been used in their cooking for hundreds of years, some of these spices are native to Mexico, while others were introduced during trading. Nonetheless, these spices made the taco meat taste absolutely amazing!

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Here are pictures of some of the vegetables that I had cut!!

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What connections can you make between this lab and what we learned in class?

I noticed that I had to use a lot of knife cutting skills and techniques during this lab. There were quite a lot of different vegetables that I had to cut up. These included tomatoes, lettuce, avocados, and cilantro. I first started with the tomatoes. For this, I had to put my left hand in the “claw” position, and use the pinch grip technique while holding the knife with my hand. I also had to be very careful when slicing the tomatoes, because the knife could slide off and potentially cut you. After finishing that, I moved on to the lettuce. I used the chiffonade cut for this...I again, using the pinch grip technique in my right hand, + making a “claw” with my left hand, cut off some slices of the lettuce. Then, I rolled up the different pieces, stacked them on top of each other and sliced them. This created thin, long pieces of lettuce, that would fit perfectly inside of a taco. Finally, I just sliced up some pieces of avocado, and picked some pieces of cilantro to also use as toppings. Learning about the proper knife cutting techniques and skills in class not only helped to keep me safe, but it also allowed me to cut the perfect amount of toppings for my taco!

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Here is a picture of all of the ingredients I will be using today. I have a variety of different spices, some herbs, veggies, the meat, and the soft taco shells.

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FOOD BLOG 4

Hey everybody!! I’m back with another food lab, and today I made tacos!!! Hope you enjoy :)

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Royal Icing Recipe

Take your cookies to the next level with my foolproof Royal Icing. You only need 3 ingredients to create beautifully decorated cookies.

And here is the icing recipe that we used. I hope that you guys enjoyed today’s posts and are inspired to make a little “gingerbread house” of your own...Have a great day :)

- Samira

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Gingerbread For Houses Recipe

After much experimentation, we've discovered that this recipe for intensely-scented and sturdy gingerbread makes the finest building blocks for your gingerbread houses.

Here is the gingerbread recipe that we used!

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Do you think your end product reflected the culture of your choice well? What could you have done to do this better?

Overall, I do feel that the pyramid that my group made, represented my culture really well. At a first glance, you could clearly see that this was a pyramid, and when noticing the grass at the bottom, you’ll easily be able to identify that this is a Mayan pyramid. However, I do feel like we would have done more to really represent the Mexican culture. I know that we nailed this historical structure, but that won’t always represent Mexican culture as a whole, just a part of it. If we had more time to bake, I would have definitely put more add on’s and little designs. I would start by creating the Mexican flag to really broadcast what country we were representing, and put it at the very top of the pyramid. Then, I would use icing and little pieces of candy to create things in Mexican culture. This could range from different foods, to clothing pieces, to celebrations, etc..I could make little chilaquiles, tacos, and burritos for the foods. Flared and flowy ankle skirts, colourful blouses, and the big, bright, beautiful hats they wear, to represent their traditional clothing. I could also put in some pieces for Cinco de Mayo, Dia de los Muertos, Siestas, and Pinatas. This would allow us to showcase all of the amazing tradition embedded in the Mexican culture. Incorporating all of these things would really allow us to not only show the amazing Mayan pyramids, but also all of the wonderful different parts and aspects of the Mexican culture!!!

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How did you incorporate the culture you chose into your gingerbread house?

 One of the main reasons that my group chose the mayan pyramids, is because the overall shape/structure of it would be easy to recreate. This would allow us to show the culture through the overall structure of the pyramid, as opposed to making a bunch of designs to represent this. Once we had to shape of our pyramid all “glued” together, we then used more icing to change the colour of our structure. We used a mixture of different food colouring to achieve this light brown colour. After we spread it all over the pyramid, we decided to add pretzel sticks going down the pyramid, to represent the stairs that are there. This is where people used to walk up and down to reach the top & bottom of this amazing structure. After our structure looked good, we added some green “grass” to the plate that it would be showcased on for an extra little touch. We all know that Mexico is a very warm country, and it would make sense that there would be grass growing on this land. The pyramid is also extremely historical, so it is kept away in a more “rural” land where grass can grow freely. To create the grass, my group took white icing sugar and dyed it green! Overall, I feel that my group really represented the Mexican culture well, especially in terms of the mayan pyramids. We nailed the structure of it, it’s colour, all of it’s designs/textures, and the kind of environment that it’s in!

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Finally, we added the finishing touches to our structure!! And voila....we’re done :)

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Then we made more icing and dyed it brown, so that it looks like the mayan pyramids. Here is a video of us covering the structure with the icing.

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Here is our gingerbread structure after sticking all of the pieces together!

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Here are some photos of us mixing the icing!! It looks so yummy :)