“In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity.” - Sun Tzu
From this project, I felt like there was a new experience, by looking at a different way of cooking, and I really enjoyed my experience. There was a day where one of my teachers, Kyle, gave us an assignment to cook a meal for our family, and since I haven’t really been able to go out in the world, and see my friends, I have really liked that assignment. For the assignment, I made my family chicken ravioli. This is a dish I had never heard of, until my girlfriend, Alissa, told me about it. I ended up choosing that dish to use for the assignment. This assignment was a really good help for me to get an escape for reality, because cooking is a really fun hobby of mine. Cooking the ravioli was kind of a challenge, because my girlfriend recommended me to cook it from scratch, which I have never done before. All around, it was a fun experience to try a new way of cooking.
First of all, I had to go to the store with my mom, which took a long time, because she had to go to her office. I ended up waiting for her in the hot car, and I couldn't get out, because I didn't have a mask to go outside. But while I was waiting for my mom, my baby brother, who’s 3, was there with me in the car. The whole time, he was just watching my phone, so it was nice and calm. Then about 2 hours passed, and my phone ran out of battery. So he started crying, threw a tantrum, and I couldn't do anything to help him, since we couldn’t go outside, and I couldn't give him my phone. So I saw some of the toys he had on the floor of the car, so I handed him some, and he calmed down for a while but then started crying again. Luckily, my mom came back about 10 minutes later. So then, after my mom’s work, we went to the store to get ricotta cheese, because we needed it to use it as the filling for the ravioli. I also didn't go with my mom to the grocery store, because I had to stay and take care of my baby brother. This time my mom gave him her phone, so it was much calmer, but it was still really hot. Then she came back with some water bottles, and I felt so relieved to finally go home, and to be drinking cold water in the hot California sun.
The following day, I had finished school about an hour early, because I wanted to take a shower. Afterward, I went to the kitchen, only to find that my mom had all the ingredients out already. There were a lot of ingredients, because I made the dough for the ravioli from scratch. My mom walked me through making the dough, because I had never made dough before. That would be my first time. It was pretty easy to make, because you just roll the dough. I was about half way into rolling the dough, so I stopped for a little bit to make the filling, which was ricotta cheese, and spinach with some garlic. In the end, it was really good because I never thought of putting garlic in the filling, but it turned out really good. Then, after I let that cook, I started to make the alfredo sauce to put over the ravioli and chicken. For the alfredo sauce, I started off with butter at the bottom of a bowl, before I started adding in garlic, ricotta cheese, parmesan cheese, heavy cream, pepper, and garlic. It didn't have ricotta at first, and I liked it like that, because it was creamy. I like creamy food, but then my mom tried it, and suggested that I put ricotta cheese in it. I listened to her because I always do, and I just let it rest in the pot. After that, it started getting really hot in the kitchen, because the stove was on and my head started to hurt. I felt like taking a break, but I couldn’t because the grind never stops. I put the filling in the dough, and after that I started to boil the ravioli, which was the second-to-last step. It ended up taking some time, because I did a test, and it took some time to cook the dough. Then, finally as the raviolis finished up, I was putting them in a big wide pot, to share with my family. After I put the chicken, and the ravioli, in the pot, I topped it all off with the alfredo sauce. Once I was done, I served it to my mom, because she and I were the only ones home. It felt good talking to her normally, because I haven’t really talked to my parents. It was a joke, because of social distancing, but it just felt good to talk to her again.