Sustainable Cooking

Sustainable Cooking

Our 9th grade class took on the responsibility of starting to live sustainable, it may seem hard but its not at all! There are so many little things that you can do that would help. One way is to grow a herb, vegetable and/or fruit garden, so this way you don't have to go to the store to buy your foods. As a class we grew a herb garden, than we were assigned to go home and make a meal using them. On the video below you can see that I made Guacamole and Chicken tacos. The cilantro was freshly picked from my backyard along with the lettuce.

Guacamole

Ingredients:

2 Avacados
1/2 Tomatoes
1 Onion
4 tablespoons of cilantro
1/2 tablespoons of salt and lemon pepper

1/2 Serrono Chillies

Chicken Tacos

Ingredients:(can very to your liking)

Ground Chicken

2 Tomatoes

1/2 cup of cheese

small head of lettuce

sour creme

1 avocado

salsa fresco

Start living a more sustainable life!

Growing our own herbs in class was easy, however keeping them alive was a difficult task. Once we got a hang of actually watering them everyday all we had to do was harvest them. In order to pick cilantro correctly you must pick off the leafs making sure you do not remove any of the stem than place them in a damp napkin; to keep it fresh of course. Before this project I didn't realize how lazy I was being when it came to living a sustainable life, I wasn't fully informed and no body stressed the importance of "going green" to me. Now that my eyes are open to the possibilities of what could happen to our earth if we don't change soon. I take fast showers, get my supply of vegetables and fruits from my own garden and make sure everything is unplugged before I leave the room. These are just a few things that you can do to help our earth.

How did it taste?

The Guacamole was really good, better than any store bought I have ever tried. On the other hand; the tacos were not the best. I believe that the reason why they tasted horrible was because I didn't have cheese and put to much lettuce and not enough Tomatoes, however I'm glad i still attempted to make the meal. I hope this project will open my eyes more to the cooking world.

This I believe

This weekends homework assignment was to look through the several inspiring essays on the website http://thisibelieve.org. I came across three essays that really gave me an idea of what I should write about and what i am very passionate about and truly beilive in.

1.http://thisibelieve.org/dsp_ShowEssay.php?uid=42798&topessays=2&start=0

2.http://thisibelieve.org/dsp_ShowEssay.php?uid=57258&topessays=2&start=15

3.http://thisibelieve.org/dsp_ShowEssay.php?uid=41045&topessays=2&start=15

The essays above made me start to think about how broad the idea of beiliving in something is, it also gave me the idea of what I am going to write for my personal essay.

Hungry?

There are many interesting and exotic recipes for foods all around the world, this evening I searched the web for recipes of my favorite meals.

 This is a photo of Brazilian meat that is served at every pretty much restaurant! They are very famous for there meats, cheeses and wine

I first came across a website that included a variety of seafood recipes. I am a huge fan of seafood, instead of the traditional turkey and mash potatoes on thanksgiving our dinner table is full of mussels, clams, shark, fishes, shrimp, lobsters and crab; basically any seafood you can think of. So i found this website http://www.seafoodblog.org/ very useful! :) In this blog i thought it was helpful how he had link to several different recipes listing the step by step and a picture of the final production all through out his blog! 

For one world week (a learning experience where you get to travel around the world for a week and a half that is offered at HTHMA) I chose to take a trip to Brazil, which was simply amazing. Not only the beaches, site seeing and just the community itself but the food was to die for. I knew that when i had to come back home that i wouldn't have the luxury of mouth watering meals, so i have been looking for decent Brazilian restaurants in San Diego since i got home. However none compared! So i think that making my own Brazilian food would be amazing!  http://www.maria-brazil.org/brazilian_recipes.htm

Recipes using our herb garden!

The two ingredients that i would enjoy doing would have to be sword fish tacos, you don't have to use sword fish any kind of fresh fish would work. Also just plan home made guacamole 

This is for a serving of 6 people
2 tomatoes, seeded and diced, plus 1/2 cup chopped
3 green (spring) onions, thinly sliced
4 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1 teaspoon grated lime zest

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro (fresh coriander)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 small head romaine (cos) lettuce, thinly sliced (about 3 cups)
1 cup coarsely grated radishes

1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon ground cumin
12 small corn tortillas
1 3/4 pounds swordfish steaks or fillets, cut into 1-inch cubes

2 ripe avocados
½ red onion, minced (about 1/2 cup)
1-2 serrano chiles, stems and seeds removed, minced
2 tablespoons cilantro leaves, finely chopped
1 tablespoon of fresh lime or lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
A dash of freshly grated black pepper
1/2 ripe tomato, seeds and pulp removed, chopped

"10 ideas that are changing the world right now"

Ecological intelligence is not only buying "Green" products, but really taking the time to realize if it is truly a green object and helping the envoirment. I believe that this article ties in with our Essential questions because, going Green isn't just saying or supporting the idea of saving our envoirment. This article shows plenty examples of how americans say they are living sustainable, however they aren't aware enough to know that what they are doing isn't helping. Honestly my ecological intelligence is very low, however it is higher than when we first started this project. I know that i have recycled many objects not knowing that they aren't recyclable! 

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1884779_1884782_1884776,00.html

Dervaes family

1. When Charlotte first put in the video, i honestly didn't think it was going to be that interesting. However once it started playing i was immediately engaged. The video really made me want to go home and grow a garden, i was really impressed how they not only grew a garden but EVERYTHING they did was living substantially 

2. On my needs vs. wants sheet, the wants list was extremely long and pretty selfish if you ask me, however i think that the Devares family's want side would consist of just making sure their family is safe and that they have their garden in their house.

3. When we were first introduced to the idea of living subsabilly i thought it would be impossible for someone to transform their whole entire life, to safe our envoirment, this video tied in perfectly with the book Ishmal, because he was using metaphors to show julie what living subsabily ment, and here we have a real life example.

4. Right after watching this video, i told my dad that i wanted him to grow an epic garden again, i really respect on how much they transformed their house and their whole entire life. I think what they are doing is very honorable, and it shows how you can help out our environment and still live an amazing life. 

My Ishmael #1

1. The first rule Ishmael has for identifying if someone is from your culture is whether or not you have your food under lock and key or not. The idea of having your food owned to Ishmael is very important and with out it people would not work. His second rule is that people in "your culture" feel that their whole entire race is completely flawed and fey. I agree because, constantly in the media and basically everywhere in our planet you are hearing how we need to change immediately and if we don't than our planet will slowly die.

2. Mother culture is the ideal mother that thrives through everyones mind, mothers imply what they know on their children. This is causing everyone to act similar and think similar in certain ways. I agree with Ishmael when he says that humans expect everything to be hard and over analyze everything, even the simple things (32), this flaw is commonly found in between humans.

3.  The metaphor used with the tunes and dancers to me is being compared to american society today. Going back to the fact that we over analyze everything, doing this we think we need to buy so much more than we need this leaves us no free time because we are constantly working to pay off for everything we buy. Compared to the hunters and gathers before agriculture, they only worked for a small portion for the day to get just the right amount of food that they need.