Cooking is For Closers

The process of making my mom’s lemon birthday cake! I garnished the top with candied lemon peel, some small flowers from the garden, and some mini strawberries. I also made some standard whipped cream (1/2 pint of heavy cream with powdered sugar beat in on a high speed) with some lemon zest added for flavor.

Cake recipe: http://amp.timeinc.net/myrecipes/recipe/nathans-lemon-cake

Lemon peel recipe: https://toriavey.com/how-to/how-to-make-candied-lemon-peels/

Whipped cream recipe (not the one I used but just here for reference. Make sure to use powdered sugar, not granulated): https://addapinch.com/perfect-whipped-cream-recipe/

After the passing of my grandmother right before October this year, I took over our holiday cooking and baking. This year I made her 4 cheese lasagna for Christmas.

Pumpkin muffins! We made these in my culinary class today and they came out great! Awesome for fall! 🍁🍂

Recipe:

https://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/pumpkin-muffins

Simple vegan bean dinner

Recipe:

- One green pepper

- One jalapeño pepper

- two cans of beans, one black and one chili

- 3 cloves of garlic

- half an onion

- salt and pepper

- ground cumin

Steps:

- drain black beans and leave the water in the chili beans

- fry up the onions and garlic in some oil or butter, then add the peppers

- add in cumin

- add in both cans of beans

-cook for a few minutes and stir occasionally

- serve with rice or any other dish

Okay this is Sunny’s easy idea of basic (vegan) beans and corn:

Ingredients:

- 1 small onion chopped - 2-3 cloves of minced garlic - about 1.5-2 cups of canned corn drained - two 16 ounce cans of any kind of beans - small can of diced tomatoes (like Rotel) - turmeric, coriander, cumin, black pepper, salt, and cayenne pepper to taste - some chopped parsley for garnish - tablespoon or so of brown sugar

Procedure:

- melt some butter or pour a couple tablespoons of oil in a Dutch oven pot or a medium skillet - put in chopped onions and garlic - drain one can of beans and pour in the other with the water (works well with plain black beans and one can of chili beans) -pour in the can of tomatoes -pour in the corn -add tablespoon of brown sugar (cuts the acidity in the tomatoes) -stir consistently -put in spices, add parsley, salt, and pepper at the very end -eat it with rice or whatever else you’ve got; guacamole and chips goes nice too

Very basic chicken salad recipe, can be used for almost anything. Additions/suggestions will be added below as well. :)

Ingredients:

- 1 basic can of chicken - 1 stalk of celery - black pepper - lemon - mayonnaise

Procedure:

- Drain the chicken and rinse, then put in a bowl.

- Add mayonnaise to taste and combine chicken and mayonnaise with the fork

- Chop off the ends of the celery and rinse before chopping up and adding to the bowl

- Cut off a small wedge of lemon and squeeze the juice into the bowl, combine ingredients again

- Season with crushed black pepper to taste

Additions (optional):

- a small handful of chopped walnuts

- a healthy handful of grapes, cut in half

- half of a minced shallot

- a tablespoon or so of vinegar

- a small chopped carrot