Ali McAuliffe

I did my vocal blog this week, so here is the link. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XQg4d4h-N3EuI-B7qgPm0qI2T1lnWgTI/view?usp=drivesdk

This week I am going to give you guys instructions on how to make the blanket I have started on, and walk you guys through my process. I have already knit two balls of yarn and have started on a third. There are two ways that you can knit the rows together. Both ways you you start off by knitting your first stripe. Then when you move onto the second stripe, you can either knit it into the first or knit it separately then sew them together later. I decided that I would just knit them separately, because knitting the second stripe into the first was a bit complicating. Also now I can wait until the end to decide what order to put them into. So now how to knit the stripes, first you have to cast on 13 stitches onto your needle. To cast on you start with a loop on your needle, slide the needle in your right hand through the the bottom of the loop on the other needle, so your right needle should be behind the left one. Now take your yarn and wrap it around your right needle, switch the ri...

This week I was waiting for my yarn to come in, so I could start my blanket, but I had a little bit of extra yarn. I started on a different project, which is a flower rug. You start by casting on 80 stitches then you knit a row. Then you knit two stitches together, which is a new technique I had to practice, but then that leaves you with 40 stitches. You then repeat that, knit and knit two together pattern, until you are down to 20 stitches. I have not done the next step yet, but you are supposed to sew them together, so it looks like a flower instead of a line. This is how they turned out, I rolled them up so they look like the flowers, but have not sewed them together yet. I think I will continue with my rug when I am done with my blanket, but I wanted to practice knitting before I started knitting my actual blanket. So, I took my extra yarn that I had and practiced the knits I was going to have to do for my blanket. This is how my practice knitting came out. Then my ...

This week I finished knitting my scarf. I still have to knit the ends of the scarf together, because it is a cowl scarf, which is a round scarf that comes together. It is looking pretty good so far, except when I knit, I knit my stitches a little too tight. So my scarf is a little smaller than I think it is supposed to be, but it still looks right. I accomplished my goal for this week, which was to finish knitting my scarf and I am hoping to start my blanket here soon, but I still need to get the yarn. Also, I am still very ahead on my plan, so I think that I am going to be able to get a lot more of my blanket done in the time span that we have than I thought I was going to be able to do. For my blanket, I need to work on not knitting so tight, so it turns out the size it is supposed to be in the end. 

I have really been enjoying this genius hour. At first I was struggling, but now that I have got the hang of it I like knitting. So I finished my hat that I was working on last week, and it looks okay, but I'm not sure if I did it correctly. I may have used the wrong yarn for that project, I'm not sure, the yarn is supposed to be a little stretchy and it is in some parts, but not in others. One thing that I know I did wrong was that when I cast on my stitches to start the project I cast them on too tight, so the base of the hat was a little tight. The hat still looks pretty good though. Since I finished my hat, I decided that I would start on a scarf. I am about halfway through with my scarf, and it is looking pretty good. Knitting does not take as long as I thought it would, so I am pretty far ahead on my plan. I hoping to finish my scarf by next week, and then I want to start on a blanket.

While working on my genius hour this week I had some struggles. I had gotten the basics of the knit stitches and purl stitches down, so I tried finishing off a project by binding the stitches off. This went perfectly fine, it was easy and simple. This is how my final practice stitches looked. After I had practiced these techniques and got them down, I decided that I would try one of the projects that they give to me in the back of my book. The project was a type of hat, it was really difficult and I could not figure out how to do it. I would get my stitches cast on, then the next row you are supposed to knit two stitches, purl two stitches, and continue that all the way down. I was doing the stitches loose but they kept ending up really tight to the needle so when I would go to the next row of stitches I wouldn't be able to get my other needle into the yarn. I kept taking it off and trying again, but still couldn't get it right. So, I went and looked in my book to see spec...

I decided I wanted to learn how to knit for my second Genius Hour. When I started it was not as easy as I thought it was going to be. My knitting supplies had two pairs of knitting needles and came with a small book. I used the book to begin learning the basic steps and I struggled using the pictures in the book at first. It took me quite awhile, but once I figured it out it was super easy. I started by learning how to cast on a stitch, which is pretty simple. Casting on is making stitches onto one of your needles,so you have a row of stitches to start knitting with. These are how my two ways of casting on turned out. There are two different ways to knit, a knit stitch and a purl stitch, this is the other thing that I tried this week. I practiced knitting stitches, and then a practiced purling stitches. A purl stitch is basically a reversed knit stitch. In the picture on the left is my attempt on doing the knit stitch. The picture on my right was supposed to be two rows of knit s...

This week I made a bigger meal with sloppy joes, cornflake potatoes, and strawberry pretzel pie. I had to prepare some stuff in the morning, and then finish it that night. I started with the sloppy joes, which my mom helped me with this week, since I was busy. We got some ground beef out and put it in a crock pot to cook and heat up, then we put some packets of sloppy joe mix and some tomato paste. My family likes to serve them on toasted hamburger buns, so I buttered some and then broiled them for a couple of minutes. Broilers can be difficult sometimes, I was little bit late getting them out, so some of them burnt, but there were enough good ones where I didn't have to do it again. The next thing I made was cornflake potatoes, which I have already made in a previous blog. My sister was home and I had to make them again just for her, because they are her favorite. This time when I made them they turned out better, I cooked them a little longer so the cornflakes were crispi...

For my cooking task this week, I made flank steak, which is like a sweet thinly sliced steak. I wanted to try different kinds of steaks and marinades this week, so I got two different kinds of steak and two different dressing to marinade with. We got a normal italian dressing and marinaded a top sirloin steak and a round steak. We then did the same thing with a citrus salad dressings to see the difference in taste. Let that sit in the marinade for a day, take it out of the bag and put it on a rack in a pan, so it is not laying directly on the pan. Put some seasoning on the steaks and then you broil it on each side for six or seven minutes. This is what it looked like when it came out of the broiler. When it was done broiling, I took it off the rack and cut it into thin slices, and this is what it looked like when I was all done with everything.  This week went pretty well, the only thing that I have really been struggling with throughout this process is finding the time...

This week was the first week that I ran into some trouble. I made chicken fajitas this week. My issue was that I was gone this weekend, so I did not have as much time as I usually do to cook. So, I only got to cook the chicken and I did not get as much practice as I usually do. I also had to prep everything, then go to practice, and then when I was cooking the food I would run and do homework in between it cooking. Chicken fajitas are very simple and easy to make. We thawed out chicken, and cut it into strips, during this part I did almost cut myself, because I was in a rush and not using my cutting skills that I practiced, but I made sure to be careful after that. After you cut the chicken put it in a ziplock bag with fajita seasoning, and let it marinate. Then, after I let it sit for a while, I put a pan on the stove with a little splash of oil, enough to cover the bottom of the pan, and cook it covered on medium heat. After it cooks for a little bit, you go and flip the chicken pi...

This week I wanted to make fondue, which is typically a three course meal of melted cheese, broth, and melted chocolate. My family doesn't usually like the broth course, which you boil broth and let the meat cook in there. So instead of boiling chicken in broth, my family will pan fry or grill chicken. The first course, which is cheese, you can use many different recipes. The recipes usually contain some sort of cheese, alcohol, and garlic or something to give it more flavor. We decided to use, colby jack and pepper jack cheese, a dry white wine, and some cornstarch to make the cheese thicker when you melt it. To add some flavor, I added some garlic and lemon juice. We like to dip bread, tortilla chips, and green apples into our cheese. I used my cutting skills from one of the past weeks to cube the bread, and I also practiced grating with the cheese. With your final results, you want it to turn out stringy so you can dip it easiest. It took a second to get the cheese right, beca...

This week I got to cook potatoes a couple different ways. The different kinds that I made are things that we make at home all the time, so none of them really have a specific recipe. So, there was a lot of guessing and eyeballing, it all depends on your taste and how you like it. I made cornflake potatoes, cheesy potatoes and fries two different ways. This week was pretty easy, except for the fact that I had a little difficulty with the fries. I made cornflake potatoes first, which is what my family calls them. We make these all the time at home, but I have never made them myself before. These are pretty easy to make, and I did not have time to cut and prepare potatoes, so I just got some frozen hash browns. You take the hash browns and mix them with some sour cream, then add a can of cream of chicken soup. If you want it more creamy, then add another can of soup. After that you add a couple handfuls of cheese. Then, you will put all of that into a greased pan. Now is when you add th...

Different cutting techniques is what I worked on and learned this week. The techniques that I tried are called julienne, slicing, large dice, and batonnet. I knew all of these techniques, except for batonnet, that one was a new one I learned. All these techniques I knew of, but I had not tried all of them before. The first one I tried was julienne, it is when you make long thin strips while cutting. I decided to use this technique on a carrot. First, I cut the carrot into long, wide strips, then you cut those into thin strips. I struggled a little with this one, because my knife wasn't quite sharp enough to cut the carrot into as thin of strips as I wanted. This is what the julienne cuts came out looking as. The batonnet cut was the one I had tried next. I had never heard of this technique before, but I had cut things like this before. For this cut you are supposed to square off your item, which I used a carrot, and make rectangular sticks. Squaring off your item means m...

This week I decided to try and learn different techniques to cook eggs. There are many different ways to prepare eggs such as, boiled, scrambled, an omelet, sunny side up, over easy, poached, basted, and deviled. The techniques that I decided to use were scrambled, sunny side up, over easy, poached, and an omelet. Also, when I was done cooking the eggs I had my dad taste them to tell me if they were correct. The first technique that I tried was scrambled, so I had to put a pad of butter into the pan with the eggs, then stir and when it is almost cooked add a dash of milk. When I did this technique I only cooked one egg, so when I put it in the pan it cooked really fast, which I then over mixed them because it was cooking faster than I thought it was going to. The pieces of egg ended up being a little smaller, so next time I would use lower heat or more eggs and mix less, so I would end up with bigger pieces. I made a sunny side up egg next. To make these kind of eggs, you crack ...

For my Genius Hour this semester, I decided that I would like to learn a little more about different cooking styles and techniques. I am going to try and make a different thing each week. First, I had to do research and figure out what I wanted to make and try for my Genius Hour, so that is what I did this first week. Here are some of the techniques I found when I did my research, poach, simmer, roasting, blanch, grill, braise, caramelize, saute, sear, and emulsify. In my next Genius Hour I plan on learning the different ways to cook eggs, such as poaching, boiling, and scrambling. Then, I am going to learn cutting techniques and make a roast. The other things that I will make and try are going to be, cooking potatoes, sauteing things, making fondue, cooking chicken, steak, and I might even try a couple of desserts. So when planning this out, I had to look up recipes and techniques. Next Genius Hour I will begin my cooking and learning. I am really lookin...