Fifth practical for Home Economics Pad Thai

Teamwork Aspects 
This week was another great lesson for our team. When we make the Pad Thai this week, Mrs Hindson wrote down roles on our recipes so we were able to assign everyone roles so it was more organised this time around. An example of a role that I did was the cooking of the noodles, I had to watch over the stove and make sure that the noodles cooked properly and were, soft and easy to eat but still a little bit firm. I think that this addition made cooking much easier and made everyone's lives much easier. This weeks recipe was still quite simple, but the skills needed to be more of the measuring kind. The people in charge of making the sauce and the marinade needed to be very particular with their measurements because if they weren't it would throw off the taste of the dish.

Improvements 
I do think that we could have put less pepper in our final product as it threw off the taste quite a bit. I mean, I love pepper but it was way too overpowering. I would have prefered to put more of the sweet Chilli sauce in instead of the pepper but I wasn't in charge of the garnishing.

Product Outcome 
I think that our product was excellent and I think it had quite a nice fragrance to it, it had a nice essence of sweet Chilli sauce and fish sauce. When I took the first bite of our dish, I first got the texture of the peanuts and got a nice taste from that, and then I got the soft texture from the noodles and a nice hint of fish sauce. When I first bit into the chicken, I thought it was a bit dry but then I realised that it wasn't dry, it was just different compared to the noodles. I really got a big aftertaste of pepper after finishing my mouthful. The spring onions were a nice subtle note next to the punchiness of the other flavours in the dish, it came in right after the fish sauce taste. I really appreciated the addition of the peanuts as it made the dish more interesting to me and kept the textures and flavours balanced.

Modifications
We need to actually calm down on the salt and pepper because we keep on adding too much to our dishes and it ruins the taste for me. I do appreciate it when the pepper is there because it adds another flavour, but we need to balance the seasonings to fit the taste of the other elements. I love the enthusiasm we have but we need to think about the taste of the end product when seasoning. I would also use thicker noodles if I made this at home myself.

Next Steps 
Next time I think we just need to continue what we are doing. I'm not sure if Mrs Hindson will be giving us roles to take next time so I think we should take the responsibility and create the roles ourselves that are even and that will allow everyone to do something. This lesson was excellent and I think we need to continue what we are doing.

Home Economics Mix and Match activity Week 7

Something that I learned (mix and match cards) 
When the English settlers came to New Zealand, they brought their own different hunting methods, and ways of cooking compared to the Maoris. There were various hunting methods that the Maori people were not aware of that the English brought to New Zealand. The Maori knew about traps and spears, but the English introduced them into guns and other forms of hunting. These guns have now developed into different forms of technology for gathering food.

What can you see happening to our food in the future (50years)? What could you invent to change or directly effect relating to how food is produced for a cheaper price in the future? 

Food is necessary for survival, everyone needs it, without it, we all perish. Every being on this Earth needs food but with recent occurrences, we need to create different ways of producing food and meals that are available to everyone for cheap prices, that contains all the ingredients necessary to be nutritious and tasty. In the next 50 years, I think that the food eaten will be produced in labs as recently, new forms of lab-developed foods have been sold in stores and the idea seems to be quite popular with pretty healthy people. I don't really know if that is a good thing or a bad thing because we do need better ways of producing healthy and nutritious foods that won't be hard on the environment because the ways we are currently producing food is probably not the best way for the environment. But the food produced in 50 years time may be more focused on nutrition than the actual taste of the food. If it were to be produced in a lab it might not be the tastiest. If I could, I
would have a different, more effective way of producing meat products. I do think that the way we are going with lab-produced food is a good idea, but I would prefer a way of producing food that is similar to that but has quite a meaty taste to it. I do think that finding different means to particularly meat products would be quite difficult, especially for cheaper prices. I think that something such as using local labs maybe even in grocery stores that are quite small so that the stores can have their product fresh every day would be something cool. Using small local labs would be cheaper than having one big lab then shipping them different places would be interesting. 

Diversity of NZ Culture and Food Choices

29/08/2019
For Home Economics today, Rheanna, Jessica and I completed a mapping task. Each group member had the same map but with different parts of information that everyone needs. On the main map that we had to label the important places that are important to New Zealand food choices. We had to label them and put them on a map using keys. 

Map #1

On the first map, there was a list of settlers that came to New Zealand. We needed to place where they were located and why they located there. The settlers included the Scottish, English, Europeans, Asians, and the Polynesians. The different reasons they moved were because of reason such as humidity, the goldrush, similar environment, opportunity in trade and available land. This part of the map was really hard to complete as we could not exactly find very reliable information but we managed to find some. Key 2. had the information from Map #1. 

Map #2

The second map was probably the easiest to complete in a short amount of time. All we had to do was label the different areas that were marked out on the map. I completed this in five minutes and then went on to help the my other team members. Cities such as Auckland, Gisborne, Napier, and Christchurch were on the map. I used Key #1 to show where these are. 

Map #3

Map #3 was another map that seemed to be completed quite fast. On this map, there was a list of food types that are found in different areas around New Zealand. We had to place them where they are most readily available. Food types included Seafood, Vegetables, Carrots and Potatoes, Dairy Cattle, Wheat and Barley, Grapes, stone fruit and berries. All of the words that are coming out of the North and South island are the different types of foods and where they come from or are found commonly. We found out from this that at the top of the South Island, around Nelson, is where there is a lot of Horticulture (fruit). 

Fourth Practical for Home Economics 2019 Pizza

Teamwork Aspects 
This practical, our group did a much better job of utilising skills and measuring our ingredients. I do think that we all did so much better at sharing the roles this time and no one was left doing nothing, and there was no one carrying everyone else. We ALL managed to work together and all did our part to be finished 20 minutes before the lesson finished. We worked effectively, on time and we made little to no mistakes. We worked great as a group and I do think that every dish or meal we make will be delicious and efficiently made.

Improvements 
There was really nothing that I would change about how we prepared the Pizzas and there's nothing I would really change about the taste or the ingredients either, it all worked very well and this practical has been my favourite so far. As we finished 20 minutes early, we had time for the Pizzas to cool so that the ingredients didn't fall all over the place in our containers. I do think that as a group we do need to focus on the more technical elements of our preparation of the ingredients. When we are cutting vegetables a certain way or if we are mixing a dough, we do need to work on how we prepare our ingredients. I am still very pleased about how our dish was prepared.


Product Outcome 
We were all really pleased about how our product turned out and I wouldn't change a single thing because I thought it thought it tasted delicious. I do think that I should have put more cheese on the top but that was really the only thing that I would probably change because I think that my Pizza was perfect for me. The texture of the Pizza wasn't too dense, it was perfect, I think that I may make it myself when I get home and that I might make one big Pizza for my family.

First Practical Lesson for Home Economics Semester 2

Making  Jam Drops

Changing Culture Unit- August 2nd, First Practical  

Teamwork- How did our team work together?

I think that for our first practical lesson as a group that didn't do Home Economics for the first semester, we did very well! I had Connor, Jnaya and Jessica in my group and we seemed to gel quite nicely. We all seemed to know each other quite well and made according to Mrs Hindson "Perfect Jam Drops". We all did our part in cleaning up after as well as cooking and preparing the food. We seemed to work efficiently and had time to spare, that we used for cleaning up and reflecting on our team. As a member of our team is quite quiet compared to the rest of us, it was a bit hard for her to express her opinion, and we will definitely work on including her more into the preparing part, although she did play a big part in the actual forming the dough into balls. I think our team all work very well together and all seem to have some sort of grasp on what exactly it is we are doing. 

Tasks 
In our group, we had different people with different skills and we utilised each of our skills. For example, Jessica is very good at folding the flour into the mixture, we all knew that she was good at that so we had her do that. As Connor has big thumbs, we had him put the little dips into the dough. 

Skills within team 
Each member of our team have different skills, and we tried our best to incorporate those as best as we could. We all communicated who was doing what and our time management was great too. I do think that we could make a small schedule for who is doing what chores such as washing, or drying dishes or wiping the bench. We also need to think more strategically about who is doing what. 

Improvements 
I think we need to continue improving our time management skills. They weren't too bad this lesson, but this task was simple, as each task gets harder, we need to work and communicate together more. 

Outcome- What was the outcome of our product? 

Here we have two photos of our product, the before, and the after. I think we did a very good job of producing our product and all worked together to make something that was tasty to eat and fun to make. Our team was satisfied with how the Jam Drops tasted, and as someone who has never had Jam Drops before, I think they were pretty good and I might make them myself at home! The texture of the biscuits was just right, especially after a nice cooling, the jam wasn't too hot and the biscuits weren't too soft, just the right amount of goldenness on the outside. 


Feedback 
Every member of our team was quite satisfied with our end product. Mrs Hindson said that we did quite a good job as well. 

Taste, Texture of the product
The biscuits were delicious and had quite a nice vanilla tint to them. There was a small crunch to the biscuits and it was very nice. There was a nice jam-biscuit ratio and the edges were a beautiful golden brown. I think they tasted very nice. 

Improvements and modifications 
I think that if I ever make Jam drops next time, I might switch the jam flavours and try maybe apricot or raspberry jam. It would be cool to have different choices if you had them for a party or gathering. 

Next time- What will we improve for next practical? 

I think that for the next practical, our group needs to keep up what we are doing currently, as well as start to better our communication skills. This practical, we did have some times when everyone was talking at once and it was a bit hard to make some decisions based on that. So that's what I think we need to do for next time. We should definitely keep doing what we are doing and soldier on because our group seems to work quite well together. 

Next steps for own learning 
I think that I might try to recreate this recipe at home and experiment with different flavours of jam. Next practical lesson we will try to communicate more efficiently and manage our time.