Saturday, February 23rd, 2019

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It's already our February cookout! This month's blog is from Ria and I together because Ria had the day off and she prepped a lot before we met up to finish cooking.

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We have been donating our home-cooked meals for close to 2 years! Today, I was to prep on my own as I had a week long mid-winter break while other RainyDayChefs had to return to school.  This month, we decided to make some enchiladas, a special Mexican coleslaw, and my favorite dessert, pineapple upside down cake. This cake was one of the first cakes I learned to bake at age 8!      

                                   

For this cook out, I started my day making the pineapple upside down cake. This cake was a different type of recipe, as you need to beat the egg whites and egg yolks in separate mixtures. After mixing all the ingredients in with the egg yolks, you have to beat the egg whites until they have stiff peaks. It actually takes a lot longer than I thought to get the peaks! After folding the egg whites into the batter, you have to line the pan with the pineapple slices. Then I put the cake into the oven.

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While the cake was in the oven, I started making the enchiladas.    Homemade enchiladas are delicious, and the recipe we used is one that my mom’s recipe. She always makes enchiladas stuffed with mashed potatoes and veggies. I made a version of this with mashed potatoes and grilled chicken strips. The Mexican coleslaw is a fun twist on an average salad. Just adding some spices to a salad dressing can be delicious! I had to make the mashed potatoes and chicken. Since we were very busy, we had to use the store-bought box of mashed potatoes. I just needed to stir in the milk and butter and followed the recipe on the box. The chicken took longer. I had to cut up all 8 pounds of chicken and cook them with the taco seasoning. After finishing that, I took a break to wait for Neha and Nitya to come. I was able to prepare all this over 5-6 hours with some help from my mom.  - Ria. 

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Neha and I joined Ria later in the evening after we came back from school.  Since Ria had prepped most of it, it took us less time to assemble the enchiladas.  Given that we we have done this many times, we formed an assembly line to make the process faster.

 

In the assembly line each person added something into the enchilada, I grabbed a tortilla and added mashed potatoes, then Neha added the salsa, finally Ria added the chicken and veggies! This process make us all work very fast, and the cooking only took 2 hours! The last step that we needed to do was making the Mexican coleslaw. To make the coleslaw we added mayo and Mexican seasoning to the veggies. We packed it all in trays and delivered it to the Friends of Youth shelter. 

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This month we would like to once again thank Rama aunty and Goplas uncle for their continued support. Thank you for all your generosity and kindness. We were blessed with additional support and encouragement from baby Rohan this time!  - Nitya

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