Friday, February 1, 2013

Broster Time In The Kitchen


This is an event that was created by Robyn Monroe in order to encourage bonding between brothers and sisters as well as enjoy some deliciously cooked meals. I met up with Hanna Kim a fellow sister and Two Keenan and Cameron from our brother chapter in Kappa Kappa Psi. We were going to cook spinach ravioli and crescent rolls stuffed with cream cheese and parmesan as the appetizer. Thanks to Robyn’s incredible budgeting abilities, the four of us only needed to pay five dollars each in order to cover the cost of ingredients for the night. We washed our hands and then had Robyn explain to us the recipes and who would be doing each part. As all of us have varying cooking experience, certain terms and techniques were introduced to us as we need to learn them. For example, dicing the onion means to cut them into small cubes and sautéing the onion means to fry the onions over a high heat temperature for a short time or until translucent. To make the appetizers first shredded the parmesan cheese block and then mixed that in with the cream cheese. After that Cameron and Keenan proceeded to make the make the necessary if not unusual shapes out of the crescent roles for the filling to go into. After we all participated in wrapping the flailing we put the rolls in the oven for a few minutes. When they were done we took them out and then it was onto the ravioli. 
The ravioli took more time as it had three separate parts into its cooking. The first of which was to gather all of the ingredients necessary to help make the filling. After the ingredients were gathered and mixed, the mix was put into a blender and then filled to the top with spinach leaves before the blender was turned on. Once all of that was pureed it was time to start making the raviolis. This task proved to be a bit difficult as I lack fine motor control. Basically, we used the wonton wrappers (a substitute for ravioli ones) in order to put the filling into the wontons before wrapping them up. At first it looked like we would have too much filling leftover but then Hanna showed us all how to make the ravioli with just a single wonton wrapper instead of two which turned out to help balance the amount of filling we had. After that, we learned that the wraps needed to be boiled and float to the top of the pot before we could transfer them to the frying pan. Once they were fried to the right color we were able to eat them. 
On the next broster time in the kitchen, this involved myself, Keri Downs and Jorge and Thomas Lindblom from our brother chapter. This time, the menu included an eggplant humus to go with wheat thins for an appetizer and Asia Turkey burgers for the entrée. Like the time before we washed our hands before Robyn went over the recipes and asked about our prior cooking experience. As I had been to broster time in the Kitchen before I felt like a total pro this time around. The eggplant needed to be cut and cooked however before we blended it. As it was cooking we followed the recipe and Robyn made sure that we added the right amount of spices. As this was going on Keri proceeded to dice the onions while Jorge and I diced the red pepper. Thomas mean while helped with cutting the apple pieces. Next we threw the onions and peppers into the frying pan and Keri sautéed it until the onions turned translucent. Following that, Robyn took out the cream cheese and turkey meat and we put all of that into a mixing bowl where I had the satisfaction of mashing it all together. Next I proceeded to make little mini patties while Keri, Thomas and Jorge helped to cook them. This turned out to be absolutely delicious as cream cheese inside a warm burger is a taste sensation that is overwhelmingly awesome. I highly recommend this recipe to everyone and the experience of cooking with brothers and sisters was the icing on the cake.

Michael Mehlberg 
Alpha Pi