The pasta salad project was one where we were left to choose what we were to make as long as it contained a staple food, and where we were independently making the pasta salad. Therefore I have evaluated myself according to how well I worked independently and how I made the pasta so that it would be a treat to those who eat it, as well as a healthy food with vegetables.
I think that overall when I was making my pasta salad I worked fairly independently. I sliced my mushrooms into a fairly good size and then I sliced the red pepper into a similar size, so that the pieces were the same size in your mouth. I weighed out the 200 grams of pasta and put them into the boiling pan independently. I checked the time at the beginning of cooking and waited 10 minutes before checking that it was cooked.
When I did this, I asked the girl next to me to hold the wooden spoon with pasta and I got a knife and poked it through the pasta to check if it was cooked. When it was cooked I got the colander and put it in the sink, then poured the pasta with the water into the colander and the water drained. Then I rinsed the pasta in the cold water to cool it. I put the vegetables in as well as the olive oil dressing. Unfortunately, I had forgotten the pesto which was also going to be the dressing.
When we were washing up, my partner and I worked quite well and I washed all the equipment and she dried it. We put them back into the cupboards appropriately ready for the next class to use.
When I tried my pasta when I got home, it tasted quite nice despite the fact that I had forgotten to put in the pesto. The crunchy red pepper against the smooth mushrooms made the textures stand out. When I stirred the pesto into the salad, the flavour of the pesto made the pasta have a distinct taste and smell. It added colour to the browns and red of the original salad along with the yellow of the pasta. The pasta tasted good with a crunch of red pepper then some soft mushroom, then the pesto that was melting in my mouth.
I enjoyed making the salad because I was free to do what I wanted, I could put a combination of different flavours into my salad and it was all my choice. I was also glad that I was working quite independently because it meant that everything I was doing was my choice and my decisions and in this task I could see how well I was doing.
I did not enjoy making the salad because I had forgotten the pesto dressing, so I felt that my salad wouldn’t turn out to be as nice. However, when I actually made the salad with the olive oil dressing it tasted quite nice. However, I still felt that it would taste better with the pesto, so when I went home I added the pesto and it tasted delicious.
