Weekend Challenge

Ahlam Ali 

Maltman, Thomas 

College Writing 

24 Jan 2025 

My Lasagna Journey 

For my weekend challenge, I decided to step out of my comfort zone and try cooking something I’d never made before. I’ve never enjoyed cooking much so tackling a dish I had always viewed as challenging was going to be hard. The dish I chose to make was lasagna because I have a memory of my sister cooking it for me and absolutely loving it. This was a memory that has always stuck with me, so I decided to give cooking it myself a shot.  

I started by gathering all the ingredients I needed for the lasagna, but I realized pretty quickly that I was missing almost everything I needed. I headed to the store with a list of ingredients, though I was in a rush to get home and get started. I roamed around the aisles, picking up three different kinds of cheese, lasagna noodles, ground beef, and marinara sauce. Once I thought I had grabbed everything, I made my way to checkout and headed home. When I got back and started laying everything out on the counter, I noticed that I was still missing something, the marinara sauce. For a moment, I just stood in the kitchen realizing my mistake. After thinking about whether I could somehow make the recipe work without the sauce, I realized there was no way, I had to head back to the store. I was feeling pretty frustrated, but I was determined to get this done. I jumped back in the car and drove all the way back. This time, I made sure to stay in the store a little longer, double checking to make sure I didn’t miss anything else. Once I was absolutely certain I had everything, I headed home for the second time. 

I now had all my ingredients and decided to start with the meat sauce. This was the part I was most worried about since I wasn’t good when it came to preparing any kind of meat, but I tried my best. I set my pot on the stove and added in all the ingredients for the meat sauce. The ground beef, marinara sauce, onions, and some more ingredients. Once the meat was cooked to perfection, I removed the pot from the stove and set the sauce to the side. 

 I moved on to getting started on making the cheese filling. I gathered my three cheeses for this recipe: Ricotta cheese, Mozzarella cheese, and parmesan cheese. I got to work freshly grated all three blocks of cheese by hand. Once the cheeses were ready, I combined them into a medium sized bowl along with a large egg, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper, and a couple of other seasonings. I mixed all those ingredients until it was a creamy consistency and set that aside.  

Before boiling my pasta, I preheated my oven to 375 degrees F. I then started to boil my lasagna noodles in salt water. I made sure to keep a close eye on them so they wouldn't overcook. Once they were ready, I removed them from the water and set the noodles flat on a plate. It was now time to get started on my favorite part, the layering. I began to assemble the ingredients in a baking pan. First, I spread a generous layer of meat sauce on the bottom of the pan. Then, I placed 4 lasagna noodles on top of the meat sauce. I then spread a layer of the cheese mixture over the noodles along with more meat sauce on top. I repeated this process with meat, pasta, and then cheese layering until there was none left. Finally, I added an extra layer of mozzarella cheese on the very top. I covered the pan with foil and popped it into the oven.  

The lasagna needed to be baked for 35 minutes. Once that time was up, I removed the foil cover and popped it back into the oven to bake 10 more minutes. I watched from the oven's glass window as the cheese at the very top turned a beautiful golden brown. Once the time was up, I removed the pan and placed it on the counter to cool. It was now time to eat and according to my family and me, it tasted amazing. I am really proud of myself for stepping out of my comfort zone and trying something new and sticking to it despite the obstacles.  

Blog Deep Dive week 1

Third Person Reading

She slouched on her chair at her desk in her dimmed-light room early into the evening. She sighed remembering how she promised herself she would do the reading earlier in the day, now look at her. She opened her textbook to the first out of three chapters she was assigned to read. She began to silently read only occasionally whispering certain words. She stops halfway through the first chapter to look at the time on her phone and goes back to reading. Once she finishes the chapter she turns to the next. Before starting to read the new reading, she gets up and goes to the kitchen to get a drink. Once she returns she briefly browses through her phone. She finally brings her attention back to the reading and motivates herself to finish. She then finishes the final two chapter though occasionally catching her eyes wondering around her room and daydreaming. At last she is done.

I do think that I could improve how I approach my reading assignments if I tried to stay more focused instead of constantly stopping to focus on something else. I could also improve my time management by setting up a specific time to do the work I need to. 

Article 1: “The Slowest Reader” by Benjamin Percy

What does he come to realize about the importance of “reading as a writer?”

The author realizes that reading as a writer means that you need to take you time when reading to really understand and study what the reading is saying instead of rushing through it. Reading as a writer can also help you learn more about writing which can then help you improve your writing. 

What do you think it means to be “the slowest reader?”

I think that being "the slowest reader" means that you take your time to fully analyze and understand what's in the reading. 

How do you think being a slow reader and “reading as a writer” might apply to the essays we encounter in this class?

I think that they apply in that learning that being a slow reader and taking our time can help you understand what we are reading and "reading as a writer" will allow us to learn more about writing which can improve how we write our essays. 

Third Person Writing

She sat on her chair at her desk in her brightly lighted room three days before her writing assignment was due. She opened her computer and went straight to the assignment page. She carefully read through the instructions for this writing assignment. She made sure she understood what needed to be done before beginning to write. Once she began she stayed laser focused on writing only occasionally looking at her ceiling to decide what to write next. Once she was about 1/3 of the way through the writing assignment she closed her computer deciding to continue writing tomorrow. For the next 2 days she did exactly as she did the past day at the exact time in the exact way. She did 1/3 of the assignment each day till at last she was done. 

I think that I do a much better job at doing writing assignments than I do reading assignments. Though if I could improve on one thing it would probably be to take some breaks when doing the assignments because I do exactly this even when writing long essays and it can be tiring. 

Article 2: “Writing an Essay: Here are Ten Effective Tips” by Joe Bunting

Two ideas from this essay that I think are the most important are "Before you start writing, ask yourself, “How can I have the most fun writing this?”" and "Overwhelmed? Just write five original sentences". I believe that having fun or just enjoying when writing an essay is really important because if you don't enjoy what you are doing regardless of what it is, you won't do it the best you can. I believe there are many ways to making writing an essay enjoyable for you. You could write about a topic that interests you or make the essay personal. Likewise, I think that writing 5 original sentences when starting an essay is an important and good idea. This is a tactic I use a lot when writing an essay. I would write one sentence than surround my paragraph around that sentence and it makes it so much easier and organized for me. I could use both of these ideas when doing writing assignments in the future for college.