I’m so addicted to watching recipe videos on TikTok. Whether the creator recreates food from a film, makes a trending meal or cooks an unappetizing but aesthetically pleasing dish, I eat it right up. 

And so, one night I thought to myself, how hard can it be? My journey to find this answer will undoubtedly be an easy one. I’m sure of it. 

I jotted down my five favorite recipes, planned out a date during spring break and bought my supplies. 

With about $50 of ingredients, I had just enough to make food for me, my parents and my grandparents. Here’s how it went:

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I had to begin my recipe tirade at 10 a.m. by making lemon posset. This is a creamy lemon dessert, chilled inside the hollowed-out half of a lemon. This recipe was good but, wow, it takes a lot of prep work. 

I had to half the lemons, hollow them, juice their insides, put that juice and cream into a saucepan with cream, completely zest two lemons into the pan, heat that on the stove without boiling it, accidentally boil it anyway, strain, pour back into the cups and finally let chill for several hours. Half of my dishes came from this recipe.

Next recipe up was the garlic confit. To make this, I had to drown over two dozen cloves in a pan full of oil. Then, I cooked these cloves for two hours to get the final product: garlic that spreads like butter. 

One thing that alarmed me about this recipe was that after I set aside the leftovers from dinner and returned the next day, the oil around the cloves had solidified and encased the garlic in butter. It looked gross but seemed to soften the garlic even more, so that’s a plus. 

Also, this recipe was the favorite of mine, my mom and my grandma.  

With my third recipe, I made a spiral cucumber salad. The trickiest part of this recipe is that first word: spiral. 

To spiral my cucumbers, I needed to place them between two chopsticks and cut down diagonally until I hit the utensils. Then I had to flip the cucumber and cut it straight down. 

I tried to do this, but the cucumber would always split before I hit the chopsticks. I eyeballed my cuts instead and got much better results. 

I tried to do the same by eyeballing the other ingredients like soy sauce, vinegar and garlic with far less success. Still a very refreshing dish even if it’s a bit salty.

I was able to take a two-hour break before starting on my fourth recipe. This would be my unsuccessful attempt at an onion boil. 

To make an onion boil, I had to hollow out an onion, fill the inside with butter, top that with melted butter then smother it in spices and garlic. My mistake came when I cooked it in the oven at 175 degrees Fahrenheit. 

By cooking the onion at this heat, the vegetable didn’t achieve the glassy look I was hoping for in its layers. It also wasn’t very warm and felt as if I stuck it in the microwave for an hour and a half.

I think, perhaps, that the creator of the recipe I used was British, because this was far too low a heat to achieve the intended effect. I should have tried translating to Fahrenheit first. At least Grandpa liked this recipe.

My last recipe was tomato-feta pasta. I liked this recipe the most because it was the easiest. I had to throw tomatoes, pasta and spinach in a pan, bake, smother in pasta, mix and eat. It was that easy, and I don’t have any mishaps to share.

The best part of this whole experience was getting to share dinner with my family at the end of the day. Not having to do the dishes afterward was an additional perk.

Curtin can be reached at curtinem5864@uwec.edu.