Lemon Berry Trifle

So, I tried a couple different things last week. On Sunday, we were supposed to bring dessert to family dinner. Rather than have Amy whip up something awesome, as she always does, I decided to give a new recipe a try. Lemon Berry Trifle turned out really well. It was light and delicious. Better yet, you can add whatever fruit you want. We had strawberries, peaches, and blueberries on ours. (Recipe on the internet)

Amy went down to Phoenix on a training and I stayed in the classroom for a long while. There wasn't a lot of food in the fridge...at least not a lot of Eldon food in the fridge, so I had to do something I normally wouldn't. Grandpa Turley is an awesome gardener, and he gave us some zucchini and peppers. I decided to make pepper infused, fried zucchini.











I went ot the cupboard, and couldn't find my Italian bread crumbs. So, I grabbed some crutons and crushed those up in a bowl. I added diced green chili to the crutons and beat eggs into another bowl.

I thought it would work! I dipped the slices of zucchini into the egg mixture, and then into the crutons....nothing stuck. I was so dissapointed. Usually breaded stuff, like my parmesian chicken, take milk, but I thought it wouldn't matter. Even now I don't know if it would have stuck if it had milk....but, I had all the material and didn't want to throw it all away.

So, I improvised. My pan was heating up with just a little bit of oil, enough to fry zucchini slices, but not cover them. I battered all of my zucchini, and then dropped some of the cruton/pepper mix on top. My idea was that the egg would fry, and the otherstuff would stick to that...rather than the zucchini. It worked. I had a nice, golden crust on one side of the zucchini that was really flavorful. The chili added a great heat and taste that I haven't had with zucchini before, and I loved it. (salt and pepper to taste)

Of course, the best thing I ate this week came from the master chef! Amy made some kickin' raisin butter tarts, the best I have ever had. She outdoes herself every time she walks in the kitchen!

Awesome School Idea

Alright, so I was in the middle of class, talking to the students, when an epiphane struck. Every year we start out writing by building better sentences. It basically just means that instead of, "The man went to the store", we say, "The ugly, bearded man slowly sauntered into the dark, dismal store." Well, I was talking and immediately stopped class. My kids looked on in wonder, they don't know me very well yet, as I exclaimed, "Ooooooh! That is awesome!" I went to the board, wrote down Act out BS, turned around, and began class again. The students looked confused, but it won't be the last time! :)

So, my chess kids came in after school, looked at the board, and said, "How do you act out BS?" I didn't even think about the initials I wrote out.

Anyway...the idea is to act out the sentences, rather than just write them out. It should allow for the kinestetic and artistic intelligences to become involved in the activity. Hopefully it works out well.

Two days down...a bunch more to go!

A Treat From My Past...

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chocolate-Trifle/Detail.aspx

So, this isn't a current recipe, but it was really, really good. I do not recommend it to anyone who cannot handle something sweet. This is raise the blood sugar of twenty elephants, but still very, very good!

Experiment Failed?

Yesterday, I tried to make Carne Asada. I found a recipe on the internet that promised an authentic marinade, and thought, "Wow! Lime, Lemon, and Orange Juices...this has to be good."I marinaded the skirt steak, grilled it up, and we put it into a cheese quesadilla. So, the idea was to have Carne Asada Quesadilla...Well, the juice was overwhelming. It tasted like somebody had found a way to breed, butcher, and sell Lime Cows...

Today, I am attempting to rectify the mistake. I just got done making steak and eggs with chili peppers diced and scrambled all together. When the meat is with other food, it doesn't taste so limey...but I tell you, it was a citrus explosion earlier.

I'll post a picture of the steak/eggs/chili later on!

(When using citrus in a marinade...add something to sweeten the flavor...we thought pineapple or apple juice might have helped...maybe some sugar.)


2nd Thought: The steak and eggs was really good. The chilis were grown from grandpa's garden and had a great flavor and heat. The best part, however, was the addition of garlic powder. It added an extra layer of flavor that I think should have been connected to the steak in the first place.

My second thought came to me as I was sitting watching television. Rather than sugar, I think adding honey to the marinade would really tie things in well. I'll have to try that on my next attempt.

BLT Without the "T"

As Joe would say, tomatos are red cubes of death. Amy doesn't care for them either, so for lunch yesterday I decided to put together a Bacon, Lettuce....something... on either an English muffin or bagel. As the idea progressed, I added a little flair for myself, as Amy went out to eat with a friend from work. She did get some of the left over bacon, which made her happy...and in turn myself happy. So, without further ado, my idea for "BLT Without the 'T'".

Tip Before You Start!!! Bacon: Everybody has a different way of doing this. Some like it crispy, some like it flexible. Amy likes hers crispy and I like mine flexible, so I try to get it in between. My trick is to cook it on one side, until it begins turning translucent...spelling? I then flip each slice over until bubbles begin frying on the side that I can see. I flip it over once more, and do the same, careful not to let it burn, because at this point it can go that way pretty easily. I find the bubble test to be easy to pull off, and it usually gives me my bacon just the way we like it.

1. So, fry X amount of bacon. After bacon is fried, place on a paper towel (placed over a plate). This allows the grease to be soaked up.

2. Dump in ringlets/half ringlets of onions. Do not drain the grease, as it will help the onions take on flavor and cook. Fry until onions are translucent and begin to go limp. For those of you who like stiffer onions, fry until you like them. Drain in the same way you did with the bacon...heck, use the same paper towel.

Now, I tasted my onions and decided that they were a little bland. Good, but bland. I sprinkled some salt over them, and I believe that it kicked up the taste by quite a bit. The onions were excellent! The best thing is that my choice of salt can be changed. At this point you can sprinkle any spice over the onions, and get a variety of tremendous flavors.

3. Cut lettuce, toast bagel/muffin/bread, apply chosen condiments to bread. (I used mustard and a slice of cheese)

4. Build sandwich and enjoy!

Pros to Dish---- The toppings were stupendous. I love what I did with the onions, and bacon is always good. Together they sang symphonies!

The Romaine Lettuce was a good choice as well, not as watery as iceberg.

Cook time, for my first time making it, was less than 20 minutes!!!

One bagel makes two sandwiches, folded in half.

Cons to Dish----The cheese over powered everything! I think I would do without next time.

The bagel was really thick and I don't think there was a good bread to toppings proportion.

If it sounds good, Enjoy!

Revelations at 4:40 in the Morning

My sister, April, said that this early in the morning wasn't morning, but night. Therefore, last night I had a weird dream. I dreamt that they moved me from my fifth grade teaching position to a high school class. The high school students were obnoxious and reminded me of the kids on that Antonio Banderas dance move. The ones who just needed to be reached by something outside of the normal realms of education. Apparently, they thought that me teaching cooking would be a good idea.

So, where better to do this than a room covered in straw and candles. I had to put out a couple of student started fires at the beginning...."Freudian for smashing dreams maybe?" But then my next hour began and three middle aged women came in with recipes something they had made the night before. Homework maybe? We tasted each one of them, the worst being split pea soup that had turned into paste, and I woke up before talking about it all.

I couldn't get back to sleep! Too many ideas for the classroom and this blog are floating around my head. Believe me, I want to turn off my mind, but for some reason it is running too fast, so I thought I would get on and share what I "learned" from the dreams.

School wise, I think I'm going to form a book club with my students. We'll all read the same book, as homework, and the next day we can come back and as questions about the book. I don't want to overload them, so the assignment would only be a couple pages at a time, maybe a chapter if I can find the right book. We might make it a classroom assignment so that they can have help as well...who knows.

When presenting a "dish" of information or a project, other students are going to have two choices on how to respond. They can provide two compliments and a suggestion, or ask a question about how or why something was done a certain way. With both of these the goal is to help students increase the "Miles on Their Tongue", a phrase started around my school last year.

Finally, and most importantly, I don't think people are actually going to do, read, or listen to anything that is not important or that doesn't have vital information in it. I don't like pea soup, so the lady who brought pea soup didn't have my attention.

Therefore, I think I am going to change the idea of this blog. No body is going to care about my day to day life, and lets face it, why should they. I live in Sleepy Holbrook, I'm a school teacher off for the summer, and I don't blog enough as is. So, if I'm honest with myself, I'm just putting down things that I think are interesting, and I believe that nobody else does. (It's 4:54 in the morning, please don't take offense to any of this). So, I think I'm going to do a couple of different things. Inspired by "The Julie/Julia Project" coming to theatres, I'm going to start blogging about the recipes I try at home. Amy is going back to school, so I should have plenty of practice. Also, I'm going to try a book study, starting with the Harry Potter books.....maybe. After all, I was the one who supported Snape even after he killed Dumbledore.

My goal is to provide something that you would like to read, not something that you can get through a phone call. With any luck, I will have a blog that you will want to visit.

So, at 4:57 in the morning, and barely lucid, I will leave it at that. I'm going to post later about something I made for lunch, picture to be included.

Sorry for any offense given! It is way too early to be honest with myself...own worst critic and all!!!

Fourth of July Fun!!!

Just some pictures for your enjoyment!