Amateur Hour: Bread Stick Batons!

Setting Up: What Kind of Food Items?

1 Packet of active dry yeast

1 teaspoon of sugar

1 cup of warm water (roughly 110 degrees Fahrenheit)

1 teaspoon of grated lemon peel

1 teaspoon of salt

1 1/2 teaspoons of chopped fresh or dry rosemary

2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon of olive oil (this will make sense later)

2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

Setting Up: What Sort of Equipment?

1 large mixing bowl

Measuring cups

1 lemon zester (ignore the grater in the picture, I had other ideas)

Measuring spoons

Wooden spoon

The Steps:

1. Sprinkle one packet of yeast and one teaspoon of sugar into your 1 cup of warm water (put all of this into your large mixing bowl)

2. Mix in 2 tablespoons of oil (that's it) and 1 1/2 cups of flour

3. Beat with your wooden spoon until your dough is glossy and stretchy

4. Mix in the rest of your flour (that's 1 cup)

Note: The following is the instructions to kneading by hand as opposed to kneading with a dough hook. If you want to do it the other way, say so in the comment and I'll consult this cook book that I'm using and I'll summarize it (because the books gives you entire paragraphs).

5. Knead until smooth and springy on a floured surface

6. Pat into a 6x6 square (to the best of your ability. Judging from the picture below, I failed miserably to create a square).

7. Brush the top of your dough with the rest of your olive oil (that's 1 teaspoon) and let it sit and rise for about 45 minutes (unless you're lazy like me, then you can just jump right in)

8. Get out three large cookie sheets and gently rub about 2 tablespoons of flour.

9. Cut your dough into fourths. Length-wise or like it's pictured above

(I didn't read the directions like I should have, so I almost forgot to put the olive oil on. Sorry for any confusion!)

10. Cut each quarter into 8 strips like the above photo is showing. Place each of these strips on one of your three cookie sheets. I recommend placing them as close together as they can get without touching. Maybe you can manage with two cookie sheets! But I must say, the recipe recommends that they be kept 1/2 an inch apart.

11. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

12. Bake for 20-25 minutes (they'll be brown).

This was my first time making these. I think I'll try and do a better job of following the instructions next time....

--Jude

Amateur Hour: Chocolate Banana Cupcakes!

Setting Up: What Kind of Food Items?

1 box of Devil's Food cake mix

3 mashed bananas

3/4 cup of buttermilk

1/2 of olive oil

4 large eggs

1 can of frosting

Sprinkles (opt.)

Setting Up: What Sort of Equipment?

1 large mixing bowl

1 spatula

Measuring cups

2 Muffin pans

Muffin cups

The Steps:

1. Mash your bananas in your large mixing bowl

2. Add the cake mix, buttermilk, olive oil, eggs

3. Put the cups in the muffin tray

4. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

5. Scoop some batter into each cup until they are half-way to 2/3 of the way full

6. When your oven is preheated, put your cupcake batter in the oven and let it bake for 18-22 minutes

7. When the cupcakes are done, frost them and put sprinkles on them if that floats your boat.

I ended up with enough batter to make a small tray of mini muffins. They're all gone now.

It's not a complicated recipe, but it's quite fun!

--Jude

Amateur Hour: French Bread!

Setting Up: What Kind of Food Items?

1 Package of active dry yeast

1/4 cup of warm water (about 110 degrees Fahrenheit)

3 cups of all-purpose flower

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1-1 1/4 cups of ice-cold water

Setting Up: What Sort of Equipment?

1 large bowl

Measuring cups

A good spoon (wooden one recommended)

1 cookie sheet

The Steps:

When I made this, I followed the instructions it gave for mixing it by hand. So these are the instructions that I give you.

1. Add three cups of flour

2. Add 1 teaspoon each of sugar and salt

3. Add the yeast and one cup of ice water. Use your wooden spoon to mix everything together

4. Mix everything until the dough is shiny, elastic, and slightly sticky (like the photo above)

Note: Add more water as needed. You need to make sure you get every bit of flour into your mixture.

5. Cover your bowl with plastic wrap and let your dough rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours in a warm, draft-free place.

Note: As you can see in the picture, I put my dough out on my porch in the sun. It's not the warmest outside, but the sun keeps it warm enough to rise.

6. While you are waiting for your dough to rise, get busy with something else. Here's how I passed the time: I took pictures of my puppy!

7. After your dough is done rising, it should look a little something like this (see photo above)

8. Split your dough in half and shape them like the photo below.

9. Don't grease the pan just yet. You're going to need to let them rise for another 30 minutes.

10. After they're done rising, they'll look a little something like this (except your will probably be a little more equal, because you're cool like that).

11. Time to preheat your oven! Set it to 475 degrees Fahrenheit.

12. As soon as your dough is done rising, place it in the preheated oven and immediately reduce your temperature to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

13. Bake for 20-30 minutes. You'll know that it's done when it's browner than when you started. Sort of like the picture above.

Thank you for looking at this recipe! I do hope that you decide to give it a try someday.

--Jude

Pop Singers

Good evening, everyone! Or, good morning, depending on what time you are reading this.

I have finally scheduled my Pop Singers audition! It will happen on September 17 at 12:40pm. Here is the process that everyone who auditions must go through:

1. Sing the pre-chosen song of your choice. Here's mine:

I do hope I do it justice!

2. Note-matching:

Basically, the people who will be present for my audition will play notes on the piano and I have to match them to the best of my ability with my voice. Last time I auditioned, I think she said it was to figure out my range.

3. Sight-reading:

Basically, I'll be given a piece I've never seen before (unless I'm lucky) and I have to try and sing it. This is the part I'm absolutely nervous about. I'm a horrible sight-reader.

Luckily, I have time, so I can practice matching the notes and then maybe that will pay off when it comes to sight-reading.

Any way, I just wanted to post something tonight. I mean, it's the weekend. I have a couple days to do what little homework I have. I really don't have an excuse not to write a post other than "I didn't feel like it."

You can expect at least one post from me tomorrow, because I'll be baking like crazy! I'm going to be making French bread and bread sticks (so I can use up all of that yeast that I found in my cupboard) and cup cakes (because I volunteered to make two dozen of them). So this could be quite eventful.

Outside of blogging, I'll be finishing up a sock monkey for a friend, continuing to re-write 'Murder by Rulers,' and doing homework. That just about sums up my weekend! I hope yours goes quite well!

--Jude

An Idea to Pose for the Future

Dear real-life friends (yes, even those who aren't reading this),

I have this unoriginal idea that I would like to present to you (and if you're one of those friends that doesn't know about this blog, I will approach you with this idea in the future).

I have spent the last few weeks watching every single one of the Vlogbrothers/Nerdfighters videos on YouTube. COUGH nerd COUGH! Don't judge... The early videos consists of John Green (the author of 'Looking for Alaska,' 'An Abundance of Katherines,' and 'Paper Towns') making videos in order to correspond with his brother Hank Green (famous for his songs and work with Eco Geek). This inspired me to want to do something like this with you guys when we're all away embarking on our own adventures (be that college, work, traveling...). I love emailing you guys, but this might be something that's sort of fun to try.

I am not an expert at making videos. I might have to invest in a video camera (or at least editing software) when I get to college and then my job will be made easier.

As I watch the Vlogbrothers, I can't help but think that this is a wonderful idea! I really don't want to lose touch with you guys. You have shaped who I am and if you're not at least a video presence in my life, that makes me sad (that makes me sad just thinking about it).

So let me know what you think of this! Any ideas as to how this could work or other ideas as to how to make this idea better?

Love,

Jude

A Mid-Week Check-In

Hello everyone!

I'm pretty much half-way through my second week of school it's going pretty swell. I have gained so much respect for my English teacher because she liked Mystery Science Theater 3000 and we might take a day or two to watch a few episodes! If you are not familiar with MST3K, they are available on Netflix for instant play. I hope you don't mind for hilarious commentary on severely bad movies!

Everything is going great when it comes to preparing for our concert in a month. I feel like

I'm doing an okay job at keeping up with everyone else in the group, which is my top concern. I'm not trying to be the top player-- to be honest, that would be quite an endeavor, because there are a few people that have been playing their instruments since birth (practically) and other people that started when I did, but they were more devoted to playing and performing than I was at that age. In a nutshell, I'm just trying to stay afloat.

Now, let's step away from school for a few minutes...

Outside of school, I continue to read (and also write reviews for those books). I'm working on 'The Lovely Bones' right now. I made the mistake and watched the movie before I read the book, so now I'm going to make up for my mistake (sort of) and still read the book. You'll see that review in at least a couple weeks. I'm busy, but I do try and read for at least one hour a day, so I do make daily progress.

I'm also writing.

A few years ago (we're coming in on three years!), I wrote a story called 'Murder by Rulers.' Since then, I have re-written it several times and submitted it to a national contest (nothing came of that contest, but it was national. There are hundreds of thousands of writers out there!). Now, I'm back to the drawing board... or, part-way. I'm trying to do a complete re-write.

One day, I looked down at one of the few hard copies that I've printed out. I opened it up, and can you guess what I saw as soon as I opened up to a random page? You've got it.

A typo.

The horror! I did a silent groan to myself and then I picked it up to see what other kind of damage had occurred. I read a short part and I thought of a couple things I could change about that part. That's when I decided that instead of editing, I would continue editing, but take entire pages and rewrite them. Make them better and more current. Of course, they'll never be perfect, but they can be improved.

Thank you for taking the time to read this! I really appreciate it.

--Jude

P.S. The picture above is supposed to portray concentrated writing. I apologize for the crappy quality, it was taken with my web cam. Plus, it's totally staged :)

P.P.S. I feel like I learned something in algebra. I was able to teach my little sister about SOH CAH TOA and have it make a little bit of sense. I feel very accomplished!

A Review of 'Autobiography of a Face' by Lucy Grealy

I have finished another one! I’m insanely happy!

“Lucy Grealy’s ruthless self-examination, rich fantasy life, and great derring-do inform this powerful memoir about the premium we put on beauty and on a woman’s face in particular. It took Lucy twenty years of living with a distorted self-image and more than thirty reconstructive procedures before she could come to terms with her appearance after childhood surgery left her jaw disfigured. As a young girl she absorbed the searing pain of peer rejection and the guilty pleasures of wanting to be special. Later she internalized the paralyzing fear of never being loved. Heroically and poignantly, she learned to define herself from the inside out.

This memoir arrives at a time when the worship of beauty in our culture is at all-time high, a time when more and more women seek physical perfection. Lucy Grealy awakens in us the difficult truth that beauty, finally, is to be found deep within.”

I used to think that I hated non-fiction, but memoirs seem to be the exception. Memoirs are cool!

I think a lot of us can relate to this in one way or another. I myself identified with the feelings of not feeling pretty enough for the world or that one special guy. Lucy’s words were painful to read, because as I kept reading and growing more and more attached to her, I kept thinking ‘How can anyone not love you?” She is honest and knowledgeable. She is a beautiful person!

It’s sad to think that there are people that are still out there that judge people based on their face. It really doesn’t matter whether that girl/boy has that angelic face that you see in your dreams. When it comes down to it, if you become involved with that person, would you stay even if they treat you horribly? Probably not, because you would get sick of it.

This book was definitely eye-opening. I highly recommend that you pick it up.

I’m sorry I haven’t written very much for this book. This post is supposed to be about this memoir, and I’m afraid it’s going to turn into a rant that can’t be controlled. I don’t want that because I’ll only look back and say to myself “I just didn’t know when to stop” and you’ll probably get really bored with it.

Have a good week everyone! It’s labor day tomorrow, which means no school or work! Huzzah!

--Jude

P.S. What do you think of the make-over? That brown background just wasn’t doing it for me. I think this feels a little cooler and calmer. But if you don’t like it, I’ll try to compromise it the best I can.

Julia Nunes

'Balloons' by Julia Nunes. She's one of my favorites!

'August' by Julia Nunes.

Both of these are only some of my favorite songs of hers. I really want to get her CD someday!

State Fair

Oh, the Great Minnesota Get-Together!

I went to the State Fair with my sister, Shannon, and my neighbor, Faye. When we first walked in, we were pretty much in awe of everything. Of course we'd been there before, but still, there's so much there and you're trying to decide what you want to do. We went into Heritage Square first (very Scandinavian). We didn't spend too much time there. Instead, we went farther in and we decided to go on a sky ride (or whatever they want to call it). It was really cool! I had never ridden on that before. It was basically a big hovering box attached to a cable, but it was still really cool!

(Left to Right) Me, Shannon (this picture is courtesy of Faye)

They also had many bonsai trees on display in the horticulture building. I was not even aware of this building, much less the bonsai tree judging!

We also went to the dairy building. In the dairy building, there's this lady that stands in a rotating, refrigerated room and carves people's heads out of big hunks of butter. Looking at all that butter: eewww.... Watching her carve a face: actually quite interesting.

Then we moved on to the animals. Starting with horses!

They weren't all walking around like this. This particular horse just had a show to get to!

This was the biggest boar at the fair. His name is Reggie. He's 5 1/2 years old and he weighs 1,450 pounds. He tried to get up and see everybody while we were there, but he struggled to do so with all of his weight. It was the saddest thing I had ever seen... why do people do this to these guys?

Sleeping sheep make me very happy!

Sheep almost-kisses

Dred-lock sheep

Sheep that remind me of the KKK with their hoods and other coverings. I've never seen them do this to a sheep. It was really quite frightening.

Mid-shearing. Just look at the bottoms of the legs! They look like leg-warmers!

The biggest safety-pin I have ever see. I am still in awe.

A very sociable goat! He tried to eat my bag :D

At one angle, he looked like an over-sized rabbit. But he's not. He's a goat.

I thought the bulls only had nose-rings in movies! I was proven wrong!

Pretty cows :)

Goat judging

A very large, very feathery chicken

I just love ducks. They're so very pleasant!

A very fancy hat!

We went to this place where they sold Greek food and they were having karaoke. Needless to say, we stayed for a while-- it was a lot of fun! No, we didn't get up and sing anything.

It was a very fun day. I was very tired by the end. We went and got our bucket of Sweet Martha's cookies and then headed home so we could eat them with milk and take a nap/unwind.

Happy Labor Day everyone! Wait, is Labor Day even a happy day? I guess we'll just go with it for now. Either way, have a good long weekend!

--Jude

D.I.S.C.

I probably have one of the coolest Physics classes so far.

We haven't done anything with eggs or skateboards just yet, but instead we're learning about personality types. I love this very much! It's fun to get inside people's heads! That's why I'm sad that I can't take Psychology this year...

There is a purpose for this though! I wanted to show you what we used to determine our own personality types. Perhaps if you've finished your homework, you could read through this and determine for yourself (and perhaps you could leave a comment below as to what you came up with!).

The D Personality:

Task-oriented/outgoing

Some Synonyms: Dominant, Driving, Doers

"D types can be very self-sufficient, relying on their natural abilities and talents to get them through difficult situations... They are never satisfied with the status quo. They are constantly looking for new and better ideas and ways of doing things."

Basic Needs: Challenge, Control, Choices

The I Personality:

People-oriented/Outgoing

Some Synonyms: Inspirational, Influencing, Impulsive

"High I's are very friendly. They seem to talk to or wave to everyone they see. They know no strangers. After you have been with them five minutes, you feel like you have known them all your life."

Basic Needs: Recognition, Approval, Popularity

The S Personality

People-oriented/Reserved

Some Synonyms: Steady, Stable, Supportive

"An S is very orderly and efficient, preferring to know that things are running smoothly... They prefer the standard, tried and proven way of doing things... One of their mottos is, 'Working together we can do it.'"

(Hmm... interesting motto...)

Basic Needs: Appreciation, Security, Approval

The C Personality

Task-oriented/Reserved

Some Synonyms: Competent, Cautious, Careful

"The C type is usually extremely gifted. They are very bright and have a high capacity for intellectual achievement. They know how to take a big project and break it down into little components."

Basic Needs: Quality answers, Excellence, Value

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So... what's your personality type?

I did this several hours before now, and I (and one other person) determined that I have a large mixture of "S" and "C." Now you know.

Of course, everyone on earth has a little bit of all of these personality types. There are just certain areas that are more apparent than the rest.

Yay learning!

I'll speak with you soon! Until then...

Your madly blogging,

--Jude