Ibby's Notebook

my life, my poetry, and my randomness

Gourmet Cooking and Beds November 9, 2009

So we finished our snack unit in Home Ec class. We had lots of yummy snacks including nachos, spam sushi (which I didn’t care for), mini pizzas, onion rings, caramel apple witches, bruchetta (my favorite!) and balsamic strawberry sorbet. That one sounds weird but tastes really good. Our new unit is Thanksgiving/seasonal dishes. Everyone finds a recipe that fits the theme and contains a whole grain, fruit, and/or vegetable. Then they type it up and we all vote on 5-7 recipes. My recipe was Spicy Sweet Potato Wedges. It’s really simple-it’s just sweet potato wedges tossed with sugar, salt, red pepper and black pepper, and then you bake it @ 500 degrees.

Oh man, it was SO hard to get out of bed this morning! Speaking of which, we got a bunkbed! yay! I’m on the bottom and Andrew (lil bro) is on the top. It feels like we’re sleeping in a cabin or someone else’s room.  But very cozy!

Ibby out.

 

NaNoWriMo November 4, 2009

Filed under: General — ibby @ 5:08 pm

Guess what, everybody? November is National Novel Writing Month. There’s this really cool website where you write a novel in a month, and I’m participating in the Young Writers Program that they have. Check it out!

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

And one for the Young Writers…

http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/

Happy writing!

Ibby

 

Bored October 18, 2009

Filed under: Random — ibby @ 1:43 pm

tum tee tum…la la la…tra la la…whee…

 

Life October 3, 2009

Filed under: Life — ibby @ 8:19 am

Ah, it’s Saturday! The day when I can do nothing…except breathing, eating, sleeping, staying alive, etc…

la la la…oh, yesterday we had a Club Faire at our school! There was a juggling club and a tech club and poetry club and a drama club and an electric moose club (that’s industrial tech) and many, many more. I signed up for a school magazine club. we meet on Wednesdays, except I forgot what room…

I’m learning Spanish at home. And Russian, too. Spanish because we’re going on a mission trip next year to Nicaragua, and Russian because I’m half russian and I want to learn the language.

Toodles,

Ibby

 

Recipes September 19, 2009

Filed under: General — ibby @ 9:28 am
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Okay, so my last post was about making scones and lemon curd at school. I brought the recipe home and made them for breakfast today. They were a total success, so I wanted to share them with you. By the way, the lemon curd should be made the day/night before, because it needs to chill.

Lemon Curd

2 1/2 t. finely grated fresh lemon zest

1/2 c. fresh lemon juice

1/2 c. plus 3 T. sugar

2 large eggs

pinch of salt

1/4 cup plus 3 T. unsalted butter, cut into tablesp0on pieces

~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~<>~

1. Whisk together zest, lemon juice, sugar, eggs, and a pinch of salt in a 2-quart heavy saucepan.

2. Add butter all at once and cook over moderately low heat, whisking constantly, until curd is thick enough to hold marks of whisk and first bubbles appear on surface, about 10 min. (that means whisk until it starts bubbling, then whisk for ten minutes.)

3. Immediately pour curd through a fine sieve into a bowl, then chill, covered.

Cooks’ note: Makes about 1-1/2 cups. Lemon curd keeps, covered and chilled, 1 week.

*****

Cream Scones

2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour

1 t. cream of tartar

1/2 t. baking soda

1/2 t. table salt

1 T. granulated sugar

4 T. unsalted butter, chilled adn cut into 1/2-inch pieces

3/4 c. heavy cream

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

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1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

2. Sift first 5 ingredients into large bowl.

3. With pastry blender (but I used a fork, either works well), cut butter into flour mixture until mixture resembles coarse meal with a few slightly larger butter lumps.

4. Make a well in the center of mixture and pour in heavy cream and eggs.

5. Blend ingredients together with a rubber spatula into a soft, slightly wet dough.

6. Turn dough onto a well-floured work surface.

7. Form the dough into a disk and cut the disk into eight pieces.

8. Separate each of the sections.

9. Bake until scones are lightly brown, 10-12 minutes.

10. Serve immediately.

 

School Electives September 16, 2009

Filed under: Life — ibby @ 3:42 pm
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I am SO lucky to have lots of electives at my school! Last year I took Drama, Art, Keyboarding, and Home Ec. Other options include Industrial Tech, Latin, Spanish, Japanese, French, Computers, Leadership, Choir, and Band. This semester, my electives are Gourmet Cooking and Web Design. in Web Design we made a web page! It was cool. Right now we’re learning how to make text different colors. And today in Cooking, our kitchen made and ate cream scones with lemon curd (a lemon sauce). It was SO GOOD!

Happy Hump Day,

Ibby out.

 

This is weird… September 11, 2009

Filed under: Uncategorized — ibby @ 6:27 am
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My math teacher showed me this:

Two days ago it was

9/9/09

the 9th day of

the 9th month of

the two thousand and 9th year,

which happened to fall on

a Wednesday (which has 9 letters) in

the month of September (which also has 9 letters), which was

the 252nd day of the year.

Add up 2+5+2 and you get?

9.

Isn’t that weird? But it’s cool, too.

Ibby out.

 

Kayaking September 6, 2009

On Saturday our family went kayaking in the morning. We’ve got a red tandem kayak (which means it seats two people), and my dad loves it. So I went first with Dad, all dressed up in a wetsuit, foot warmers, and a life jacket. It’s always very foggy there, but I stayed dry and warm. We paddled for maybe 30-45 minutes before coming back on the shore. When we paddled back into the harbor, it was like passing through, in my dad’s words, a war zone. There must have been a school of fish there, because there were birds and sea lions everywhere. Pelicans were dive-bombing like crazy, one about 15 feet in front of us. sea lions popped their whiskery heads up near the kayak, then splashed down again, only to pop up some feet away. It was kind of funny.

Our dog Rusty hates the water, but when he saw me and Dad come toward the shore, he bounded into the water to meet us. After that, Andrew took his turn, and then we met some relatives and played on the beach. I collected some shells. At about 12, we ate at a fish and  chips place. It was a good morning.

Ibby out.

 

Foods I Really Like September 3, 2009

This might be a rather short post, but here goes…

FOODS I REALLY LIKE

artichokes shreddedwheat mangoes peanutbutter kiwi fruitsmoothies bratwurst bananas cashews pistachios peachyogurt lemons lemonade peaches raspberries limetortillachips chocolatepudding powdereddonuts chowmein orangechicken garlicbread toast oatmealraisincookies coffeecake quiche tacoswithcheeselettucesalsachipsandolives olives strawberryjam mashedpotatoes boiledpotatoes lemoncakewithraspberryfilling icewater pasta jollyranchers peppermints and triscuts.

Bon appetit!

ibby out.

 

One-liner August 24, 2009

Filed under: Comedy, Random — ibby @ 4:56 pm
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Dan Antopolski won an Edinburgh comedy contest with this line:

“Hedgehogs. Why can’t they just share the hedge?”

:)      -Ibby