Chocolate Swirl Bread

I said it was a phase, but Ms. Vasak has declared it an obsession. Perhaps so. Whatever you want to call it, it's a darn good thing I'll be going back to work soon, because I have used more sticks of butter the past 10 days than I have graded papers. I could get a little too used to this.

This was just as complicated as the pretzels. I haven't tasted it yet, but am excited to try it. Getting it out of the Bundt pan will be an adventure.

This pic is after I made the dough from a yeast mixture and let it rise for two hours.


The chocolate sauce is mixed with cinnamon, which made my sample of it taste just like hot chocolate abuelita. I have a good feeling about this.


Chocolate hemorrhage while rolling it up.


Messy, messy. The discoloration comes from my sloppy work with chocolatey fingers.


Streusel topping with chocolate chips, chopped pecans, more cinnamon, more sugar, more butter. Nothin' but love. I initially thought I'd leave off the topping, but then I stopped being a moron.


Finished, slightly lopsided (who cares?) product

Holiday update, part 1

So I'm battling the boredom and grading things slowly. As in, I've done 13 papers out of 65. Next week is gonna hurt. But I have swum three times (ergo, three miles) since we got out. Both the husband and the kid have been sick, and I've managed to avoid it thus far. Keeping fingers crossed. Tomorrow I go to Orange for the day to see my father and go to church, and on Friday I spend Christmas Day with my bestie and her family.

Anyhoo, I have been cooking and baking a lot, and yesterday I bribed Harley to drink her TheraFlu by promising her homemade pretzels. This was stupid on many levels, including the fact that she had no appetite and that I'd never done this before. Here's the entry I wrote for my personal blog:

The first thing to know is that making pretzels from scratch is ridiculous. It takes about three hours from start to finish, and if you mess up one of the batches (as I did), you're left with approximately a dozen pretzels total. And they're gone in about 24 hours if you have three people in the house. You can do the math for your particular household, but it all adds to a whole lotta work for not a lotta profit.

The dough part is the easiest. You let it rise for a long time, punch it down, let it rise some more, and so on. Then you cut it into strips and shape them into pretzels. Bake those for four minutes at 475 degrees. I feel sure I've never baked anything at that temperature before; I may have gotten a sunburn from the radiant heat. Then you boil them for two minutes, then you dry them, then you do the eggwash and the salt, then you cook them for 20 minutes at 350, even though the recipe says 30. You still burn them. So then you lather, rinse, repeat with the other two batches and cook them for less time. Then you go to bed because you're exhausted.

No-bake cookies

Miggy, again, this one's for you. My mom used to make these every time it was her turn to provide dessert for my Girl Scout meetings. Speaking of which, who is it that's going to be our Girl Scout Cookie hook-up this year?

Chocolate Oatmeal No-Bake Cookies
2 c. sugar
1/2 c. cocoa
1/2 c. milk
1 stick margarine
pinch salt
3 c. oats
1 c. chopped pecans
1 tsp. vanilla

Mix first five ingredients in a pan and bring to a gentle boil, stirring often. Remove from fire and let stand for 5 minutes.

Add last three ingredients, mix well.

Using a spoon, drop balls onto waxed paper. Allow to cool overnight. Makes 4-5 dozen, depending on how much goop you eat as you spoon out the servings.

Sushi trip 12.17.09

Ms. Arroyo and I had a blast with Erick, Rodrigo, Jassmin, Sammie, Emily, and Bianca yesterday feasting on some sushi. Emily's enthusiasm for kimchi inspired me to retry it, and I liked it much better than I did 10 years ago. So thank you for that, Emily. Sammie's adorable insistence on desserts led us to discover the life-changing joy that is fried Oreos. And apparently, Rodrigo likes to wear ladies' sunglasses in the backseat of my car. Just found that picture on the camera.

Movie recommendations

If you find yourself with some extra time over the holiday break, here are some of my favorite movies you may not have seen.

The Godfather trilogy, drama
Better off Dead, comedy
As Good as it Gets, drama/comedy
The Painted Veil, drama
Swimming to Cambodia, monologue
The Shawshank Redemption, drama
Garden State, drama
On Golden Pond, drama/comedy
The Silence of the Lambs, suspense
Atonement, drama

Also, many of the books available for Book of Choice selection have been made into great films, like The Joy Luck Club and The Kite Runner. Maybe it would be worth some extra credit if you posted a thoughtful analytical paragraph about it as a comment to this post.

Snickerdoodles

Miggy requested the cookie recipes from today's class. This is my grandmother's recipe.

1 c. shortening
1 1/2 c. sugar
2 eggs
2 3/4 c. flour
2 tsp. cream of tartar (found in the spice aisle)
1 tsp. soda
1/2 tsp. salt
Cinnamon sugar mix (to make this yourself, mix together about a cup of sugar with a couple tablespoons of cinnamon, or you could buy a mix at the store, but this is cheaper)

Mix shortening, sugar and eggs. Separately, mix flour, cream of tartar, soda and salt. Stir two mixtures together. Chill, then roll into balls and roll in mixture of cinnamon and sugar.

Bake at 375 for 7-8 minutes. (I take them out at 7 1/2 minutes, and they don't usually look quite done yet. So leave them on the cookie sheet for about 10 minutes, because they'll still cook a little more. This seems to keep them from hardening. Pull them off the sheet and let cool for a good while.

A Christmas miracle!

This photo represents something that has never, ever been done before during my ten years of teaching: two of my three classes turned in 100 percent of their major argument papers that were due today. You have NO idea how happy this made me. As for the class with one paper left out there, I expect it tomorrow. Thank you all for working so hard, pushing yourself to revise in the true sense of the word, and formatting the paper like it's supposed to be. You guys rock!

Upcoming assessments

Here are the grades left in this term and how they will count in your final average.

Wednesday, Dec. 9 = Final Draft of Argument Paper (major grade)

Thursday, Dec. 10 = Timed Argument Essay 3 (classwork grade)

Friday, Dec. 11 = Vocab 3.3 quiz

Monday, Dec. 14 = Book of Choice presentations (major grade)

Tuesday, Dec. 15 = Argument and Logical Fallacies quiz (1/3 of exam grade), AND Allusions Project Presentations (major grade)

Wednesday / Thursday / Friday = Supervocab test (1/3 of exam grade) and Timed Argument Essay 4 (1/3 of exam grade)

A note about major grades: The only other major grade we've had so far this six weeks was the Slaughterhouse-Five test. So if you tanked that one, you need to be sure and nail these other three.

Here is the finals schedule:
Wednesday = Periods 1, 4, 8
Thursday = Periods 2, 5, 9
Friday = Periods 3, 7, staff/student volleyball game
(Don't nag me; I already signed up.)

More from Friday

Willy and his snowman. It lasted until the end of the day, and then I noticed someone had knocked it off the ledge.


Snow made the children do strange things.


Thank you, child laborers, for helping me assemble those recommendation letters!

3rd period, Friday, Dec. 4

Beanie babies at work

Members of Silver Dragons and Endless pose for the Food Bank photographer (and Mr. Sheridan with my camera).


Tai, Adglaedt, and Ashley are ready to serve the community and look cute doing it!


Symone may never eat pinto beans again.


I focus very hard on bean bagging. It's serious stuff.


Fonzie and Karaem rock their hairnets.


Look how excited Mrs. Honore is to be scooping beans. She says this is her true calling in life.


Banancy y los frijoles. I don't know why I wrote that in Spanish.


Alberto helped with the clean up, with a smile, of course.

Ice skating stills