Cantuccini (an Italian Cookie)

For my first "new" recipe, I decided to try baking some cookies that my mom always makes around Christmas time. The recipe isn't all that new, but it is new to me. I've always been afraid to try it because it is from this book:

And, if you know anything about Julia Child, it's probably that she doesn't mess around when it comes to food. Luckily, this recipe ended up being a lot easier than I thought it would be. And, it didn't hurt that my mom agreed to help me get started.

The recipe is for Cantuccini, which is an Italian cookie usually referred to as biscotti (apparently all Italian cookies are called biscotti), and is found on page 313 of the book. These cookies are baked twice, so they are very hard and crunchy, and are meant for dipping. They are delicious! I'm including a paraphrased version of the recipe, but there are a lot of good tips in the book that I'm leaving out.

The ingredients are:
2 c. all-purpose flour
3/4 c. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 c. unblanched, whole almonds
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper.
2. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a large bowl. Then, stir in the almonds.
3. Whisk eggs and vanilla in a small bowl. Then, stir them into the flour mixture. The dough will be very dry.
4. Place on a lightly floured table or board and knead until smooth(-ish).
5. Divide the dough in half, and and form two 12-inch-long logs. They should be 2 inches wide and 1 inch high.
6. 1st Baking-Place the logs on the baking sheet and bake for 30 minutes, or until they have risen a little bit and are firm to the touch. Then remove and let them cool completely (at least 30 minutes).
7. 2nd Baking- With a serrated knife, cut the logs diagonally into 1/4-inch-thick slices.
Place them on the parchment lined pan, and then bake for 10-15 minutes, until they are crisp and golden. Let them cool on the pans.It was a pretty time-intensive recipe, but it really wasn't all that hard. The cookies will last for a month if you keep them in an air-tight container, but ours didn't last nearly that long. I'm really glad that I tried this recipe. It was definitely a good way to start off my edible experiments!

Edible Experiments

Well, hello there blog, and any remaining readers. Sorry for disappearing for so long. It's been a rough and busy couple of months, and, honestly, I just didn't feel like trying to keep up with this. But, that will soon be changing!

For the conference that I attended over the summer, I designed (and am now carrying out) a classroom research project. I'm having my 10th grade class set up personal blogs. They have to choose a topic, do research on that topic, and post weekly. As far as rationale, a blog (when topic-driven) naturally leads one through the entire writing process. My hypothesis is that allowing students to write and learn about a topic they are interested in, with a real audience to consider, will make writing more enjoyable for them. We'll see how it goes, but so far, so good.

In an effort to be a good teacher, I'm setting up a blog for this project too. It's called Edible Experiments. For this blog, I'm going to try one new recipe every week, and post the recipe/pictures/reactions about it. Really, this is part of me achieving my goal of learning more about cooking. Because we're using the blogs for class, it is private, but I thought it would probably be a good idea to post them here too. Maybe it will help me to write more regularly.

That being said, I will stress that I am not a food blogger. I'm not a talented cook. I'm just trying to learn something new, and I'm pretty excited about it!

On My Mind Today

I like Thanksgiving. It's such a sweet, unassuming holiday. It's so much less commercial and more meaningful. It's all about spending time with those you love and showing gratitude for all that we have. I know I often get caught up in the negative things that happen in life, but looking at the things we're grateful for is so much more enjoyable.

I'm very grateful for...

• Mike! He's amazing, and he makes me happy every single day.
  
• My family- my immediate family, my in-laws, and especially my little family with Mike.
• For the steal of a deal we're getting on our apartment. Life would be hard if we had to pay exorbitant rent like some of my friends do.
• That my job is no longer miserable. Things have gotten much better.
• That I got to meet (and talk to!) Jeff Wilhelm. He has really inspired me and given me a lot of direction in my career.
• That Martina won Miss Rodeo Utah. It was amazing to watch someone I care about so much achieve something that meant so much to them.
• For my book club. I've made some wonderful friends, and I feel like it's been a good source of personal growth.
• That I've been able to travel so much in the last year: Alaska, San Francisco, L.A., and Park City (less glamorous, I know) a few times.
• For old friends who I know will always be around. I realized when I saw a friend today just how many times I run into someone and introduce them to Mike as someone I've been friends with forever. Thanks for sticking around.
  
• That Mike agrees that watching Jurassic Park at Thanksgiving should be a family tradition.
  

Quote of the Week

Student: If I pee my pants during my presentation, will you give me a good grade because you feel bad for me?

Things Have Been...

... a little scary around here.

If you haven't seen or heard much of us lately, it's because we're both swamped.
Mike is busy, busy, busy with school. He's doing really great with it though, and is being a very dedicated student.

As for me. Well, so far this year I've had:

• kids chewing tobacco in class
• a student so incensed that I would have the audacity to take her phone away (after 2 warnings to put it away) that she walked out
• a student who, when I asked him why he wasn't doing his work, told me he would do enough assignments/activities to get by, just not any of the "stupid" ones
• a mouthy Justin Bieber look alike
• an excellent view of the shed where kids go to smoke while they skip class
  
• a major curriculum change, oh, 2 days before school started.

Which really all means that it has been a hectic beginning. I'm trying to remember a chart my mentor teacher once showed me about the emotional patterns of teaching. I think it looked something like this:

So, there's definitely a low to be expected. But, I'm a bit concerned, because my year started out more like this:

I guess the good thing is that there's an upward trend. I think the 12th graders are just being too cool for school. Things seem to be getting better. I just keep reminding myself to embrace the chaos and just do my best to be happy. Things may be kind of scary and hard, but that's no reason not to be happy.

Splurge

I found this in a catalog a few weeks ago. I think it's adorable, so I decided to order the pattern.

I don't know when it will happen, but I am very excited to make it!

Currently Reading...

Poor abandoned blog... I haven't had much to say lately. I caught a cold more or less on the first day of school and have been just trying to get by since then. Luckily, I'm feeling better, and since my mom requested a blog post to entertain her, I thought I would share some neat facts from (one of) the book(s) I'm currently reading, The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson.

The Mother Tongue is all about the English language, but also talks about the linguistic characteristics of other languages too. It's super interesting. I've been reading it for awhile (non-fiction always seems to take longer), and I am constantly telling Mike about all the things I'm learning from it. And now, I present them to you.

• English is the only language that has (or needs) a thesaurus (14).
• There are more people studying English in China than there are people in the United States (13).
  
• There are approximately 2,700 languages in the world... but that is only a best guess (37).
• All languages evolve, but Icelandic, for some reason hasn't really evolved much. Bryson claims that if Leif Ericson reappeared, he could communicate without too many problems (37).
• Spelling was pretty much anyone's best guess, until the printing press was invented. Perhaps unfortunately, the printing press was invented during a pretty tumultuous time for the English language. That's partially why there are some unusual spellings- a lot of our spellings reflect pronunciation of the 1400s (126).
• Relatedly, silent letters (like the "k" in knight and knees or "g" in gnat) were once pronounced (128).
  
• If you think texting abbreviations are irritating, you might be surprised to find that in the early 1900s the Simplified Spelling Board (supported by Andrew Carnegie and Theodore Roosevelt, among others) lobbied for the simplified spellings of certain words. They won a few battles, giving dignity to the shorter version of words that have two spellings (ax/axe, judgment/judgement, catalog/catalogue, program/programme, etc.). They also had a lot of support behind words like live, tho, thru, wisht, gard, giv, hav, and ar. But, they pushed their luck on words like tuf, def, yu, and filosophy. That, and the advent of World War I stopped their efforts (130).

I'm about half way done. It's totally nerdy, but I love reading things like this. Thanks for humoring me.