Wednesday, March 30, 2011

One Good Pie

Pie Dough:  What I would do is just buy a pie crust, to not go through the hassle of making a shell.                             
1 1/4 cups flour                                                
1tsp baking powder
4 oz/115g unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/4 sugar
1egg yolk
1-2 tsp cold water

Filling:
 
2/3 cup heavy cream
2/3 cup milk
8oz/225g semisweet chocolate chopped
2 eggs

Crumble Topping:

 
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup toasted pecans
4oz/115g semisweet chocolate
3oz/85g amaretti cookies
1tsp unsweetened cocoa

Directions:
  • To make the pie dough, sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl, rub in the butter, and stir in the sugar, then add the egg and a little water to bring the dough together. Turn the dough out, and knead briefly. Wrap the dough and let chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
  • Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F/190 degrees C. Roll out dough and use to line a 9-inch/23cm loose-bottom tart pan. Prick the pastry shell with a fork. Line with parchment paper and fill with dried beans. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, remove from oven and take out the paper and beans. Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F.
  • Bring the heavy cream and milk to a boil in a pan, remove from the heat, and add chocolate. Stir until melted an smooth. Beat eggs and add to the chocolate mixture, mix thoroughly and pour into the shell. Bake for 15 minutes, remove from the oven, and let rest for an hour.
  • When you are ready to serve the pie, place the topping ingredients in a food processor and pulse to chop. (If you don't have a food processor, place the sugar in a large bowl, chop the nuts and chocolate with a large knife, and crush the cookies, then add to the bowl with the cocoa and mix well.) Sprinkle over the pie and then serve it in slices. 
I also added whipped cream by whipping 1 cup of heavy cream and 2 tbs of sugar and then put the crumble topping over that.
 
 

Saturday, March 26, 2011

The Loss of Thoughts

(Photo from Felipe, at Flickr)
It is a wide spread and wider spreading problem in our world today. People don't want to think. No one wants to apply themselves to anything to achieve something more than they already "have". Starting with the teenagers I see around me at school and ending with every last person here on earth. This is not some sort of government conspiracy that only applies to one select group of people and is being used to scare the world, no, this is a tragedy that I see, me, just a regular teenager. The young people I see around me, are the people who will soon be going out into the world and contributing what they have "achieved" to society. Whether it be nothing, which will cause them to only take up resources, space, and time, or whether it be great things that will bring change to the world. These people, our FUTURE, are sitting on their lazy butts, relying on the technology they have their eyes glued to twenty six hours of the day to get them through life. At this rate the IPhones and Roombas might as well take control of the country. I have encountered so many people who are not unable to think, but just refuse to.

We have actually come to that; thinking is too hard and takes too much of our energy. I find this to be devastatingly tragic incident. How will the world function if we can't even find enough courage, if you will let me put it that way, to analyze what will come out of our mouths before it does? If we can't answer a question on our homework that isn't directly given to us in the reading? If we can't analyze a situation and figure out the better thing to do? If we sit back and wait for someone else to do the work for us because we haven't the time, strength, energy, or whatever else excuse we can fabricate? What will happen when everyone ends up waiting for someone else to do something? The world will be filled with quite a bit of waiting, I'll tell you that.
 
My English teacher was telling us how she had substituted for another class which only had to copy down the definition of a word in the time span if ten minutes, and which could not do it, or should I say would not do it. This shows the sad reality of today's world. 


First of all, teachers and many authoritative figures have lost hope in the fact that the younger generation is even remotely able to think. Students, in turn, have lost the conviction that they can. Either that or they think that they are too "cool" to copy down a definition, or that texting their BFF all last night was much more important than studying for that math final. Young people have lost not only their ability to think, but also the ability to actually care about it being a problem.

"By far the most dangerous foe we have to fight is apathy- indifference from whatever cause, not from a lack of knowledge, but from carelessness, from absorption in other pursuits, from a contempt bred of self satisfaction” -William Osler 
Not the most dangerous I would say, but a mighty one.


"Is it ignorance or apathy? Hey, I don't know and I don't care."-Jimmy Buffett


But that is not even the scariest part. Sure it's bad that people are not contributing to the community, but it will all burn in the end anyways. God made us in His likeness, meaning that we have a mind and we can think. Proverbs 1:7 states that fools despise wisdom. And Proverbs 3:13 says "How blessed is the man who finds wisdom." God says, God says, that we are fools when we act in this apathetic and unwise way.

My history teacher, everyday, shows us that thinking is a very crucial skill to have. That if you can't think, you will be cheated, and worst of all you will be a hindrance to everyone around you. You will slow others down, and you will get nowhere yourself. You will not bring any glory to God. We waste our time, but is it really our time? I'll answer that: NO! How dare we sit around apathetically stealing God's time, His glory, His resources? How dare we?

The comforts of our time make a large contribution to this problem. But comforts and technologies are not to blame, despite popular choice of action. It's just a piece of matter, you cannot blame it for ruining the mind. What you can blame, although, is the mind that has been sucked into their comforts, that doesn't care about anything but pleasing itself and being as comfortable as possible. We have become so lazy. Lazy to the point where we are incapable of using our brain!


Multitasking








Monday, March 21, 2011

Consequences of Sin

Genesis 2:16-17 "The LORD God commanded the man, saying, 'From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.'" 

Genesis 5:5 "Adam lived 930 years and he died..."
Genesis 5:8 "Seth lived 912 years and he died..."
Genesis 5:11 "Enosh lived 950 years and he died..."
Genesis 5:14 "Kenan lived 910 years and he died..."
Genesis 5:17 "Mahalalel lived 895 years and he died..."
Genesis 5:20 "Jared lived 962 years and he died..."
Genesis 5:27 "Methuselah lived 969 and he died..."
Genesis 5:31 "Lamech lived 777 years and he died..."
Genesis 9:29 "So all the days of Noah were 950 years and he died..."
Genesis 23:2 "Sarah died in Kiriath-arba..."
Genesis 25:17 "Abraham breathed his last and died..."
. . .
Ecclesiastes 2:16 "And how the wise man and the fool alike die!"
Ecclesiastes 9:5 "For the living know they will die;"
. . . 
Isaiah 38:1 "'Set your house in order, for you shall die and not live.'"
Isaiah 51:6 "And its inhabitants will die in like manner."
. . . 
John 8:24 "'I go away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin...'" 
. . .
Hebrews 9:27 "And in as much as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment."
. . .
Jer 31:40 "But everyone will die for his own iniquity."

God wasn't kidding... 



Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Shoes?

Here is my collection of so called "shoes." I don't know if it is even possible to walk in some of them!








 And my personal favorite:

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Ever Happen To You?

Do you...
 
Check your phone for no reason , even though you know nobody texted you?

Go slightly out of your way to step on a crunchy looking leaf?
 

Always hear your name, when its not being called? 

Hate hearing your voice in recordings? 

Use the word "thingy" when you can't remember what something is called?

Pretend your writing in class so the teacher won't call on you?

Say the entire alphabet because you can't remember what letter comes next?

I know I do! 

Friday, March 11, 2011

Prayer

God does not need us to pray in order to inform Him of how things are going here on Earth. He is all knowing, already. 

We do not pray in order to somehow give advice to God on what He should do. "Behold I am the Lord, the God of all flesh, is anything too difficult for Me?" Jer 32:27

And we do not pray in order to somehow change God's mind about His plans. "The earth is the Lord's and all it contains, the world and those who dwell in it" Psalm 24:1 

We pray in order to change ourselves and conform to the ways and plans of God. "If you abide in Me, My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you" John 15:7


From the sermon on Wednesday by p. Vitaly R

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Less is More?

                                                
I mean I've always liked nice big cups to drink my tea from, but I think this is just going too far! How much drink does one person need?

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

WWI In One Simple Picture

This picture was part of an assignment we had to do for history class about WWI and draw pictures of each event. This is my summarizing picture :D

Saturday, March 5, 2011

. . .

Time

Time, it does not wait for you
It doesn't care if there's something new.
Time seems to be an endless thing
It doesn't make a sound, not a ring
Going on forever and ever
Doesn't care about you, or whatever.
It just goes on and on
It doesn't care if it's been too long
It doesn't care if the sun is out
Not even that the weather man doubts
It doesn't care if rain is pouring
It doesn't care if it's the morning
It doesn't care if you want it to go slower
It doesn't care that the sun is lower
It doesn't care that you want it to go faster
It doesn't care if there's a disaster
It won't care about the ocean
It doesn't care about commotion
It doesn't care about the sky 
It doesn't care about this guy
So if time doesn't care about you or me
That there's one thing we know, you see
I'm not trying to cross the line
But why exactly then, do we care about time?

I found this in my room, I wrote it a really long time ago. I thought it was pretty cute :D

Friday, March 4, 2011

Apples!

  • One medium apple with the skin contains 0.47 grams of protein, 95 calories, and 4.4 grams of dietary fiber. 
  • It is a good idea to eat apples with their skin. Almost half of the vitamin C content is just underneath the skin. Eating the skin also increases insoluble fiber content. Most of an apple's fragrance cells are also concentrated in the skin and as they ripen, the skin cells develop more aroma and flavor.
  • China produces more apples than any other country.
  • There are hundreds of varieties of apples on the market today, although most people have only tasted one or two of the most popular such as Red Delicious or Granny Smith. Apples can be sweet, tart, soft and smooth or crisp and crunchy, depending on the one you choose. There is an apple to suit almost everyone's taste.


  • The apple is the official state fruit of Washington, New York, Rhode Island, and West Virginia.

  • There are more than 7500 varieties of apples grown in the world. About 2500 varieties are grown in the United States.
  • "An apple a day will keep the doctor away." 
  • Apples are a source of both soluble and insoluble fiber. Soluble fiber such as pectin actually helps to prevent cholesterol buildup in the lining of blood vessel walls, thus reducing the incident of atherosclerosis and heart disease. The insoluble fiber in apples provides bulk in the intestinal tract, holding water to cleanse and move food quickly through the digestive system.

Here are some yummy sounding recipes with apples: