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... 



Thursday, March 17, 2011