I haven’t really had any baking experiences out side of class lately, so I guess I’ll just tell you about what we made during class. The assignment was a bar cookie that we looked up during class. Our “group” decided, Mike wanted to do it, to make lemon bars. Just like HALF the class did. It wasn’t too hard of a recipe; the only thing was there were two parts to it; the lemon topping, and the shortbread, which it topped. For the shortbread I just put butter, flour, and sugar into a food processor and blended that all together. The lemon topping asked for eggs, granulated sugar, lemon juice (which we substituted with lime juice), flour and confectioners sugar. Seems easy enough. But I guess when it said add 1/3 cups flour, it wasn’t clear enough. I won’t name names, but someone ended up putting in 1-½ cups of flour. I wouldn’t say it made the cookies horrible, but it wasn’t really a cookie, more like a cake. Normal lemon bars are usually really rich and powerful, making it hard to eat multiple at a time. The ones we had… I bet you could go through the entire tray before you even tasted a hint of lemon (or lime in this case) because of how the flour overpowered the taste. Of course that’s an over exaggeration, but the taste was much weaker than what an average lemon bar would be. Eric F.

I haven’t really had any baking experiences out side of class lately, so I guess I’ll just tell you about what we made during class. The assignment was a bar cookie that we looked up during class. Our “group” decided, Mike wanted to do it, to make lemon bars. Just like HALF the class did. It wasn’t too hard of a recipe; the only thing was there were two parts to it; the lemon topping, and the shortbread, which it topped. For the shortbread I just put butter, flour, and sugar into a food processor and blended that all together. The lemon topping asked for eggs, granulated sugar, lemon juice (which we substituted with lime juice), flour and confectioners sugar. Seems easy enough. But I guess when it said add 1/3 cups flour, it wasn’t clear enough. I won’t name names, but someone ended up putting in 1-½ cups of flour. I wouldn’t say it made the cookies horrible, but it wasn’t really a cookie, more like a cake. Normal lemon bars are usually really rich and powerful, making it hard to eat multiple at a time. The ones we had… I bet you could go through the entire tray before you even tasted a hint of lemon (or lime in this case) because of how the flour overpowered the taste. Of course that’s an over exaggeration, but the taste was much weaker than what an average lemon bar would be. Eric F.

KFC is a fast food restaurant that you see very often when driving down a main strip. It is a really popular for its fried chicken. They have fried chicken in every variation possible. Think of any kind of fried chicken and they most likely have it. Most of there chicken I must admit is good, however some of their sides are questionable. The fries, mashed potatoes, and biscuits are always safe options and generally taste good. However some of the things, one in particular are questionable options. I have learned this from a really bad experience. One time we took a family vacation with all my cousins down to North Carolina. It was a very long drive and took almost a whole entire day. We became very hungry around dinnertime and decided to stop somewhere quick that way we could keep driving and arrive quickly to our destination. However, we were in a very poor part of Virginia with not much around. A KFC’s lights popped up into our view so that’s where we decided to stop. I was a young kid about the age of nine, and my food interest basically consisted of macaroni and cheese and grilled cheese. Luckily KFC was offering a special of macaroni and cheese for a limited time. So my cousin and I decided to try it. It was nothing special however, didn’t taste bad I’d say it was just average. However about 3 hours after, once we arrived at North Carolina, me and cousin began puking and had high fevers. We also had the shivers and couldn’t move off the bed. Our parents wondered what possible could have caused this, and figured it out that the only thing we ate similar was the mac and cheese from KFC. It was a horrible experience and ruined two days of our vacation. We were so sick that we actually slept through a small hurricane. Cailah C

This week, I decided to take it into my own hands in exploring some culinary adventures in my house. My dad was away on business and my mom found herself not wanting to make food for just the two of us, so I stepped up. The first day that my mom didn’t want to cook, I made myself some chicken stir-fry. I know that’s not really baking and pastry but no need to fret, for I made chocolate chip cookies for dessert. Doing that reminded me of the first time I’ve ever made chocolate chip cookies. I made the dough from scratch, and when I went to put them into the oven they looked fine. Tasted fine. But when I took them out after the required time, they were still in balls. Just cooked cookie dough wads. The ones I made this week though turned out much better. More pancaked shaped. Which was my next task. I had to wake up for soccer practice at around 7 and I had some lucky charms. But when I came home I was really craving some good ole fashion pancakes. I’ve made pancakes plenty of times at home before, but I decided to mix it up this time. Throwing in some cinnamon and vanilla and bananas. I’m not going to brag but… wow. Other than that however I basically ate fast food and ice cream. So not the most healthy of weeks for me, but a good one. Eric F.

Joshua Kaufman

Class 1

Mrs. H

4/27/12

                                                My Assistance Was Needed

Dear Mrs. Hoagland,

            My food experience was on April 26, 2012. I joined a group at Newtown High School called the Paladar. It is every week and this week it was Thursday. So what its about is advance culinary about 6 students find a recipe they want to make and the prepare it for fellow members and staff. Therefore, I’m just in a free period hanging out because I have period 4 and 5 free then I decide at the last 10 minutes of period 4 to go down to the culinary room to get some food before everyone comes to get there own. I went in and started to talk to people and then people started to rush in and then the got so swamped that I got put to work. I was there for food and got stuck putting sauce, sour cream, and other items into cups. Then I had to get equipment for people who needed it. I even packaged up food and gave it to the people. Then when it started to slow down because 1^st lunch was almost over I went and looked at the menu because I was there for food. I saw sweet and sour meatball grinder. I was like sweet with mash potatoes and cranberry sauce. I was in heaven. So go over to the station and Tom Chin made it. I ordered one and I was thinking that the mash potatoes and the cranberry sauce were on the side. Boy was I wrong. He starts to make it gets some bread takes out some of the inside bread and then stuffed it with mash potatoes. After that tom put the sweet and sour meatballs and cranberry sauce on the grinder. My reaction was this is going to suck. It looked cool, but all the combinations through me off. He packaged it up and said here you go. I took a seat and ate it and my mouth was in heaven all the flavors came at me at once. I was like oh my god and kept going and before I knew what I was doing I bit my finger because I ate it so fast and I wanted more. Then I went in said to tom “great sub”. He say “I know”. After that I stayed for the rest of the lunch waves and helped out. Then after school I saw Mrs. Hoagland and the only reason I’m having this in my story is to hold Mrs. Hoagland to her word. She said “Thank You Josh! We owe you a MEAL!” So I hope you don’t forget about me Mrs. Hoagland.

            From,

                        Josh

This is an era of unhealthy food choices—fast food, fake food, and bagged food. All terrible choices, a choice that is causing our society to die off younger because of diseases and look worse because our bodies’ metabolism is slowing down from all of the dangerous substances that we are putting inside it. When people don’t have enough time to cook something and sit and eat to have for dinner, it leads to something to “pop” in the microwave or oven to warm up. Usually, it’s something that comes out of a box, like Ramen noodles or pre-made, frozen pizza. Food used to mean something, cooking it and eating it with your family, telling them the highs and lows of your day. But now, food is just something to eat when you’re hungry and that is what is killing our society. Whenever we get hungry we eat something, and when it’s not a meal time, we end up eating something out of a bag or box, mean it’s artificial. These foods hurt our bodies more and more, and they are only causing diseases for us. Our society is becoming more and more obese every day because we are all too lazy to cook something on our own. Also, because even our fruits and vegetables aren’t organic anymore, there are different hormones in them to make them grow faster or sweeter or larger, we think it helps the company but really, it’s only hurting our bodies. WE as the people of the country need to learn how to remain a healthy eating diet, no matter what it is, to make our country and ourselves as individuals healthier.

Sam R.

Happy Easter. So over the break for Easter I got to do almost nothing related to the holiday. On Saturday I had 2 friends over for a sleep over. And on Sunday I had fish for dinner. Fish on Easter. Buttered and Salmon along with mashed potatoes and broccoli. Nothing special about it except for the occasion. My mom decided she wasn't going to make a special dinner for the evening and she told me but still felt bad. Instead of a good meal, I got to go on a shopping spree. I guess Easter wasn't such a bad turn out after all.
Grandon S.