Home Lunches in Chicago

Just recently a school in Chicago banned lunches from home because they weren't "nutritious like our lunches."

That is a big lie. Since I am in school I know how bad the lunches are. They are disgusting. The vegetables are pale, the rice too thick and mushy, most of the food is burned, and some of the fruit is bruised and rotten. Call that nutritious? The colors of the vegetables and fruit just aren't natural! How hard is it to keep from burning when all they do is reheat the food? Most of the food has grease on it. YUCK!

A girl in my class uses a napkin to blot up the grease. It is soaked through.

All of us kids are forced to eat this crap.

There is one girl at my school, she shall remain nameless, always brings lunch from home. She has never bought a school lunch this year. If the Montgomery School Board were to ban lunches from home I don't know what she would do. What would happen to kids who just got braces? They can't chew. It hurts too much (not that I have had braces, but a girl in my class got them.) What if there is something they can't eat? What would they eat?

People should he able to bring lunches from home. It's not like we're bringing in Burger King, though it might not be worse than what we're forced to eat!

I pack my own lunches. I make a sandwich, fruit, vegetables and maybe a dessert like cookies. I do it because I know what's good for me. The overcooked and greasy school food is definitely not very healthy!

That is just my opinion. You can put your opinion in the comments.

Brown Sugar Pound Cake

About last week I made some more cupcakes. I made Brown Sugar Pound Cakes. Yummy!!! They were very sticky the day after I made them. = ) They were VERY delicious without the icing. You can make the icing if you want. It was a very easy recipe to make. If you wanted to you could make an actual cake. I made cupcakes. They are a very tasty snack. I hope you enjoy them.

(Sorry, no pictures again)

More Cupcakes!!!!

Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I haven't had the time to make anything with state testing last month.

I made Martha Stewart's Allergen-Free Chocolate Cupcakes or Divvies Cupcakes as they are called on the link. I made them for my youngest, little sister's birthday. They were delicious! They didn't have any eggs or milk! Instead they had vegi oil and distiled white vinegar. When I was in 4th grade I made these cupcakes for my science fair project (actually my mom made the I just put them in the oven).

I didn't win anything, but I had fun!

Sorry there are no pictures. They got devoured before I could get a picture. =P

Catch Up Time!

I'm so sorry i haven't posted in a while. I've been busy. I have been doing a lot of baking since then.

First i made a Chocolate Creme Pie. YUM! It was very rich and creamy. The whole family loved it.

On New Years Eve i made Jumbo Cupcakes with Marshmallow filling. Very sticky to make, and to eat. = )

My favorite was a Brownie Pie. There's a funny story with that. It was brownie pie with chocolate chips.

I had already put it in the oven for about 50 min and i stuck a knife in to see if it was ready. It came out dirty. I cooked it for another 5 min. It came out dirty again. I put it in for another 5 min. It still came out dirty. I finally put it in for 10 min. It still came out dirty. So I just took it out. Then i found out it was chocolate chips i had added. Every time I put the knife in, I hit chocolate chips! Oops. The crust was a little over cooked, but the brownie was still good!

I also made Molasses-Ginger cupcakes. Yummy! I also made Triple-Citrus cupcakes with a Lemon-Orange glaze. I ran out of fresh lemon juice. I also made some yummy Peanut Butter Cookie Cupcakes. A few months ago (October) I made Strawberry Cupcakes. Sometime last year I made White Cupcakes. I messed up on making stiff peaks with the egg whites.

Here is a good story.
We had left over bread dough and I wanted to make bread sticks for dinner that night. My mom said ok. I rolled them out and put them on a pizza stone to rise. I put them in the oven to cook and my mom said she'd take it out. About 30 min later she realized she left them in the oven. Ten minutes over the time needed to cook.

That's all I have for now! I'll try to keep updated. Bye!

Sugar Cookies

I like making cookies so this was fun.
One day we were bored with nothing to do so I said "Why don't we make some sugar cookies?"
My mom said o.k so we started. We made Alton Brown sugar cookies. We took the suggestions to add vanilla extract and orange zest.

The hardest part was sifting the flour because our sifter kept clogging. These were the hard kind so we could cut them into different shapes. We did an igloo. penguin, flower, and a heart. We did lots of them.They were DELICIOUS! They also tasted a little bit softer after a day.

I had fun decorating them with violet/pink icing. I hope you like this recipe too!

Watermelon Sorbet

Watermelon is delicious. It is sweet and a bit sour. It's really juicy. The best part about watermelon is the flavor. I love eating watermelon.

It's hot outside this summer and I thought watermelon sorbet would be great to cool off with. Sorbet doesn't have milk in it since I'm lactose intolerant.

The first step to make watermelon sorbet is to make a simple syrup. If you want to make a simple syrup you do a 2 to 1 ratio of sugar to water. For example, a half cup of sugar to a fourth cup of water. Put it on medium heat and stir til it's thick and all the sugar is dissolved. Then you let it set til it's cooled off.

Next, we pureed watermelon. We added a bit of lemon juice and the simple syrup.

Finally, we added it to the ice cream maker and let it mix.

The watermelon sorbet was very sweet. I would put in less of the simple syrup. I used a little less than half a cup.

If you want to make this, make sure to use less sugar and taste it as you add the sugar. It gets sweeter as it gets cold.

Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

Every Saturday, we have pizza and games. We play new games as a family. We are learning to play one called The Great Dalmuti. It's a game my parents like to play. They played it in college.

I like playing the games because it's fun. It's a tradition I want to teach my kids.

We make our own pizzas, unless my mom is sick. We usually make three large pizzas. This is enough to feed all of us.

The recipe we use for pizza dough is from Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day. It's easy! The easiest part is adding the ingredients. You add them in order: liquid to dry in a bowl. Then you mix it with a spoon and not your hands! I used my hands and it looked like I had a glove of dough! YUK! Then, you let it rise for 4 hours. Then it's ready for pizza! yummy! It makes enough for four large pizzas. My mom saves the rest of the dough for rolls for Sunday dinner.

We use a marinara sauce. Victoria marinara is my favorite but it's expensive. Instead, we use the sauce with the dude on it.

My favorite kind has lots of cheese, pepperoni and olives. We also make pepperoni, cheese, combo, and last week my dad had buffalo chicken pizza. That pizza had buffalo chicken sauce, chicken, cheese, mushrooms and olives. I picked an olive off and it was pretty spicey! My mom's favorite pizza has tomatoes and basil. I like it, too, except for the tomatoes.