Wormy Triumph

Today may have been one of my best so far as an environmental educator. On Thursdays I work with a group of middle school students--mostly seventh graders--at a school in Bellevue. There are usually about 15 of them, which is considerably larger than most groups I deal with, and they also have a lot more energy. Though they're my most challenging group because of this energy, they are also the most fun, and I'm constantly striving to come up with solid lessons and activities for our Thursday club time.

The advisor had mentioned that last year the YESC instructor brought in a worm bin and it was a big hit, so I started building my lesson.  I put together a Powerpoint with facts about worms (they have no eyes, they're hermaphrodites, they breathe through their skin...) and about vermicomposting. I also brought along my small worm bin, and a great dirt pie snack. To top the dirt pie, I made my own jello worms, the recipe taken from Macheesmo.

Ingredients:
1 6 ounce package of red jello
4 envelopes of gelatin
4 cups boiling water
1 cup heavy cream
green and/or brown food coloring as needed
100 flexible plastic straws, and a container that will hold them all upright.
crushed Oreo cookies

You start by mixing the jello and gelatin together (don't add the water just yet!). When the gelatins are mixed, add 4 cups boiling water and stir until the gelatin is dissolved. Put this mixture into the fridge for 20-25 minutes to cool. During this cooling period, stretch the bendy part of all the straws, and bundle straws together. Find a container that will hold the straws upright while the jello hardens. After cooling period, add 1 cup heavy cream to the jello and stir well to combine. This product will be pretty red in color, and not very wormy. Add food coloring as needed--I found brown to work pretty well.

With the straws standing upright in your container of choice, and flexible ends down to ensure they get jello-ed and create worms with a bit of texture, pour jello-cream mixture to fill the container and straws! Then stick this whole jolly contraption into the fridge, and let the jello set for 6-8 hours. Then comes the fun part! First, find a way to free the bundle of straws from the container the jello has set in.

Now it's time to squeeze the jello from the straws. At first I thought I was too cool to use warm water to loosen the jello--and I had a lot of difficulty. It really works best to run 4-5 straws at a time under warm water to loosen the worms, then, starting at the empty end of the straw, gently squeeze the worm from the straw. Once you figure out the technique it goes pretty quickly. Squeeze the worms onto a plate and put them in the fridge for the warmed jello to re-solidify. You can add a little bit of dirt made from crushed oreos to give a more natural look to the worms.

Today's lesson about worms started with decomposer tag, then I did a short lesson in the classroom. At the very end I took one of my worms out of a bag, looked at everyone, and said "Have you ever seen How To Eat Fried Worms?" and put the worm in my mouth. I made a grossed-out face, then had to turn around so they wouldn't see how hard I was laughing. They definitely thought I'd eaten a real worm, and couldn't believe it! To wrap up the lesson each student got his or her own cup of dirt pie, topped with a couple of my worms. Overall, I'd say they were pretty impressed--many of the boys were planning on taking theirs home to gross out mom and dad.

Gratuitous Pictures of Dogs

This morning we got Alice a pink squeaky dinosaur toy. It didn't last long, as she promptly chewed off its toes. It did, however, mean that she sat in one place long enough for me to take a ton of few pictures.

This second one is my absolute favorite.

In the middle of our "chewing on dino" session, Alice stopped to chase the reflection of light coming from Melanie's cell phone. You can't see the light here, but she was leaping and scrambling against the wall trying to get to it.

And then there's Sammy [the semi-toothless wonder]. While he can be pretty fierce, the photo below is of a yawn, not one of his snarls at Alice as she tries to infringe on his space.

This is a much more common Sammy face. He's a sweetie.

Happy 2012 everyone!

Mushroom Tartlets for the New Year

Well, 2011 is coming to an end and it looks like 2012 is going to be a great year! I've got some big changes on the horizon, but until the details get hammered out mum's the word--stay tuned for future updates!

This afternoon my family is gathering at my grandma's house to celebrate my cousin Phillip joining the Marines, which will transition into our annual New Year's Eve gathering. I came across a recipe for mushroom tartlets yesterday and thought they sounded pretty good, and using the basic "mushroom in a pastry cup" idea, I created my own mix of ingredients.

These little guys are super easy.

Ingredients:
1 yellow onion, chopped into pretty small pieces
5 (or whatever you want!) pearl onions, cut into small pieces
8 ounces crimini mushrooms, chopped
a handful or so of fresh baby spinach, chopped
1/4 cup grated Swiss cheese
1/4 cup sour cream
1 sheet puff pastry, thawed and rolled to 16'' by 12'' and cut into 4'' by 4'' squares
feta cheese to top as needed

You start by caramelizing the onion until it's nice and golden. Then add the chopped mushrooms and cook them down until you're satisfied with them. It's important to get a lot of the moisture out, or they'll weep a lot when you bake the tartlets and make things too mushy.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Once the mushrooms have cooked down I chopped a bit of spinach and stirred it in to wilt. This mixture was then put aside and let cool so that the cheese and sour cream wouldn't completely melt/burn on the hot pan.
In the meantime I rolled out my puff pastry, cut the squares, and put them into a mini muffin pan. 1 sheet of pastry will make 12 cups (more if you do 3x3 squares, which would probably work just as well). I rolled the edges of my pastry cups, while my mom left a few with pointy edges. It's really up to you!

The little puff pastry cups then got a good dose of the mushroom filling--it's probably more than a tablespoon, I can't say for sure. Just divide evenly. I then sprinkled just a touch of feta cheese on top of the cups.

Bake 12-15 minutes, until the edges of the pastry are golden, and the feta on top is beginning to brown. Super easy, right?

I'm still here!

Have no fear, I'm still here! Well, kind of. In the past month I've:
-Finally finished a sewing project! I was an owl for Halloween, which meant sewing lots and lots of felt "feathers" onto a sweatshirt. It looks pretty cool. Alice had to help.

-Made some interesting hand pies to take for lunch. They were filled with peas, onion, and ricotta cheese.

-Worked, a lot. Like, 12 days straight before having a real weekend. This included planning a project on the Snoqualmie River where we had 60 teens plant nearly 1,000 trees!
-Become very familiar with the dog park. Alice has a ton of energy and getting her to run around with other dogs is a surefire way to wear her out. On Thursday morning we were at the dog park for nearly 2 hours! One of Alice's latest tricks is to jump on command--she gets some really good height!

-Gotten back into yoga. I'm trying to go at least 3 days a week, though this Thanksgiving break has kind of thrown me off.
-Visited Seattle's Volunteer Park and the beautiful conservatory.