The latest Star Trek movie hits theatres tonight. It’s time you learn the basics to defending yourself from those large-foreheaded aliens. Check out whenkingonsattack.com for the hilarious “training” video clips part of the latest Burger King campaign. My favourite was the Talaxian Limb Paralysis (a swift kick to the “low orbiting asteroids” and the “typewriter attack” :D ).
As a Trekkie since the debut of Star Trek: The Next Generation, I’m looking forward to this new, younger cast. Hopefully this flick will rejuvenate the series of Star Trek movies, and we can look forward to many more to come! I’ll be seeing the new movie on Saturday (as much as I want to see it tonight). But now I’m really tempted to get some of those collector glasses from BK…
Okay, perhaps I’m not that precise, but I did fix a clock today! I’m so proud of myself. Today was the Kitchen Stuff Plus Outlet on Orfus Road had one of their summer sidewalk sales. I got up bright and early (well at least for me) at 9am, but by the time I got there around 10:30 the place was swarmed with frantic customers eager to find a good deal.
I managed to score a stainless steel wall clock and a Chef’n salt grinder for $5; a large collapsible storage box, two awesome non-skid mixing bowls with lids, a white/stainless steel toothbrush holder, an OXO soap squirting dish sponge for $10; a pig-shaped scrubby holder with a scrubby for $2; and a slim sliding fine grater and a stainless steel kitchen utensil holder together for $5. Not a bad deal if I do say so myself. Especially considering that those utensil holders are usually $10-20, and the OXO kitchen gadgets run between $5-20 each.
Of course when I got home I realized that there was a piece missing from the grater: the little thingie that mandolin slicers usually have to push down the food. No biggie, I still got an cool grater that comes with a storage container. The worst was realizing that the wall clock I purchased didn’t work. When I put the battery in the second had was moving, but on the same second and not revolving around the clock! I’m thinking great… now what I’m I going to do with two broken clocks (including the one I had before to replace this one with). So I mustered up the courage and patience and took the whole thing apart. I mean it worked when I bought my travel mug from the last Kitchen Stuff Plus sidewalk sale (the screw in the lid just needed to be tightened in order to get the open/close mechanism to work), so I thought why not?
Now I had no idea what I was doing. Sure I broke a couple of the plastic latches when I was trying to figure out how to get the darn clock open so I can take a look at the gears, but that’s what tape’s for! After pulling out the gears, resetting them, looking at the power source, five times, I gave up. I figured I’d put a battery in and check to see if by some great force that it would start working properly… and it did! It’s now hanging on my living room wall tick-tocking away. :)
Ironically, when I put batteries back into my old clock which stopped working, it started working again… :|
No, I’m not referring to the Degrassi film (for you knowledgeable 20-something Canadians out there). I’m finally done teacher’s college! These eight months just flew by. Queen’s is an amazing university and I learned so much from the program and on my teaching placements. I just need to keep my fingers crossed that I get a permanent job come September. Thank goodness that I’m trained in a subject area that’s in need of teachers.
The Faculty of Education got us grad cakes after our final assembly (vanilla and chocolate… of course I had one slice of each). And now I’m back home in Toronto. Strangely enough I’m going to miss Kingston, Ontario (but not the tiny flies that seemed to have infested the lakeshore). It’s a nice town and I had the best landlords, housemate and classmates while I was there. :)
And now on to my mask that I told you I was artsing around with last week for one of my final projects. I bring you “The Mask of Teaching”, complete with a mini-scroll on my thoughts on education (thanks goes out to Stephan for the lovely hand writing ;) ).
School is winding down for me, so of course that means that my procrastination is making its rounds. One of my final projects include a creative way to display my professional development. Initially I chose to do a painting, but my art supplies were to big to lug back to Kingston with me from Toronto. So as I was browsing Dollarama, I got inspired to make my own tribal mask (the “mask of teaching” if you will) after seeing some similar trinkets in the shop. My idea was cemented (pun intended) when I noticed that Dollarama had natural modelling clay on sale for $1 (I would think they would bump up that price like they have with some other items in the store). So I picked up two packs, got some beads, paint brushes, paints and a pack of foam brushes and I was on my way.
I don’t think I ever worked with this type of clay since grade school, so my face lit up once I opened the package and got my hands in it. It was surprisingly easy to work with (as long as water was on hand), and I was able to make various shapes for all the facial features of my mask. I’m not sure how long it’s going to take to dry, but it better be soon because I have to hand this project in by the beginning of next week.
I still have to decorate it of course, so once my mask is dry I’ll have loads of fun doing that. Yay for arts and crafts (and Dollarama)!
So as I was leafing through a copy of Metro I ran across a recipe for a pineapple upside-down cake. And not just any pineapple upside-down cake: a Jamaican pineapple upside down cake! So natually I had to tear the recipe out of the paper. I tried out the recipe a couple weeks ago and it came out superb. I think the last time that I attempted to make a pineapple upside-down cake was when I was 8-years-old. This recipe is adapted from Lucinda’s Authentic Jamaican Kitchenby Lucinda Scala Quinn. I used less granulated sugar than the white cake portion of original recipe suggested (about 1/2 cup instead of 3/4 cup) and it still tasted great, with just enough sweetness (esp. because of all the brown sugar on top). Instead of vegetable oil I used Canola oil, and instead of whole milk I used 2%. I also added some maraschino cherries in the pineapple “holes” to add to the visual presentation. I used the Earth Chef‘s awesome 11″ skillet to bake this recipe in, so make sure that you have a skillet that’s oven safe. This recipe will definitely be a hit.
Yield: 8-10 servings
Ingredients:
1/4 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
14 oz (400 mL) can pineapple slices
1/2 cup pecan halves
1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 large egg
Finely grated zest of 1 lime
1 tbsp lime juice
1 tsp vanilla extract
Directions:
Melt butter in 10-inch, cast-iron skillet on medium heat. Remove from burner. Sprinkle in brown sugar evenly. Arrange pineapple slices in pan (8 slices fit in my pan). Place one maraschino cherry in the middle of each pineapple ring. Arrange pecans in the remaining spaces around pineapple rings.
In large bowl, whisk together flour, granulated sugar, baking powder and salt. Add milk and oil. Beat with electric mixer on medium speed 1 minute. Scrape bowl. Add egg, zest, juice and vanilla. Beat just until well combined.
Pour batter evenly over pineapple in pan. Bake in preheated 350F oven until tester inserted into centre of cake comes out clean and top of cake is golden (about 25 to 30 minutes). Remove from oven and let the pan sit for 5 minutes. Carefully invert onto circular platter. Eat warm or at room temperature.
Okay, perhaps I’m not that precise, but I did fix a clock today! I’m so proud of myself. Today was the Kitchen Stuff Plus Outlet on 
