New Plan: Offseason Plan

After starting school, adventures and blog writing time both disappeared very quickly, involved between about a hundred pages of reading each week and building this site for my final project! While I was strongly considering giving up my blog entirely (at least until school is done, in another year and a half), Steamboat Willie pointed out that I could keep going and model my blog after Kevin Slowey's offseason blog. So, from now on I will have to consider this my "offseason" blog, to be maintained between school semesters.

Chocolate and wine

Today was my last Christmas present: Henry's parents gave he and I tickets to a wine and chocolate class. I was pretty nervous to go to this particular one; although I usually love the wine classes I take at the Cooks of Crocus Hill, this particular class was at the Lakeville Arts Center and I learned that my boss and his wife frequently attend their wine classes. To add to the complications, one of my least favorite (and my boss' most favored) projects is running a nonprofit. His most recent project for me was to arrange a fundraising wine tasting through the Lakeville Art Center, so I was dreading the possibility of my entire Christmas present evening being consumed with discussions with my boss about a project that regularly destroys my work ethic and morale. Luckily, they picked today as the day to skip and so I happily ate far too much chocolate and drank a few too many glasses of wine.

I primarily learned two things in this class: first of all, I really like port wine. I've never tried it before, and to be perfectly honest next time I try it (when I haven't already tried 4-5 glasses of wine) it may be less delicious, but it was something completely different and pretty darn good. We tried a few different varieties, one from Australia and 3 from Portugual, and in the end Henry won us a bottle of my favorite type! Secondly, I learned that there is a fantastic chocolate shop in Burnsville. After trying a few types of truffles, I think my Valentine's Day plans are set: order a large box of chocolates (they have everything from French silk milk chocolate truffles to caramel s'more candy) and drink my new bottle of port!

Food experiments: Attempting a heart attack

All week, I was doing a good job of eating healthy and exercising. This weekend, I took a flying leap off the bandwagon in some pretty darn unhealthy experiments.

For starters, Henry's friend sold us a deep fryer at a deep discount on the condition that he was allowed to come and eat some of the food we made with it. Saturday night's dinner was made up entirely of deep fried experiments, from trying to create the perfect onion ring to succeeding in making fair-quality cheese curds. Topping that off with a full yellow pepper may have added a few nutrients, but I'm pretty sure there wasn't much I could do to redeem the day.

Today was worse. Deep-frying experiments finished, we hauled the deep fryer to the superbowl party and threw in everything from cheese curds and onion rings to jalapeno poppers, mozzerella sticks and fried chicken. On top of that, my planned experiment for the week was Chicago-style deep dish pizza.

I found a great blog entry detailing how to make Chicago-style deep dish pizza, which I have to say I was pretty impressed with. I used about a pound and a half of mozzerella and colby jack cheese, a bunch of canadian bacon, a red pepper, a bunch of onion and tomato. I also made my own sauce and crust. The weak point of the pizza was by far the crust, which was a little soggy and didn't rise nearly as much as I think it should have. The homemade sauce and the toppings were pretty good, though, and with a little tweaking I'm hopful for the crust! (Picture will be following as soon as I can manage to get it off my phone!)

Hello, Homework. I'm not sure I've missed you.

I have to say, I have thoroughly enjoyed having no homework for the past 3 1/2 years. Having my evenings to myself and being able to read whatever I wanted has been absolutely wonderful.

And in spite of that, I decided this year to go back to school. I'm working towards a Graduate Certificate in Instructional Design from UND, and I have attended a whole one class session so far. And so far, I'm remembering why I always liked the beginning of the semester on some level. I'm in just one online class, on Instructional Games and Simulations. I was pretty terrified leading up to the first day, on a lot of levels. For one, I wasn't sure I was prepared for homework after 3 years away. For another, the graduate school office was full of screwups during my application process, from losing my application to repeatedly failing to change my address. But, my first class dispelled my fears. I think the first week is usually one of the best--I'm not tired yet from the homework, the material is new and fascinating, and I'm excited about the projects that haven't been able to stress me out yet.

I sincerely hope that this course stays this interesting and exciting. In my undergraduate career, I had a few professors who were consistently able to make their classes so interesting that I was sad to be done with them at the end of the semester. For a few of them, I still have and refer to my notes and my textbook sometimes. Based on my first readings and sessions, this course has the potential to be another one. Games and learning has been a topic that has interested me for awhile, as games seem like a great way to make learning more interesting. When I'm trying daily to create materials to teach people to use (often boring) software, interesting can be a precious quality. The course seems like it's going to actually really address pratical issues of how I can incoporate games into a course successully, and actually use them to support learning. On top of that, it appears that during each class period we get to spend some time actually playing a variety of games, so we can get more familiar with all the different aspects and ways that games can help with learning. At least last week, that made it a lot more bearable to still be locked in a conference room at work to go to class at 7 pm!

My weekend was meant to be full of a few more adventures, but most of them were put off for now. The snowboarding lesson I was supposed to have on Saturday got postponed after I showed up and couldn't find a parking place within half a mile of the hill, and I'm postponing my cooking experiments until I've finished quite a few leftovers. Until then, I'm stuck with homework--but at least right now, it's still interesting!

Comfort Foods: the Best Mac and Cheese

I have a hard time dealing with winter. I'm one of those people who is usually still wrapped up in a blanket if it's 70 degrees and sunny outside, so come weeks like this when it snows more days than it doesn't and I know it's only a matter of time before the temperature get stuck in the negatives, I start to lose a lot of my willpower. On the negative side, that usually means that my house is a lot less clean and I'm a little concerned about what it will mean for the homework I'm going to be getting next week. But on the positive side, it can end up with some spectacularly tasty (if not very healthy) comfort food that makes me feel warm enough that I can stand the ice crystals on the windows.

This last week, Henry and I went to a Comfort Foods class at the Cooks of Crocus Hill. Their classes are always spectacular, and we've always especially enjoyed ones such as the one we took this week, which pairs food with both wine and beer. These are always great for quite a few reasons--they're a fun night out with a great 5 or 6 course meal, allow us to taste new food and learn how to make it, and expose us to new wines and beers that we otherwise probably wouldn't find to try. This course was taught by Chef Mike Shannon, sommelier Leslee Miller and cicerone Michael Agnew. All three of them regularly impress me with their skills, excitement and their passion to share their knowledge, and knowing that they will be teaching the class can frequently be enough to swing my decision to take it. This time was no disappointment; the food and wine was spectacular, and I even found some beer that I didn't mind drinking, which is a big step for me!

While there is a lot of knowledge I could share after my experience in this class, I'm choosing to share my favorite experience from the class, which was the macaroni and cheese. I know it sounds like a simple dish, but I have to say that this was far and above the best mac and cheese I have ever tasted. It is by no means healthy, and so January may not be the best time to be sharing this, but YUM. It's worth it. If you're trying to lose weight, it's worth the extra few hours in the gym to work it off. It's also worth throwing your diet into the wind for a week or so. Not that I mean to be a bad influence--but sometimes I just can't help it!

Mike Shannon's Four Cheese Mac and Cheese
This makes a 9x13 pan of incredibly solid mac and cheese. When I say solid, I mean he turned the pan on end and it didn't even move.

Ingredients

• 8 oz. macaroni, penne or ziti
• 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt, plus more for cooking pasta
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup finely chopped shallots
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cups dry white wine
• 1 cup milk
• 2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
• 8 ounces Gruyere, grated
• 4 ounces white cheddar, grated
• 2 tablespoons gorgonzola, crumbled
• 2 tablespoons minced fresh chives
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne
• 2 eggs, whipped
• 1/2 cup panko bread crumbs
• 1/4 cup parmesan, grated

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Cook the noodles in a large pot of boiling, well-salted water until just cooked, ardoun 7-12 minutes. Drain, and set aside.
3. In a large saute pan over medium-high heat, melt 2 tablespoons butter. Add the shallots and cook until just browned, about 3 minutes.
4. Sprinkle the warmed butter with your flour and then cook, stirring continuously, for one minute. Add the wine, milk and cream and stir well.
5. Pour in the Gruyere, cheddar and gorgonzola cheese, and stir until melted. Add 2 tablespoons chives, mustard, 1/4 teaspoon salt and cayenne. Stir cooked pasta into cheese mixture, then add eggs, mix well and pour all into a shallow baking dish.
6. Melt remaining butter and combine with panko. Salt to taste.
7. Sprinkle bread crumb mixture over pasta and cheese and bake in 9x13 pan until top is browned and cheese is bubbling, 15-20 minutes.
8. Eat way, way too much. Don't feel guilty.

White Hot Chocolate: Mugg and Bean style

One of my longtime bucket list goals has been to learn how to make white hot chocolate well. It's a treat that I first ran across when I was studying abroad, and fell head over heels in love with. I spent 6 weeks in South Africa the summer after my sophomore year in college, and now, I still miss the food from my favorite restaurant there--the Mugg and Bean. It was a little chain of coffee shops that made the best pancakes and muffins, dessert (of which a serving was equivalent to 3 desserts in a US restaurant), and especially white hot chocolate. I blame the Mugg and Bean for a large portion of the 10 pounds I gained overseas, but ever since I've been hoping I could figure out how to duplicate some of the recipes that I've been missing. While I have yet to make the chocolate chip muffins the size of a softball or the amazing whole grain pancakes, this week I finally attempted a recipe for white hot chocolate that made me feel like I was back in Durban, skipping my morning homework in favor of breakfast at Musgrave Centre.

A fair warning--if you don't really like white chocolate or if you're completely dedicated to normal hot chocolate, this is not for you. If you like white chocolate, are willing to risk needing an extra hour or so at the gym and are ok with adventuring a little with your hot drinks, this is absolutely worth a try. It's decadent, warming enough to forget the snow for awhile and a pretty darn fun change from Swiss Miss.

White Hot Chocolate
Yum. I made this with 2% milk and heavy whipping cream, but I think I could have easily omitted most if not all of the whipping cream without being upset. There's just so much chocolate in this that it's still plenty decadent!

Ingredients

• 12 ounces good quality white chocolate, coarsely chopped. (I learned that you can tell good white chocolate if the main ingredient has something to do with cocoa or cocoa butter.)
• 6 cups whole milk (I reduced this down to 2% and it was plenty rich and creamy for me).
• 2 cups heavy cream (I used this, but next time I'll try reducing or omitting it).
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract. (I forgot this at first, but when I tasted it went back and added some. It's absolutely a necessary ingredient in my opinion.)
• Whipped cream, peppermint sticks or shaved chocolate for garnish (I skipped all these and was completely fine).

Directions

1. Place white chocolate in a medium miuxing bowl and set aside. This is what you'll be mixing the full batch of hot chocolate in, so make sure it's big enough.
2. Place milk and cream in a medium sauce pan and heat over medium heat, stirring frequently to prevent scalding, until warm and the sides are becoming bubbly. My recipe said this was about 4 minutes, but for me it took a little longer.
3. Immediately pour over chocolate in bowl. Stir until chocolate melts and combines with milk. Add the vanilla and stir until frothy. This takes a minute or two and is a good arm workout to make you feel a little better about the massive amount of really tasty chocolate and cream you're about to ingest!
4. Garnish as needed and stir immediately. This one is good to drink pretty quickly before it cools, as a bit of a skin develops after it sits for awhile. Some people may not mind that, but the boys declared it too weird to drink!

I was thrilled to learn how to make white hot chocolate well--that's half of a goal to cross of my bucket list. Now, if anyone has any advice on duplicating malva pudding or Mugg and Bean's kahlua freezers or chocolate chip muffins, I will be set (and about 50 pounds heavier)!

Snowboarding part 2

I have graduated to being able to snowboard down a hill (rather than have Henry pull me around in his flat yard) AND I didn't even hurt myself! Except for every muscle in my body, which definitely hurt for a few days.

I'm seeing the potential to enjoy snowboarding, especially if I can strengthen my legs and get snowpants that fit me so snow doesn't continually get inside my clothes. Right now, my proud moment was going about 15 feet without falling down--it did take me about an hour to make it down the hill that kids sled down in Lakeville 3 times. But, I've been working hard at the gym to strengthen my legs so that it isn't so difficult for me to turn, stop and stand back up once I've fallen, and I'm hoping that will start to make a difference. At my last outing, I fell down quite a few times on purpose after finding out that my legs were way too tired to turn me the way I wanted to go. I still consider that a success, as I substituted falling in the snow for running into trees (or Henry)!

I have the next week off for Christmas, so I'm hoping to get to try again--maybe I'll make it a quarter of the way down the hill this time!

Merry Christmas!