Making Mini Apple Sauce Muffins!

For this practical lesson we were doing the usual but with a twist! We were going to make apple sauce muffins but each kitchen had a different substitute ingredient for example my group had soy milk instead of regular milk and had canola oil instead of butter. After successfully making our mini muffins we rotated around the kitchens and tasted all the mini muffins. Because this took longer than expected to make and we still needed to taste the muffins we had to sadly take out the muffins early so they were pretty much all under cooked. Next time I would leave them in for longer and add more cinnamon as flavour was serious lacking in the muffins.

Group 1 : Original Muffins 

Group 2 : Butter & Wholemeal flour

Group 3 : Canola & Wholemeal flour

Group 4 : Butter & Soy 

My group : Soy & Canola 

Ingredients:
1 c Apple sauce
2 T Butter, melted & slightly cooled, or canola, a neutral oil
1 Egg, lightly beaten
1/2 c milk or soy milk
1 t vanilla essence
1 c wholemeal flour or white flour
1/2 c rolled oats
1/4 c sugar
1 t baking powder
1/2 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon

Cooking Method:
1. Preheat oven to 180°C and grease mini muffin tins or line with paper cases.

2. In a small bowl, use a fork to whisk together the apple sauce, melted butter, milk, egg and vanilla (liquid ingredients)

3. Add liquid ingredients to the flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and sugar - gently fold together.

4. Fill the muffin tins / paper cases (mini ones) to 3/4 full.

5. Bake about 10 minutes or until cooked.

6. Remove from oven. Let cool for 2 minutes before removing from muffin tins.

Here are some photos of the cooking process and the finished result:

Hope you enjoy.

Spag bol - Cooking

In today's practical cooking class, we were making spaghetti bolognese. While making this my group worked excellently and we got to eat our meal and get out of class on time! The end result was delicious but I think that the pasta could have been cooked for longer as it was still kinda hard when we bit into it, otherwise it was delicious and we had the right amount of sauces to complement the seasoning on the meat.

Ingredients:

- Olive Oil
- Onion
- Garlic
- Carrots
- Celery
- Mince
- Basil
- Can of tomatoes
- Tomato puree
- Spaghetti Sticks

Cooking Method:

1. Heat the oil in a large pot and add the onion and garlic.
2. Cook for 2-3 minutes, stir frequently until onion is soft.
3. Stir in carrots a celery and cook for another minute. 
4. Add mince, stirring until the beef has lost its pink colour.
5. Add basil, tomatoes and tomato puree.
6. Bring mixture to boil then reduce the heat to a gentle simmer and cover for 10-15 minutes.
7. Boil water and then add spaghetti sticks to cook for 10-12 minutes.
8. Drain spaghetti and toss with a little olive oil to avoid sticking.
9. Then arrange your plates dividing the mixture up evenly.
10. Serve and enjoy

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Expansion and contraction

Today in chemistry class we were looking at four different actions to do with matter, Expansion, contraction, Convection, and conduction, We then had to choose one of them and create an animation explaining what the action is. I partnered up with my mate and we did animation on expansion and contraction. 

Making My Own Melodrama Character!

 Introducing..... Priscilla the Poor!!! 

Full name- Pricilla Eveningtide 

Parents - Mother (Deceased) Maria Eveningtide  Father, Harold Eveningtide 

Siblings - older sister, Babra Eveningtide 

Age - 15

Gender- Female 

Backstory - 

She and her sister grew up alone as their father was a useless drunk and never came home. They were only 7 and 5 and they were on the streets fending for each other. As bad is it was it got worse for Priscilla when their father came home after 2years of the kids not seeing them, he had run out of money and now that Priscilla's older sister Babra Eveningtide had turned 13 he sold her, took the money, and ran. Priscilla was left on her own. It's said that the two sisters grew distant for awhile the only thing keeping them together was their hate for the world. After Priscilla had spent her whole life growing up with her older, she became her role model. And it was no surprise that when their older sister turned evil, Pricilla followed in her footsteps. 

Occupation - 

Pricilla is undercover as a maid working for the hero of the story but is a spy for the villain who is her older sister (But its a secret so no one knows that they are siblings)

Skills - 

She is very intelligent, good under pressure, calm and collected, And an AMAZING liar. She also has a big influence on the hero as the hero doesn't know what he's doing. 

Weaknesses - 

She has a growing fear of her father, specifically her father trying to sell her.

Best friend - 

Scarlet Evergreen, Also works for the villain but is a bit thick and is usually drinking. 

Interests - Making the villain (her older sister) proud, Making the world pay for the way they treated her and her sister when she was young. 

The Valdivia Earthquake!

During today's chaos lesson we were looking at tsunamis and were trying to get the movie "The impossible" to work but after failing multiple times we retreated back to the independent tasks matrix. I and my partner decided to work on the Earthquake section. For the section, we choose one of the biggest earthquakes recorded, the Valdivia earthquake, and made a poster on the destruction of the earthquake. Here is my poster.

Chicken Stir fry

Today's practical lesson we were making chicken stir-fry. My team worked really well for this practical and we got the dish made surprisingly quickly. The end result was delicious and it had a very strong salty flavor. Altogether it was a really fun practical and next time I would go sparingly on the sauces. 

CHICKEN STIR FRY -

2 pieces of chicken
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
2 tablespoons of honey
2 tablespoons sesame sauce
Any vegetable
2-minute noodles


Cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces.
Saute the onions.
Add the chicken and cook until lightly browned
Add the vegetables and sauce.
cook for 5-6 minutes or until vegetables is cooked.

Potato Fritters!

For this weeks practical lesson we made potato fritters! During this lesson i was put in a different team so i wasn't used to working with the team i was in, and there wasn't much communication between our leader and the rest of the team. In the end we got the meal finished but i had to leave early so i didn't get to taste what we had cooked, but from what i heard from my team it was delicious even though the eggs ended up in a more scrambled state. Overall this wasn't my favourite practical lesson but it was still a lot of fun.

Apple Crumble - Cooking

For this week's practical lesson we made apple crumble! During this lesson, I and one of my teammates decided to share the role of leader and split the recipe into 3 parts, Making the crumble, cutting the apple, and then splitting the mixture into four even proportions and cooking them in the oven. The ingredients used in this dish were 1/2 cup of flour, 1/2 a tsp of cinnamon, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 75g of cold butter, 3/4 of rolled oats, 2-3 medium sized apples, 1 dessert spoon of white sugar, and 1 Tbsp of water.  The end result was delicious! Although the apples could have been better if they had stayed in the oven for longer, but we were on a time crunch so we decided to take the dishes out. Overall my team worked really well and the food was awesome and we were out of class on time, although it ended up very sweet so if i were to make this next time i would leave out the extra white sugar in the ingredients.

Making Nachos!!

Today was a practical day in cooking class! This lesson we were making vegetarian nachos. Our ingredients consisted of 2-4 nachos, 1 grated carrot, half an onion, 1/2 can of chili beans, 1/2 a can of tomatoes, a handful of nacho chips, a sprinkle of cheese, and sour cream /optional. The food was delicious and had the right amount of spice to it, and the corn chips added a cool texture to the mixture. Overall our team worked really well and got our food finished and had our kitchen cleaned quickly!

Particle Theory

During today's lessons in chemistry, we were learning about the matter! Under the topic of matter, we are casting an experiment on Particle Theory and diffusion. Particle theory is the theory that all matter is made up of heaps of very small particles,  All particles in a pure substance are the same, there is a space between all particles, particles are always moving, There are attractive forces between particles and Temeprature affects the speed at which particles move. Diffusion is where you are mixing different matter particles so it moves from a high concentration to a low concentration.

AIM - To investigate the effect of temperature on the rate of defusion.

HYPOTHESIS - I think that it will defuse faster in hot water rather than cold water, as hot water moves faster compared to cold water

METHOD - We filled the 2 Petri dishes with water, one with hot water, one with cold water. we then got two pinches of potassium permanganate and tipped them into the two dishes at the same time with the same amount of the potassium permanganate to see clear results.

CONCLUSION - The potassium permanganate spread faster in the warm water compared to the cold water telling us that the potassium permanganate diffused faster in hot water. 

DISCUSSION -
This was because the warm water particles were already moving fast due to the kinetic energy, and the potassium permanganate was already moving so when they met they were moving faster than the cold water, causing them to bump into each other quicker and making the potassium permanganate spread faster.