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caffeine–no thanks, yes or oh, yes?

Mar 6th, 2010 by damsel

The Damsel has a love-hate relationship with caffeine. She does love to be able to think straight, er, straighter. A little caffeine makes her feel awake, able, smarter. But at the same time, that awake/smarter feeling seems fake–like it’s cheating somehow–life from a bottle instead of naturally.

It’s interesting to know that the stuff has been around a long, long time. It’s definitely old school. According to the fount of wisdom, Wikipedia, people have been getting that buzz since the Stone Age. Plus, the Damsel was surprised to know how many people indulge. It’s said that 90% of North American adults feel the joy every day.

The drug of choice is generally looked upon as harmless, although not everyone agrees, especially historically. In 1911, the U.S. government tried to force Coca-Cola to remove caffeine from its formula by claiming that use of Coca-Cola at one girls’ school led to “wild nocturnal freaks, violations of college rules and female proprieties, and even immoralities.”

The Damsel guesses they needed something to blame the wild nocturnal freaks on. Maybe they didn’t realize college girls are naturally nocturnal and freaky, with or without Coke.

You can get that caffeine hit several ways. The amount of caffeine varies wildly from item to item. Even just within the coffee category, caffeine contents range from 60 mg  in 16 0z. of certain instants, to 75 mg in a single ounce of Starbucks expresso.

Black and green teas have 75-120 mg caffeine. The longer you steep it, the more zing. Ice teas have only 15-18 mg.

How about soda pop?

  • Mountain Dew: 54 mg
  • Mello Yello: 53 mg
  • Diet Coke: 47 mg
  • Dr Pepper: 42-44 mg
  • Sunkist Orange: 42 mg
  • Pepsi: 36-38 mg
  • Coke: 35 mg
  • A&W Cream Soda: 29 mg
  • Barq’s Root Beer: 23 mg
  • A&W Root Beer: 0 mg
  • 7-Up: 0 mg
  • Sprite: 0 mg

and those infamous energy drinks?

  • No Name (formerly known as Cocaine), 8.4 oz: 280 mg
  • Monster Energy, 16 oz: 160 mg
  • Full Throttle, 16 oz: 144 mg
  • Enviga, 12 oz: 100 mg
  • No Fear, 8 oz: 83 mg
  • Rockstar, 8 oz: 80 mg
  • Red Bull, 8.3 oz: 76 mg
  • AMP, 8.4 oz: 74 mg

and **cringe** chocolate? Say it ain’t so!

  • Hershey’s Special Dark Chocolate, 1.45 oz: 31 mg
  • Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar, 1.55 oz: 9mg

Did you know many headache medicines include caffeine? That’s because caffeine makes them 40% more effective in relieving headaches and helps the body absorb headache medications more quickly.

The Damsel heard you can even buy caffeinated soap. What next?

And lastly, if you have any intention of being initiated under a Hindu guru, you’ve got to kick the habit. You must have had no caffeine (along with alcohol, nicotine and other drugs) for at least a year. Who needs Pepsi when you can have enlightenment instead?

(help and inspiration from this article on wisebread.com)

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field trip–happy 200th birthday, Chopin

Mar 3rd, 2010 by damsel

Today at the Old School we’re going on a field trip.

Happy 200th Birthday, Fryderyk Chopin, old school piano genius.  (painting by Eugene Delacroix, a close friend)

You were the Damsel’s first love. Yes, even before Brett Richards, who lived in town and had beautiful brown eyes and hair that waved down over his collar, there was you.

She’s sorry to confess her flirtations with Bach and Mozart, and even went steady with Brahms for a while, but you were her first. And you know how it is with first love.

But honestly, when you wrote those Etudes, what were you thinking? You were only 19, for crying out loud. They are so crazy hard they make the Damsel’s eyes bleed just looking at the score. And then there are those things you wrote when you were just a baby, only 25. How could you write something so achingly beautiful at such a young age? Could you possibly have lived enough of life yet to know that kind of emotion?

The Damsel would like to apologize for her unfaithfulness, at least on your birthday. She will be true.

But love, we gotta talk about those lavender gloves.

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homemade granola bars

Mar 1st, 2010 by damsel

The Damsel is a little annoyed at granola bars. They’re posers. They act like healthy food, but under that seeming innocence, calories lurk. Plenty of the ones you buy at the market are really candy bars, if you really want to be honest with yourself.

These granola bars are not guaranteed to be low-cal, but at least they are made of natural ingredients, without preservatives and other mysterious chemicals. And they cost much less than store-bought, so there’s that.

A more easily printable version of the recipe follows the pictures. (Cut and paste)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Find an 8×8 cake pan. Line it with a piece of parchment paper, allowing it to lap over two of the sides. Spray the whole affair with cooking spray, including the sides of the pan not covered by the parchment paper.

In a large bowl, measure the oats (both the blended and the not-blended), sugar, salt, cinnamon, nuts and fruit.

Stir thoroughly until the cliques have been eliminated and all the ingredients are forced to be friends with each other, no matter their social status.

In a smaller bowl, combine all the rest of the ingredients: all the sticky, wet stuff. The Damsel used peanut butter because it exists in her house, but another type of nut butter would be yummy too. Perhaps even Nutella.

Sternly mix this into the large bowl of dry ingredients until everything is equally crumbly.

Press tightly into the prepared pan. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until it gets a bit of a suntan around the edges and across the top.

When the Damsel got to this point, she lost control and put a couple of handfuls of chocolate chips on the top of half of the hot bars. After the heat melted the chips, she spread them a bit with a knife, like frosting.

Cool for 15 minutes in the pan and attempt to fend off the children and menfolk who are now sniffing around your ankles. It’s gotta cool, baby. Waiting is agony, but somehow, some way, you’ll get through it.

Take the granola bars out of the pan in their parchment paper sling and let cool further on the rack.

Cool completely, as in COLD, as in Refrigerate Before Cutting, or you will experience the above pictured crumbling issues. Then you will regrettably have to eat the crumbles to destroy the evidence. The Damsel sincerely apologizes for the calories. Also, to help everything hold together better, next time the Damsel plans to try honey in place of the granulated sugar called for in the recipe.

On the right we have “Yummy.” On the left we have “Freaking Amazing and I Can’t Stop Eating These.”

Homemade Granola Bars (adapted from smittenkitchen)

1 2/3 cups rolled oats (the Damsel used regular but quick is okay)
1/2 cup granulated sugar (next time the Damsel will try honey here)
1/3 cup oats, blended on high in blender until floury
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 to 3 cups dried fruits and nuts *
1/3 cup peanut butter or another nut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 tablespoons melted butter
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 tablespoon water

Optional chocolate chips

*Suggestions: Dried cranberries, apricots, pecans, sunflower seeds, coconut, walnuts, sesame seeds, pepitas, dried apples or more chocolate chips. The Damsel used 1/4 cup sesame seeds,  1/2 cup dried cranberries, 1/2 cup raisins,  1 heaping cup  pecans and 1/2 cup dried coconut flakes.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 8″ x 8″ x 2″ pan in one direction with parchment paper, allowing it to lap over the opposing sides. Lightly spray the parchment paper and the exposed pan with non-stick spray.

Mix dry ingredients and wet/sticky ingredients in separate bowls, then combine. Press into prepared pan.

Bake the bars for 35-40 minutes, until golden brown around the edges. Cool completely before cutting.

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Posted in Uncategorized, baking | 14 Comments »

saying goodbye

Feb 25th, 2010 by damsel

Hello friends and students,

Extra credit assignment: Pop over to MMB where the Damsel is being featured today. She’s spouting off about having babies, kindergarten immunizations, uncontrolled sobbing, and stages of life. You won’t want to miss seeing a certain cute fuzzy head.

Clicky:  Saying Goodbye

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homemade powdered sugar

Feb 23rd, 2010 by damsel

This is what you need:

sugar.

a blender or food processor.

cornstarch (optional).

the need to eat frosting.

The Damsel promises, this really does work and can be used any way “storebought” powered sugar is used. She sincerely wishes she knew about this before, because plain table sugar is quite a bit cheaper than powdered sugar, and this is ridiculously easy.

Put a cup of sugar in the blender and turn it on, adding 2 tablespoons of cornstarch if you have it. (Commercial powdered sugar has cornstarch in it to keep it from clumping. You can do the same if you like. But if you are using it immediately, there’s really no need. If you are making it ahead, then perhaps you should.)

Blend at a high speed for 30 seconds or so, depending on your blender. Eyeball the stuff. You may need to stir things around and go at it again, but the Damsel found no need. Good grief, it was really that easy.

An interesting note: 1 cup of granulated sugar makes a bit more than 1 cup powdered. That seems backwards to the Damsel’s brain. Many things seem backwards to the Damsel’s brain, including why children get stupider as they grow older. But she has made peace with her brain’s behavior and hopes the best for you and your own struggle for true perception.

P.S. Powdered sugar is also called:

  • confectioner’s sugar
  • icing sugar
  • superfine sugar
  • extra fine sugar
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ways to attend Old School

Feb 20th, 2010 by damsel

The Damsel wants to make good attendance at class as simple as possible.

To get that all-important “present” mark, there are several alternatives.

  1. You can subscribe by email, and Feedburner will deliver your Old School lessons to your email box. Just click the button on the sidebar.
  2. You can add this site to Google Reader. The Damsel has made a button for that as well on the sidebar. Or you can use another newsreader.
  3. You can add the site to Google Friend Connect–just today, that option made its way to the sidebar. The Damsel resisted this at first, because she smelled this Big Brother stench coming from Google in the blog world. They are everywhere. But she has come to realize that resistance is futile. She feels happy about it all now.
  4. You could add the site to your own blogroll, and click from there. Students who do this receive extra credit.
  5. Or, you could simply bookmark it in your browser…or…gasp…you could type in the URL. Now that’s Old School.
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homemade brown sugar

Feb 17th, 2010 by damsel

First, let’s talk.

Is brown sugar more healthy than white sugar? Like brown rice vs. white rice, brown bread vs. white bread? Is it less refined?

The Damsel looked up an article about how commercial sugar producers make brown sugar and got confused. But it seems it comes down to this: maybe they used to do it differently, but nowadays, they make white sugar by refining out stuff, and make it brown by adding some of that stuff back in. #headscratch.

And, as you might guess, once the stuff is in your body, it can’t tell the difference. Sugar’s sugar.

But can you make brown sugar yourself at home? Yes! It’s as easy as kindergarten.

For every one cup of white sugar, add a tablespoon of molasses.

Mix well, being sure to scrape down the sides to coat all that nasty white stuff until it’s pleasantly brown. You can do it old school and just go at it with a fork, or an electric mixer will do the job quickly.

You can add another tablespoon at this point, for “dark” brown sugar. You can vary the kind of molasses you use, too, if you feel the need. The Damsel has enough going on in her life that she feels no need to add a brown sugar variable. But she gives you permission to go there. Have fun.

The resulting brown sugar is fluffy, yet clingy, so you can pack it into a measuring cup as usual. The Damsel found it interesting that when she measured, she had pretty much exactly what she started with: 1 cup + 1 tablespoon brown sugar.

No more running to the market when you’re in the middle of a cookie baking project! The Damsel feels in her heart that this method must also be cheaper than buying the plastic packages of brown sugar. But she has a cold, so she can’t do math today.

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bakin’ bacon

Feb 13th, 2010 by damsel

Everyone knows bacon makes things all better again. There are tee shirts to prove this, including one featuring a piece of bacon with the words “I love you too much to let you live.” Or “Bacon = Meat Candy.” There are ties, shoes, postage stamps, and even skateboards featuring bacon.

There is also the Damsel’s Bacon Corollary, which reads: “The amount of bacon cooked will never exceed the amount eventually eaten.”

The Damsel has cooked a lot of bacon in her life, and has also eaten it in restaurants. She has looked with great longing at restaurant bacon and wished fervently to know how they get it so nicely flat and evenly cooked. She’s fooled around with bacon presses and extra-thick cuts and precooked packages, with mixed results.

Recently she heard about BAKING bacon instead of frying it on the stove. The Damsel was skeptical. It can’t really be that easy, can it? Or wouldn’t everyone be doing it?

She tried it. They were right. This is a seriously good way to make bacon.

Lay the bacon on a cookie sheet. You can line it with foil first if you like. (In this picture the Damsel is cooking the second batch of bacon on the same foil, hence the strange foil appearance)

Turn the oven on to 400F degrees and put the pan in the oven. Don’t preheat! Put them in the cold oven, even though it seems terribly, horribly wrong.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, depending on how crispy you like your bacon. The Damsel feels wiggily bacon should be banned from the kingdom. This is her wish.

Transfer to a paper-towel lined plate for immediate consumption and happiness. Look! It’s flat! It’s crispy! nom nom nom.

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soften brown sugar

Feb 11th, 2010 by damsel

It’s frustrating when you want to make cookies and your brown sugar is hard as rock. It’s enough to kill the whole cookie-making mood.

Don’t worry. All is not lost. It’s not necessary to pack up the kids and head for the nearest market for a fresh bag. (If the Damsel had to do that, she’d be hard pressed not to just buy cookies already made and save herself the trouble, as long as she was at the market.)

The Damsel recognizes that mood is important in cookie baking.

Grandma’s favorite trick was to put a piece of bread in the brown sugar container, make sure it was closed tightly, and come back the next day. “Tomorrow” is always a good day for making cookies.

Or, you could use slices of apple. Or a piece of lettuce. Or you could even soak a shard from a broken clay pot, and close that up with the boulder-o-brown-sugar. You can see a pattern begin to emerge–add moisture to the sugar in a controlled fashion. The Damsel testifies that this works, and the brown sugar is in “like-new” condition after a day or two.

But what if you need brown sugar NOW? The Damsel admits, there are times when your back is against the wall when it comes to cookies. Sometimes there’s just no waiting till tomorrow.

You can put the lump in the blender/food processor, if your machine is up to it. After a few ear-splitting minutes, you’ll have brown sugar powder, which can then be measured as usual.

Or, even easier, just nuke the thing. Put the sugar into an open container. Set a bowl of water beside it, and microwave for a minute. Check it…if it’s still not quite soft, you can go again, but just make sure you stop before it melts. That would be considerably worse than having it hard.

Or go old school, and heat it in a 250F degree oven. Check every few minutes until it’s soft enough to measure.

Here’s a brown sugar measuring shortcut: The Damsel does not do that thing where you pack the sugar into a measuring cup with a spoon. Just stick the measuring cup right inside the plastic brown sugar bag, and press the sugar into the measuring cup with your fingers–pressing from the outside of the plastic bag. Does that make sense?

Someone, please tell the Damsel she makes sense. Just once in her life.

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new community

Feb 9th, 2010 by damsel

The Damsel has added a community widget to the Old School. What? Talking in class?

heh.

This is the place to go if you have questions about any of the Old School lessons. You’re free to comment, ask questions, or answer them. Of course, you can always leave comments on individual posts as usual. The community sounds like it might be fun, though.

Look for the community down, down, down on the right side. See ya there.

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