Excitement in the Biology Lab

         I just transferred into this school this semester as a second bachelors student.  Since I am going for a degree completely different from the one I already have, there are some basics I need to take to prepare me for the higher level courses I'll be taking.  Because of that, as a "senior" I am in a freshman biology class.  If you took the higher level biology class offered in your high school, that's pretty much what this class is, except in lab we don't dissect crayfish and watch single celled organisms move around in pond water.  We squish strawberries to extract and look at strings of their DNA.  We count the number of cells in an onion root tip that are in each stage of mitosis.  We measure the rate of photosynthesis in a leaf using syringes, and driving our TAs nuts because even they hate that lab.

A monarch butterfly caterpillar.  We let milkweed grow in our yard to attract them.

          In between lab weeks, we have a lab exercise week where we do a worksheet instead.  The last week we were in lab, two weeks ago, was a lab exercise day.  We all turned in our written lab reports, sat down, and prepared for a short lab lecture that we hoped would help us complete the assignment.

          That's when the guy in front of me looks down at the floor behind him and nudges the girl next to him, signalling toward the floor.  I decide to take a break from my daily sudoku to watch whatever was about to unfold.  The girl looks back and jumps in her seat.  She starts squirming and making noises like some horrible monster is about to get her.  Ok, this is definitely better than sudoku.

          The girl next to me, and my whole row and half the class notices that something is up, and she stands up to lean over the lab bench and see what's causing all the commotion.  I expect her to look and chuckle at whatever it was because she looks like a tough girl who wouldn't squeal at unknown floor monsters.  I am wrong.  She jumps back into her chair and starts scooting away from the bench as though whatever it may be is coming our way.  The girl next to her just about copies her exactly.

          Alright, I have to remind you here that I used to play with grasshoppers when I was little.  I also used to let daddy-long-leg spiders and spindly spiders crawl on my hands and arms.  There were very few bugs I would avoid playing with, and those were usually ones known to bite or sting.  Judging from the reactions of everyone who looked at this floor monster whatever was on the floor was probably big, hairy, and had more legs than any living thing should.  Why did I come to this conclusion?  What are the two things that freak the most people out that is small enough and likely to show up on a classroom floor?  A snake would be one, but that is less likely as a snake probably couldn't go unnoticed loose in a building very long.  A spider is the other.  It is fall now, and spiders are coming indoors, but not the hairless ones.  Those don't commonly come indoors and hunt across the floor.  The hairy ones are the hunters I usually find stalking my bedroom floor.

          So, everyone within seeing range of this monster is backing away from it, and I figured the wisest thing to do would be to follow suit, so I pushed my chair back a foot or two, just to be safe.  All this action does not go unnoticed by our TA.  She bravely comes to the row to see what the racket is about, looks, chuckles, reaches down and picks it up with her bare hands!  Several students are shocked.  I am not.  I was fooled by the crowd into believing there was some danger on the floor when it was only a cricket.

          A cricket!  Probably a small brown one, too. The TA informs us there's a cricket lab in the building and they often get loose, so she kindly spares it by letting it go outside while the class regains composure.  I feel silly.  Captain Z does not shy away from crickets.  I am the girl who used to go cricket hunting on a regular basis!

Milkweed longhorn beetles are also attracted to this plant.  They squeak when you hold them too tight.

          We have these large, blue garbage bins that we used to hold sports equipment and toys in the garage, and they were also used in the garden.  The bottom of these garbage cans have concentric circles that bump out and create wonderful little hiding tunnels for all sorts of bugs.  We would always hear the crickets chirping from the garage at night and it was our hobby to go out and catch as many of those big, black suckers as we could!  We'd put them in jars and look at them.  When we had ducks, they would get a nice snack the next morning, otherwise we'd let them go.  Grasshoppers eat grass, but what do crickets eat?  So we didn't often try raising them; it felt cruel to starve them slowly in a plastic jar.

We always let butterflies go, too.  The good kinds, at least, like this painted lady.
The bad ones are fun to feed to a praying mantis.

          Out in the garden was even better!  The soil stayed moist well into the morning under the protection of the garbage cans so bugs loved to live under there and stay right near the surface of the ground.  One of my siblings would quickly pull the garbage can away while the others crouched, ready to catch anything cool that tried to escape, or grab the earthworms and night crawlers before they could retreat down their tunnels.  Oh yeah, we all loved playing with bugs, even the slimy or stinky ones.  Did I tell you that I tried eating a stink bug when I was just a baby?  I guess I've just always been curious about them ;)  Don't worry, the stink bug was rescued from my mouth by my fast-acting mom.

          Now I already said that I didn't play with the stinging sorts of bugs.  I had a deep respect for the pain everyone said they could bring, so I didn't want to find out if all the stories were true.  My brothers, on the other hand, had no such respect.  Sometimes when we tried to catch butterflies on flowers, we'd accidentally snag a bee instead.  My brothers decided to make a game of it.  They put the bee in a jar, set the lid on top so the bee couldn't escape but without sealing it so it was easy to knock off.  Then they placed the jar in the clubhouse and backed up so that they were halfway between the bee and the garage door.  I was usually watching from the garage door.  I didn't want any part of their mean shenanigans, but if someone was going to get stung I didn't want to miss that.  It would be well deserved.

Don't worry, we never messed with honey bees.  None of them have ever stung us.

          Can you guess what is coming next?  They start taking turns throwing things at the jar.  They continue this until someone manages to knock the jar over and release the probably very angry buzzer.  My brothers come flying toward me and we shut the garage door as my brothers pant.  We share a look of triumph.  Haha, that evil bee was not fast enough to beat us into the garage.  Again!  So far no bee or wasp has managed to sting us before we got to safety.

          Are you laughing?  I am.  We actually thought the bees and wasps that we did this to were smart enough and angry enough to hunt us down and sting us before we reached safety.  Those poor bugs were probably just trying to get out of the jar and get as far away from our yard as possible!  Those rare occasions where my brothers actually managed to knock the jar over in a way that the bug couldn't get out were the scariest.  Then someone had to approach to jar, as though it was a bomb that could go off at any moment and release our doom, and put the jar back up on the clubhouse floor so they could try again.  You see, once you've got a stinging, mad bug in a jar, releasing it within 10 yards of yourself sounds like suicide.  We weren't crazy, we knew that once we caught the bug, knocking the jar over with a rock was the only way to let it loose without it killing us!

I wish I was that flexible!

          So the lesson here is: if you ever catch kids throwing rocks at a jar with a dangerous bug inside.  Instead of getting mad at them, be the brave hero and go let the bug out yourself and show them that it's not as dangerous as it seems.  Of course I wouldn't advise that with a wasp.  That'd be just plain crazy.  Grab a baseball or a very, very long stick to let that one go. ;)

Chocoholics: This One is for You!

          My poor D.  First I make super creamy and cheesy mac and cheese and rave about it to him while he's still working in the lab.  Now I send him a message saying I just made mouth heaven.  I hope he'll be able to get food soon.

    

          I had every intention of telling you a story about me as my next post, but after making heaven, I'm afraid it's a food blog instead.  Today I made:

Dark Chocolate Banana Ice Cream

          I don't normally give you recipes and all if it's a recipe I got from Pinterest, like this one is.  But today I'll make the exception because this is so good I want you to make it now!  Ok, probably not many of you have frozen sliced bananas in your freezer like I do, so you can't make it now, but get chopping.  

Ingredients:

1 and a half medium sliced and frozen bananas

3 T (that means tablespoon) unsweetened cocoa powder

2 T cream (I used whole whipping cream, yum, any extra will become whipped cream)

1/2 tsp (that means teaspoon) vanilla extract

          The recipe says it makes two servings, no, I'm eating both right now.  This makes about one big scoop of ice cream.  And I mean Z big, so probably 2 scoops for the average ice cream eater.  Well I grabbed my ingredients, washed my blender, took my pictures and was ready to go.  This comes from a website that says Magic One-Ingredient Ice Cream, but that's a major lie, isn't it?  If I only used one ingredient it would either be already made ice cream, or frozen bananas.  I bet frozen and blended bananas doesn't taste too bad, but how can they claim one ingredient when you need more?  Maybe they just mean if you have frozen bananas there are many ways you can make them into ice cream.

          I forgot the next step.  A very important step: read the directions.  I saw the word: blend, and that's what I did.  I mixed and I blended and *poof* the cocoa powder filled the blender.  What you should do to prevent that mess, although it was funny and cool to see, is blend just the bananas first, then add everything else and blend until creamy.  If you are patient, you can now freeze your ice cream, but if you are like me, after you lick the spoon off you will be licking out as much as possible from the blender and then devouring the rest of the chocolate ice cream within your reach!  Yes, I put my tongue in harm's way and even licked out the area around the blade.  I have an old blender that comes apart into several pieces.  That means the blade has also been dulled from years of use, so don't worry, my tongue is fine.  With this result I have to give a Grade: A++, ok, two pluses might seem extreme, but I can see myself forgoing buying store chocolate ice cream and just making a quart of this myself instead.  No joke, this surpasses some store bought chocolate ice creams.  And since bananas are so cheap I bet I could make a quart of this ice cream for a couple bucks or less.

          I was afraid that 3 T of cocoa powder would be too much, it really looked like a lot, but don't worry, this is still very sweet and super chocolatey!  The sweetness from the bananas keeps the ice cream from being too dark, although I like 60-80% dark chocolate.  Above 80% starts getting too dark for me.  I think the German blood in me allows me to appreciate dark chocolate perhaps a bit more than some other people do.  

Cinnamon-Honey Bananas

          Last night as I relaxed watching Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and catching up on episodes of Bones my sweet tooth kicked in.  Once again I turned to Pinterest for a quick snack idea involving bananas. The link on the pin takes you someplace that doesn't seem to be at all related to bananas but the idea was written on the pin so the link on the title above will take you to the pin and not the website.  You cut up a banana, pour on the honey, and sprinkle on cinnamon.  They show a lot of cinnamon in their photo but I used less and was perfectly pleased so I imagine the amount of cinnamon used it up to you.  I used a lot of honey, though, so I could really dip those slices and drown them in honey.  

          I was very, very pleased with the results.  What a quick, easy, and super tasty way of satisfying a sweet tooth as well as getting potassium into your diet.  I obviously am at no risk of running out of potassium from the number of bananas I've been eating, but for anyone looking for a way to make bananas palatable  this is a great way to try!  When I was younger I loved the crisper bananas with green still on them and the yellow ones, or *shudder* bananas with spots were just vile to me.  So if you are like that or have kids you are trying to get to eat a banana, this is a healthy and easy way that just might work.  I can't make any promises of course, kids are fickle.  I give this snack a Grade: A and this will be a go-to snack when I have yellow or spotted bananas sitting around waiting for me to eat or freeze them.

The Extra Creamy Cheesiest

This picture was taken after the mac and cheese had been sitting for nearly an hour, so if it looks a little dry, that's why.

          Fear not, I won't let you leave without letting you know how to make the mac and cheese I raved to D about.  Remember, the titles are the links to recipes I get online.  If I post an "original" recipe, meaning one I didn't get from the internet (although it may already be out there) I will post the recipe here for you.  

          The name isn't lying!  This is super creamy and cheesy mac and cheese.  It calls for half of a can of evaporated milk and 1-2 cups of shredded cheese.  Well, I love cheese, so I used more.  First you cook the noodles by themselves, and I learned that 5 minutes of boiling 12 oz of noodles wasn't quite long enough.  I'm used to cooking the individual servings of Easy Mac in the microwave for 3 minutes so I thought 5 minutes was pushing it, guess not.  They were still cooked, but the noodles were slightly tougher than I would prefer.  Aside from that little hitch, everything else was really easy.  I shredded what was left of the 8 oz. block of sharp cheddar and got a little over 2 cups of cheese.  Remember to keep the burner on when adding the shredded cheese to help it melt.  I got all of the 2+ cups of cheese to melt into the pot and added the entire can of evaporated milk to keep things from getting too dry.  

          I love this recipe!  I did not add salt or pepper since I figured the cheese would have plenty of salt already in it.  I would say that this super cheesy, amazingly creamy mac and cheese could use something extra for flavor, though.  I love it just as it is but if anyone knows a spice or herb that would make this even more amazing I would love to hear it!  I think chopped up ham would add that extra flavor, but I imagine a dash of some spice could do that, too.  Again, another Grade: A recipe.  This makes a nice big pot of mac and cheese and for a college student living on her own it will last me about 5 meals since I eat way too much of it in one sitting.  I would like to experiment with different cheeses to see how that changes the flavor.  This recipe is certainly a make again, though.

*Edit-I just added salsa to it and it is magical! Wow, I will definitely make this again. Hopefully next time D is over so I don't eat the whole pot myself in a week.

          The blogger says the seasoning is the key to this recipe and obviously I missed that.  She has seasoned salt and my spice rack does not have that.  Some people also look at this as a healthier version of mac and cheese because it doesn't use the cheese powder packet, no.  This is not healthy.  So if you are looking for healthy this recipe is not it, but if you want creamy and cheesy you came to the right spot.  4 T of butter does not count as healthy in my book.  My sister is a fan of butter in recipes.  She accidentally doubled the amount of butter in peanut butter cookies for me last weekend, but I ate those cookies faster than I've ever eaten cookies before, so it was a winning idea.  

          There you have three more winning ideas and some pitfalls you can avoid when trying them.  Happy cooking!  I'll tell you about the excitement in the biology lab when I get a chance to sit down long enough this weekend.  Have a great Friday!

Pre-Hibernation Baking with Z and D

          Is winter here?  It sure got cold very quickly!  I keep expecting to see snowflakes falling from the sky.  Every morning is a fight to get my feet out of my warm bed and across the cold floor to get dressed for the day.  I've started putting clothes on a chair beside my bed so I can get dressed without touching the cold tile.  I even have a rug over the tile and it doesn't seem to make any difference!  I've never lived in a place with tile flooring before.  My parents have that fake almost plastic floor that looks sort of like real wood, and I thought that stuff gets cold, but that's nothing compared to tile.
     
          Then once I do get myself out of bed I'm bundling up with a sweater, my winter coat, and gloves heading to class.  Thankfully I've only had to scrape frost off of my windows once so far.  I told my mom a few weeks ago that it wasn't turtleneck season until the leaves fall off the trees and I have to scrape my car, well, I've worn turtlenecks the past three days.

          What I wear isn't the only thing that's changed with the weather.  I suddenly find myself uninterested in fruits and veggies.  At the start of the school year that was all I wanted to eat.  Now I want cheese, baked goods, and lots of meat.  I went grocery shopping today and loaded up on all my staple processed freezer foods: taquitos, chimichangas, orange chicken, chicken nuggets, and over the weekend D and I bought s'mores and snickers ice cream.  I feel like a squirrel trying to instinctively fatten up before the truly cold temperatures arrive.

          I had no intention of changing my eating habits. I was proud of myself for eating so well for so long.  But now I drool looking at all the baked goods on Pinterest and I have plans to start making them.  I should have seen this dietary switch coming, should have noticed the signs.  Two Saturday's ago I made myself a mug chocolate chip cookie.  That was my first warning sign.

Chocolate Chip Cookie in a Mug

by Melissa at No. 2 Pencil (link in title)

              Ingredients: 1 T melted butter                1 T sugar                1T packed brown sugar

                                   3 drops vanilla extract         pinch of salt            1 egg yolk

                                   scant 1/4 c. flour                 2 heaping T semi-sweet chocolate chips

              Instructions:  Combine butter, sugars, vanilla, and salt in your mug.  Add yolk and combine.  Stir in your flour, then chocolate chips.  Microwave for 40-60 seconds checking at 40 but not going beyond 60.  The mug will be hot and the cookie will continue to cook even after it is removed from the microwave so heating beyond 60 seconds will dry out your cookie as it continues to cook.  This is delicious while warm and adding a little ice cream doesn't hurt.  Just make sure you don't burn your mouth by being impatient.  This was just cooked in a mug that holds heat in very well.

          These delicious little mug cookies are perfect for when you want a cookie and not a couple dozen or don't want to wait for the oven to preheat.  The proof of how good these are is that I can never get a picture before I've already dug into it.  Mmmm. Perfection.  Grade: A+ of course!

          Next thing I know I'm craving one of Hardee's new burgers.  Have you tried them?  You know, the ones with the thick beef patty full of actual flavor, then at least two other types of meat piled on with cheese and little onion rings.  Oh those are good.  D and I picked ourselves up two of those (with a BOGO coupon) after he arrived and we pigged out on the 970 calorie burgers, don't ask how much fat.  That was pretty much all we'd eaten that day so we had to catch up on calories, right?

         I feel like a zombie.  Instead of brains though, I'm moaning, "baked goooods" and that leads me to my next food adventure.  Bananas are really cheap right now so I've been buying two entire bunches each week.    The three I let brown from last week finally browned enough and on Sunday I got the bread in the oven and put D in charge of watching the clock.

Deliciously Sweet Banana Bread

          I repinned this recipe after a good friend of mine pinned it with a positive review.  That good friend has given me much more than a good banana bread recipe, though, and I promise to tell that story sometime, although probably not soon.  I have made two loaves of banana bread already this semester and the other two were made with whole wheat flour.  I followed this recipe exactly (except that I cut it in half), and I am very glad that I did.  Whole wheat flour is great for health reasons, but the flavor and texture take some getting used to.  This banana bread is almost like a cake with how sweet it is.  I was working on homework so D was sweet enough to butter a slice for each of us and by the time I finished my homework and my one slice he'd already eaten a second.  I suppose I don't need to ask him if he liked it!  He even took some back with him to his school.  

          We just made this on Sunday and already there are only a few slices left.  I don't think I've ever eaten banana bread so quickly!  This one definitely gets a Grade: A+ from me and it makes me want to try out my other two banana bread recipes with white flour to get an accurate comparison.

Healthy Honey and Applesauce Banana Bread

8/31/2012 My first loaf of banana bread ever!

          I found this recipe from Kirsten B's 366 Days of Pinterest blog.  She tried it with success and I was looking for healthy food to get me off to a good start of the semester.  Kirsten said the honey flavor was a bit overpowering and I must agree with that.  I love honey, but there is such thing as too much.  However, I would make this recipe again because it is healthy, it is easy, and when eaten in moderation it is very tasty.  I give this recipe a Grade: B+.

Skinny Peanut Butter Banana Bread

9/28/2012

          I also got this recipe from Kirsten's blog and loved the idea of a banana bread that already had peanut butter inside it so I wouldn't have to slather it on each slice.  I discovered again that there can be too much of a good thing.  Because I used only whole wheat flour the texture was denser and drier than my most recent banana bread, but by the time I finished the loaf it had certainly grown on me and I can say it was good.  I drank a lot of milk that week with this bread.  Grade: B+ again.  So now I would like to try each of those recipes again using white flour instead.  I wonder what difference it will make.

          Want to know something slightly humorous?  When I was a kid I would eat banana bread but only because my mom put it on a plate in front of me.  Since I've been old enough to pick my own meals I usually skipped out on her banana bread.  Now I'm making it on a regular basis and quite enjoying it.  I guess I shouldn't have given up on it.  Mom makes lots of great baked goods.  Not only can she cook but she can bake like no other.  I love her pear bread.  I think I'll have to grab that recipe soon and give it a try now that I've mastered banana breads.  She also used to make a delicious cranberry bread around Christmas for me. That was my favorite.  I will have to pick up that recipe, too.

Breakfast Bagels

          Sadly, I do not have a picture to show you, but my amazing D made me dinner while I was doing homework.  He also did some dishes, and I believe he would have done them all if the scabs on his hands had allowed it.  Yep, I told you he is awesome!  

          I was not able to watch, but D tells me that the trick to making amazing breakfast bagels is putting butter on the bagel then cooking it on a frying pan until it gets nice and toasted and slightly browned.  Then you scramble some eggs with salt, pepper, and a little milk to make them fluffier.  Add egg to the bagel and place a slice of American cheese on top and it all melts together into mouth-watering perfection!  I am not a huge fan of eggs, but I ate one and a half of these bad boys which added up to more than 2 eggs, and I wish my stomach was big enough to have eaten more.  I will get D to make these for me again and I will watch and learn and get a picture to show you.  You really want to try these!  He says he usually adds some meat to them, but I was all out of meat.  No ham, no bacon, so sausage, not even sliced turkey.  I'll correct that for next time so I can have the full experience.  

          The last experience I want to share with you today is a chocolate and peanut butter banana shake idea that I had before but did differently today.  I know, this is already quite long.  This is what happens when I get very busy but have lots to tell you.  I don't want you missing out on anything!  I'm most anxious to start telling you about my grandest adventure but I want to make sure I have plenty of time to tell the story right.  So for now you get food stories because the gray sky hasn't inspired many outdoor adventures.

Chunky Monkey Shake

Blend 1 medium banana, 1 T peanut butter, 1 c. choc. milk and  1 c. ice.

          The first time I made this I used white milk with chocolate milk powder.  I thought that it was rather tasty and gave it a Grade: B+ because I was sure the flavor could be improved by using real chocolate milk. Today I followed the recipe exactly and I was disappointed.  The chocolate milk by itself is better.  I think the problem might be that the blender I have at my apartment is not nearly as good as my mom's blender so I had ice chunks floating around.  The peanut butter flavor also seemed to mask the chocolate which was quite disappointing.  I think I might still be recovering from the peanut butter overload from the peanut butter banana bread.  So today I give it a Grade: C but I think that reducing the ice and peanut butter quantities could greatly improve the flavor.  I am not giving up on this one, yet, it is really simple to make and I think it has a lot of potential to be delicious and still healthy.

          There you have it.  My recent food adventures along with some past ones.  I sincerely thank you for sticking around and reading.  If you are reading my blog for the first time, welcome, please check out my others and you'll start getting a feel for what I'm up to.  If you are a repeat reader, I am very grateful and thankful and pleased that you are interested enough to stick around.  I would love to hear from you so feel free to leave a comment just saying hi, or maybe you like one of my ideas or have a story of your own to share.  I love stories, telling them and hearing them and I'm really curious to know who my readers are.  So if right now you're too shy to say hi, that's ok. Hi =) to you.  I hope you are doing well.  Perhaps down the road as we go on more adventures together you'll want to share some of your own.  Until then, stay warm if you're in the northern hemisphere and enjoy your spring if you're in the southern half of the planet.  If you're in the middle, I suppose you're just always hot.  =D