Yummy Yummy

Read the article below.  There are three tips below on how to eat healthy and make your meals taste great.  Select one of the tips and explain how this is or is not a helpful tip for a chef.  Next provide the recipe of an item you would cook if you were in the competition.  Include the items you would need and a brief list of steps for making the item.

D.C. chef has tips on creating a healthful recipe

When you think about food, what do you think about? The peanut butter and jelly sandwich in your lunchbox? The broccoli that your parents make you eat at dinner? The potato chips that you crave after a long day at school?

But what about thinking about food as a way to express yourself, a way to experiment with flavors and a way to explore your own palate? (That’s your taste buds.)

(Alex Wong/Getty Images) - Winners of the Healthy Lunchtime Challenge earn an opportunity to be part of a kids’ “State Dinner” at the White House with first lady Michelle Obama.

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“Inspiration is where everything comes from,” says Jeremy Cooke, the chef at the Argonaut restaurant in Washington, where the kids menu is divided into three categories: milder flavors, medium flavors and stronger flavors. Cooke (what a perfect name for him!) has been cooking since he was 5 years old, experimenting and making mistakes in the kitchen.

For the second year in a row, first lady Michelle Obama and food Web site Epicurious.com are challenging kids ages 8 to 12 to create their own healthful recipes for lunch. Judges will choose one winner from every state, the U.S. territories, Puerto Rico and Washington. Those winners will be invited to a kids state dinner at the White House to eat some of the winning dishes with the first lady. (State dinners are fancy dinners.) Last year, more than 1,200 kids entered the contest. And just like last year, the judges will be looking for good, original (that means created by you) recipes. KidsPost asked Cooke for advice on how to come up with one.

Start with a key ingredient

“Start out with the things you like,” Cooke says about creating a recipe. “If you like strawberries, start with strawberries. If you like salad, start with salad.” Or, another way to find inspiration: Just look around the kitchen. “You can always open the refrigerator and find something to make,” Cooke says.

A very important part of the contest is making sure the recipes are healthful, so limiting such things as butter, oil and cream is important. Cooke suggests using items that are fresh, not frozen or out of a can.

“With a can, you never know how much . . .preservatives [things that are added so that the food will last longer] it’s been sitting in,” Cooke says.

Also, limit the salt in your recipe. “You can always add oil, salt and seasoning later if you need to,” he says.

Although portion size is not mentioned in the contest rules, Cooke says that’s important when creating a healthful recipe. Portion size is how much of a dish one person should be encouraged to eat. A lot of scientists worry that many people are eating too much because servings have become too large. Think about how much you’re making. One serving of something — say, fruit or pasta — should fit in the palm of your hand.

Spices are a great way to add flavor without adding fat. Cooke advises you to notice the spices your parents use and then taste a variety of spices. Figure out which ones you like. Cooke recommends that at first you try simple spices, such as crushed red pepper and cumin, his favorite. “As a kid, I hated garlic,” Cooke says. “My grandmother had to make garlic bread without the garlic.”

Find inspiration

Cooke’s grandmother first inspired him to cook. “She was the first cook I knew,” he says. “I used [cooking] as a way to spend time with [her.]” He fondly remembers his grandmother’s homemade Oreo cookie recipe, which he has been trying to make for years. His grandmother was secretive about the ingredients.

As an 8-year-old kid, Cooke remembers making beef goulash, a soup with vegetables and meat, and putting every spice in it that he could find. “It was the worst!” he says, but he learned from the experience. “Everybody makes mistakes cooking,” Cooke says, even famous chefs.

Be an artist

In a restaurant, the way the food looks once it is cooked and ready to be served is called presentation. If you are going to send a photograph of your dish to the judges, Cooke advises putting the food on a big white plate and making sure there’s nothing dripping around the edges. Use a clean cloth to wipe off the edges if you need to. But mostly, Cooke says, have fun. If you want to make a cool happy face on the plate — with peas as the eyes, couscous for the nose and a red sauce for the mouth — do it! Be adventurous and creative!

“It’s just food,” he says. “It’s not the end of the world. Don’t be afraid to get it wrong.”

— Moira E. McLaughlin

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/kidspost/dc-chef-gives-cooking-tips-to-kids/2013/04/25/2f895400-a848-11e2-b029-8fb7e977ef71_story.html

Earth Day 2013

Select one of the quotes below.  In three or more sentences explain why you selected the quote, what you think the author meant and how you plan on spending Earth Day.  Make sure you tell what number quote you are responding to.


1. I conceive that the land belongs to a vast family of which many are dead, few are living, and countless numbers are still unborn.  ~A Chieftan from Nigeria


2. We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.  ~Native American Proverb


3. Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste the sky as well as the earth.  ~Henry David Thoreau


4. There's so much pollution in the air now that if it weren't for our lungs there'd be no place to put it all.  ~Robert Orben


5. For 200 years we've been conquering Nature.  Now we're beating it to death.  ~Tom McMillan, quoted in Francesca Lyman, The Greenhouse Trap, 1990
6. I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.  ~Elwyn Brooks White, Essays of E.B. White, 1977
7. Take nothing but pictures.
Leave nothing but footprints.
Kill nothing but time.
~Motto of the Baltimore Grotto, a caving society


9. Humankind has not woven the web of life.  We are but one thread within it.  Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.  All things are bound together.  All things connect.  ~Chief Seattle, 1855

10. Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money.  ~Cree Indian Proverb

source: http://www.quotegarden.com/earth-day.html

Couch Potato

How TV Effects your Child

Most kids plug into the world of television long before they enter school. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF):

• two-thirds of infants and toddlers watch a screen an average of 2 hours a day
• kids under age 6 watch an average of about 2 hours of screen media a day, primarily TV and videos or DVDs
• kids and teens 8 to 18 years spend nearly 4 hours a day in front of a TV screen and almost 2 additional hours on the computer (outside of schoolwork) and playing video games

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that kids under 2 years old not watch any TV and that those older than 2 watch no more than 1 to 2 hours a day of quality programming.

The first 2 years of life are considered a critical time for brain development. TV and other electronic media can get in the way of exploring, playing, and interacting with parents and others, which encourages learning and healthy physical and social development.

As kids get older, too much screen time can interfere with activities such as being physically active, reading, doing homework, playing with friends, and spending time with family.

Of course, TV in moderation can be a good thing: Preschoolers can get help learning the alphabet on public television, grade schoolers can learn about wildlife on nature shows, and parents can keep up with current events on the evening news. No doubt about it — TV can be an excellent educator and entertainer.

So what do you think?  After you read the information above do you think tv is a good thing or a bad thing?  In three or more sentences explain your viewpoint and include at least one example of how tv can be good or bad.

source: http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/tv_affects_child.html

I Give It Two Thumbs Up

Everyone is good about giving their opinions and that is what a book review is all about.  Read the book review of the popular children's book Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls:

Grade 5 Reviews   Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

Review by: Della J. Massachusetts, Grade 5 The author originally wrote this book on scraps of old paper. Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls is one of the best books I’ve ever read. I was fascinated from the very beginning to the very end. Billy, a young boy in the Ozarks, saves up his money for two years, just to buy a pair of good hunting hounds. After training them, he realizes he got more than he could ever dream of. In fact, his pups were the best hunting dogs in the area. Billy proves that by winning a shiny gold cup at a ‘coon hunting contest. His dogs cared for each other, and did amazing things that no other hounds would ever do, and Billy rewarded them by going hunting every night, except when the weather was bad. One night, while Billy was out hunting, his dogs chased a mountain lion up a tree which ended being fatal to one of the dogs. Old Dan nearly died until he got home, where he did die. Little Ann, the other dog, got so upset about that that she starved herself and then died. I loved this book because I had never really known about people who lived in the mountains. I was intrigued by the dogs behavior, and Billy’s decisions as he faced obstacles that not many other ‘coon hunters did. This was truly a classic book.

Answer the following questions:  Does this make you want to read the book and why?  If not explain what could the reviewer done to make the book more interesting?  If so what made the book seem like it would be enjoyable?  Write your own book review of The Whipping Boy.  Include these three things if you would recommend it, your favorite part of the story, and your least favorite part.

source: http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/swyar/browseEntry.asp?id=63496&grade=5&booktitle=Where+the+Red+Fern+Grows