Snack schedule

Thanks to folks who are willing to bring snack for class!  If you're able and willing to accomodate them, we have some vegetarian people and some people who don't do well with some salads in our class.

Sept 2: open
Sept 9: Angela
Sept 16: Xingyu
Sept 23: open
Sept 30: open

Oct 7: Dan
Oct 14: Ruthie
Oct 21: open
Oct 28: open

Nov 4: open
Nov 11: open
Nov 18: Tatiana
Nov 25: Thanksgiving - no class

Dec 2: Mariana
Dec 9: open
YouTube extravaganza: Robin and Alice

If you're willing to help out with one of these open dates, feel free to edit this post or add your date (and name ;-) ) to the comments of this post.  Thanks!

Recipes from class: Zucchini spice cake

Several of you asked for the recipe for the zucchini spice cake we had at break today.  I'm happy to share it here -- and feel free to share recipes for things you contribute for snack here in the future so we can all learn some new cooking tools!

Zucchini Spice Cake
from Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts, p. 136
Published by Clarkson N. Potter, Inc, New York, 1997

Serves 16
Preparation time: 40 minutes
Baking time: 40-45 minutes
Cooling time: 10 minutes
Equipment: 10-inch bundt pan, electric mixer

Ingredients:
1/2 c butter
1 1/2 c packed brown sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 c unbleached white pastry flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp ground ginger
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 c grated zucchini
1 c toasted chopped nuts (such as almonds, pecans, or walnuts, or a mixture)
1/2 currants or rasins
sprinkling of confectioners' sugar

Steps:

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F.  
2. Generously butter or oil a bundt pan (I use a loaf pan).
3. In a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream together the butter and brown sugar until light.  Beat in the eggs and mix well.
4. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom. 
5. Fold the dry ingredients into the creamed mixture.  Fold in the vanilla, zucchini, nuts, and raisins.
6. Pour the batter evenly into the prepared pan and bake for 40-45 minutes until the cake is golden and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.  Cool in the pan for 10 minutes, and then invert the cake onto a plate -- tap the bottom of the pan to release the cake, if needed.
7. Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar, if desired, and serve warm or at room temperature.

Blogging primer

Thanks for a good first day of class, all!  If you have never blogged before, here is a starting place to figure out how to navigate Blogger.

You'll note that, when you sign in to your Google account and head to make a "new post" there are two views -- you can type in a WYSIWYG editor (= "What you see is what you get") or you can type in the HTML editor.

If you decide to type your post in a word processor on your computer first, best copy and paste the text into the HTML editor, and then click over to the "Compose" (WYSIWYG) editor to format it.

Put your questions about blogging here!

Week 1: Palmer and Schon

We're looking forward to this class - and have put together a relatively short assignment to get us ready for the first day of class this Thursday. These are 2 readings by important people in education - people you will most likely read more about as you progress through the program and engage the broader community: Donald Schon and Parker Palmer. We are using some of their ideas as "tools" to help you engage in and make sense of what we hope to accomplish over the term.

Guiding Questions
(1) Schön talks about “tacit” knowledge (things we do that we don’t know we do but that are critical to how we approach and make sense of the world). One way to help you think critically and reflectively about your experiences (both in and out of class) is the idea of reflective practice. What kinds of reflective practices does Schön talk about and are they different? Why does Schön see reflective practice as an attribute of what it means to be a scholar? Take a “reflection-on-action” moment to think about your own story of engineering education – what stands out for you?

(2) Palmer talks about paradox and wholeness. What paradoxes have you experienced? How have you dealt with this in the past to create a sense of “wholeness”? What does Palmer suggest as a way to deal with the “tension” of conflicting paradoxes?

See you in class! And feel free to add additional thoughts on these readings here after class if you didn't get to share them in class and want to get them out there.