Foods: Vitamin & Mineral Project

Biotin

  Biotin, sometimes known as Vitamin H, is part of the group of nutrients known as the B-vitamins (vitamin B₇.) Like all B-vitamins, Biotin is needed by the body to metabolize fats and amino acids, which are the basic components of proteins. They also help in the breakdown of complex carbohydrates into glucose. There is also some evidence that it is a strengthening agent in hair and nails (keratin.)

  The need for Biotin increases as one grows. Infants need the least of it, with only 5 or 6 mcg per day required in the first year of life. Children between 1 and 3 need 8 mcg, while children between 4 and 8 need 12 mcg. Children who are older than 9 need 20 mcg. Teenagers generally need about 25 mcg, and all people older than 19 need 30 mcg. Breastfeeding women require at least 35 mcg a day.

  Biotin deficiencies are rare, and it can be found naturally in such foods as cooked egg yolk, brewer’s yeast, sardines, tree nuts and legumes, nut butters, cauliflower, bananas, mushrooms, Swiss Chard, Yogurt, and whole grains. Biotin can be destroyed through processing; raw or minimally processed foods are more likely to contain Biotin, with the exception of eggs, which contain more when cooked.

Iodine

  Iodine is an element of the Halogen group. It generally appears as a silvery bluish-black solid that sublimes directly to a deep purple gas. It is an essential substance that your body needs to produce Thyroid hormones, which help your body grow and develop. 70%-80% of the Iodine in your body is concentrated in your Thyroid glands. An Iodine deficiency is called hypothyroidism. Hypothyroidism is often characterized by a greatly enlarged Thyroid gland, or goiter. It is rare in first-world countries where Iodine is often added to salt and to soil as fertilizer; In third-world countries it is more common.

  The amount of Iodine one needs varies widely as one ages. In the first six months of one’s life one needs about 2,200 micrograms of Iodine every day. Between 7 and 12 months, however, one only needs 130. Children younger than 8 only need about 90 micrograms a day. If one is between 9 and 13, though, one needs 120 micrograms per day, while people who are 14 and older need about 150 micrograms a day. Women who are pregnant and breastfeeding need more, though; 220 per day for pregnant women, and 290 for those who are breastfeeding.

  Iodine can be found in a variety of foods, perhaps most obviously in salt. Iodine is deliberately added to table salt as a supplement. It is also found in most types of Seafood, such as shellfish, deepwater fish with white meat, and many types of seaweed (such as kelp and bladderwrack) are often rich in Iodine. Other good sources of Iodine are garlic, Swiss Chard, lima and soy beans, squash, sesame seeds, spinach, and turnip greens. Sometimes a baker will also add Iodine to bread, to help as a stabilizing agent.

RECIPE #1: Turkish Poached Eggs with Yogurt (Çılbır)
Pronounced "Chilber," this recipe contains both Biotin and Iodine. The Biotin is concentrated in the yolk of the eggs and the yogurt- The Iodine comes from the garlic. I suppose I enjoyed this recipe- It was really exceptionally easy to make, and the taste was not half bad. I think my favourite part of making the stuff was watching the interesting patterns the paprika butter made in the yogurt. The taste, though really rather boring, was still quite good. If I was in need of a fancy but easy dish to make I would likely make this again.

2 Eggs
2 tbsp Vinegar
5 cups Water
1/2 cup Plain Yogurt
1 tsp Paprika
1/2 tbsp Butter
Chopped Fresh Mint
Pinch Salt
1 clove Garlic, Minced

Bring to boil water, vinegar, and salt in a medium size pot. When it starts boiling, turn it down to medium heat. Break eggs one at a time in a small bowl, and glide them, one by one, in to the very hot but not boiling water. (If the water is boiling vigorously when you pour the eggs, you cannot have a homogeneous cooking or keep the egg together.) Do not cook more than 2 eggs at a time. If an egg starts going messy in water, try to pull it together with a spoon. Cook them for 3-4 minutes for medium soft yolk. For a hard yolk, you need to cook them at least for 5 minutes. While they are cooking, mix the yogurt with a clove of chopped garlic. Use a slotted spoon to move the eggs from the water to a plate. Pour the Yogurt over the eggs
On a skillet heat butter. When it sizzles add paprika. Stir for half a minute or less (just don't let it burn) and pour it on top of eggs and yogurt. Sprinkle mint on top and serve.

RECIPE #1: Banana Yogurt Dip & Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
The Banana Dip recipe was one of my very own invention. It is rich in Biotin, containing both yogurt and bananas. The cookie recipe adds a bit of iodine with the iodized salt it uses. I must say I much preferred this recipe over the other one. It was harder to make, as cookies tend to be, but in terms of exciting taste it was far superior. The banana recipe was so easy I had it done in three minutes, and it went with the cookie bars far better than I expected. Had we thought to put some chopped mint in with the dough, we would have done that, too.

Banana Yogurt Dip

1 Banana

4 tbsp Plain Yogurt

1 tbsp Granulated Sugar

1 tsp Vanilla

dash Nutmeg

Combine all ingredients in blender, then serve by dipping cookie bars in it.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars
2 cups Butter
2 cups Granulated Sugar
1 cup Brown Sugar
4 Eggs
4 tsp Vanilla
4 1/2 cups All-Purpose Flour
1 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Salt
4 cups Chocolate Chips

Combine butter, sugars, eggs, and vanilla in one bowl. In another bowl, mix flour, baking soda, salt, and chocolate chips. Combine the wet ingredients with the dry and mix thoroughly. Roll the dough into bars about 1 cm wide and 5 cm long and place on ungreased baking sheet or silicon mat. Cook for 14 minutes. Cool and serve with Banana Yogurt Dip.

http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/vitamin-h-000342.htm

http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/iodine-000308.htm

Religion 10 Term Project

What did I do?
For my required 5 hours I did three different things. For two hours I aided my church in the cleanup and furnishing of our church house, which (along with the main building) we will be selling at the end of June. I helped wash windows, clean heat registers, and assembled a toilet paper holder and a set of window blinds. After that I spent an hour folding pamphlets for the school to distribute to preschools and daycares in an effort to get more students to come here next year. Then I spent two hours involved in another school project; we baked cookies for the first hour, and for the second we walked to Fernbrae Manor and distributed them to the elderly people residing there.

How is this different from what I did in November for community service?
The last time I did this project, way back in November, everything I did was alone and about half of it was of my own accord. This year I did not plan anything, and everything was done with two or more accomplices. For the cleaning of the church house, I was helped by most of the church. For the folding of the pamphlets, I worked with Nicole and Luke to make mail-ready envelopes for all the daycares. For the cookies and things, I worked with the entirety of the high school student body (or at least everyone who was present that day, which is not the same thing at all.)

Who did I do this with and did I organize the project myself?
Each of the activities I was involved in benefitted a community in some way. The first two hours were spent helping the people who are going to buy our church and move into the house. The second hour was spent assisting Mrs. Harford and the Daycares the pamphlets were being sent to. The last two hours were spent servicing the people of Fernbrae Manor by giving them lots of yummy cookies.

How did this project change or affect me?
The church building and house are now all cleaned up for the new owners, and the house is no longer falling apart from mold and neglect. The folding of the pamphlets will likely help to increase the number of students who come to this school next year, and it will also help the parents of the children who are looking for a place to put their children. The elderly populace of Fernbrae got to eat delicious chocolate chip cookies and were visited by a group of very nice young people (Okay, the “very nice” bit is debatable.)
This project didn’t really affect me in any long-term fashion. Of course I got that feeling one gets when one does something nice for another, and I snitched a crumbled cookie when we were baking them, but otherwise I am pretty much the same as I was before.

Would I consider repeating this or a similar project in the future?
I would most likely not repeat this project of my own accord. I would happily follow along if a group I was involved with did something like it, but actively seeking out such things are not something I am likely to do. Mission Trips to faraway places, however, are an exception- I would certainly want to go on one of those.

Is this something I want to do for a living?
This last question is kind of a strange one; One cannot make a living off of this, as one of the requirements of the project were that one must not benefit from this, either monetarily or through grades or something. Not to mention most ways to make a living benefit the community in some way, so technically all jobs could be called community service. However if the question was asking if I would want to do the specific tasks that I did for a living, then yes, I would gladly take the opportunity to make money baking cookies and giving them to old people. Not so much on the cleaning windows and folding papers for an hour, though.

Grasshoppers. Om nom nom nom nom.

Ever wondered what a Grasshopper would taste like? How about how healthy they are for you? Wonder no more. According to this site (http://www.faculty.de.gcsu.edu/~cbader/ghprec.html) Grasshoppers are an excellent source of protein and calcium, and have more iron and carbohydrates than lean ground beef. On this site there are multiple recipes for preparing grasshoppers to eat (There are a few jokey ones on there too, so read the entire ingredients list before you decide to make it.)

Vanilla and Pistachio Pies. (Continuing from the boring title theme.)

So. As you may have guessed, we also made pies this week. We made two- A Vanilla Meringue with Graham Cracker Crust and the pie of our choice. I chose Pistachio Pudding, also with Graham Cracker Crust. I shall elaborate.

RECIPE #1: Vanilla Meringue Pie
Imagine the tastiest thing you can imagine. Then imagine something a thousand times yummier. This pie tasted better than that. The process of making it was uneventful and honestly rather dull, but the rewards were more than worth it. The Meringue was the most complicated bit, having to get the consistency just right, but it turned out okay in the end. The crust was very fun to do, especially smashing little crackers to bits with a rolling pin. I stirred the pudding for most of my time, and was very bored all the while, but still. Deee-licious. Due to the exorbitant amount the recipe made there was some leftover, and this is one recipe I would definitely want to make again. Maybe without the Meringue, 'cause it didn't really add anything taste-wise.

RECIPE #2: Pistachio Pudding Pie
Ah, another alliteration.One would generally not expect something so green to be so tasty, but that was the case. I had made this recipe before, so I mostly knew what to expect, but I did try some new things so I was still somewhat in suspense as to how it would taste. It was SO BLITHERING EASY to make. The graham cracker crust? Done in twelve minutes, tops. Pudding? Nothing to do but stir while the crust was baking. As a matter of fact we spent ninety percent of the time shelling pistachios to put in the filling. And we were still done before everyone else with half the class to spare. Not to mention it tasted like heaven in a pie tin. I will most definitely make this recipe again (Perhaps without the whole pistachios since they were expensive) but I would add a bit less milk to the pudding, to make it more solid and less sloppy.

Pies. (Yes, I know, it's a boring title, but it's the best I got.)

This week we made Pies. Specifically Apple Pies. Actually we only made one pie; The other one was a Tartlet, or in layman's terms a little pie. So yeah, it's a pie. I like pies.

RECIPE #1: Apple Pie
This one was a fun recipe to make. While not exactly easy (I freaked out over getting the dough right) it tasted absolutely Fantasticalicious. I was told that the more you handled the dough the less flaky and pastry-like it would be when baked, but that wasn't the case at all. After having to re-roll the dough multiple times it still was flaky and good. I kinda turned it into a monstrosity getting it into the pan, but that doesn't make any difference in the taste so I'm not complaining. I could have done with a bit less salt, though. The filling was the creme de la creme de la creme. De la creme. It tasted SO FLIPPING DELICIOUS both before and after baking, and it was ridiculously easy to make. As you can guess there weren't any leftovers. I probably would make this or a similar recipe at home, if I could find a bigger pan.

RECIPE #2: Apple Tartlets
This one was stupefyingly simple- The most complicated thing about it was getting the filling to stay balanced on the crust. The dough honestly tasted better before it was baked, although it was kind of meh after it was baked so that isn't saying much. The apples tasted a bit weird after they were baked- Maybe it was the butter we melted on top of them. All in all it was a tasty recipe, but I probably wouldn't make this at home.

The Cookiethon II

This weekend we had a Youth Rally at our school. The event in and of itself was too blazingly awesome to describe here, but the process of baking the cookies prior to the event is more bloggable. We made three kinds: Cappuccino Crinkle, Snickerdoodles, and Chocolate Chip (That's right, no sugar cookies this time.)

RECIPE #1: Cappuccino Crinkle Cookies
Ah, how I love alliterations.  So, this recipe was fairly straightforward: We made the dough one day, baked it on another. It's always fun to make cookies, because they're simple to do and tasty to sample when the teacher isn't looking (You never saw this, Mrs. Gerber.) The only major mishap of the day was when I dropped the electric mixer while trying to clean it off, and it was still plugged in, and it landed on the switch. You can guess what happened. Sticky cookie dough went EVERYWHERE. I think there may still be a few chunks on the floor. They were very fun to make, and there was an unexpected bonus: The second batch didn't cook all the way through and were unfit to serve at the Youth Rally, though definitely not unfit for the students to eat. I think I ate about nine gooey, sugar-coated chocolate cookies. I may or may not make this recipe again, however if I do I will make sure to cook at least one batch for shorter than the recommended time.

RECIPE #2: Snickerdoodles
This one was fairly boring as cookie recipes go- It was simple, easy, and very delicious. No mishaps, except that we didn't have time to make it on the Monday so we made the dough on Tuesday and let it sit in the fridge for a day. Rolling them in cinnamon sugar was undeniably fun, although we should have made smaller cookies so there'd be more of them. I would like to make this recipe again someday- I only had one or two of them.

RECIPE #3: Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Also rather boring, comparable to the Snickerdoodles in difficulty and tastiness. Unlike the Snickerdoodles we did not have to put these in the refrigerator to sit for a few hours, so we formed them into blobs and put them in the oven immediately, alongside the now-refrigerated and cinnamon-covered Snickerdoodles. We had considerably more of these ones at the end, so I got to try more of them, something for which I am grateful. I will probably not make this exact recipe again, but seeing as there's a Gundark's earful of similar recipes out there it's no great loss.

Of Disasters and Deliciousness

This week was weird. On Tuesday we began with Cuban Beans and rice, and gradually devolved into a mess. On Thursday Jeniffer's mother and grandmother came in to teach us how to make tortillas and rice, Mexican-style. It was an about average week, but only because the two recipes cancelled each other out.

RECIPE #1: Cuban Beans and Rice
I really wish I could just forget this recipe. I have little doubt that it tasted good, but after all the headache and trouble it took to make it (The stove in our kitchen hates me) I didn't even want to try it. It took all of Foods class and most of lunch period to cook, and even then the rice was still hard! Either we did something wrong, or the stove wasn't working properly. I will almost certainly never make this recipe again.

RECIPE #2: Tortillas, Rice and Charro Beans
This pretty much made up for Tuesday's disappointment. It was easy to make, fun to do, and utterly delicious. The Charro Beans were complicated, but yummy. The flavours of the many different veggies soaked through everything, making it very worth while. The rice? I've never had better rice. I've never had orange, tomato-flavoured rice before, either, so I guess it makes sense. The tortillas, though, were the ice cream on the pie. Delicious, healthy, and appealing to my boyish nature (Crushing little squishy objects in a metal compactor) they made my day. I brought the recipe home with me, so hopefully we can make these again in the near future.