Live – May 2015

Earl Grey & Citrus Shortbread Ice Cream Sandwiches

Submission by Nicole Sammut

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Cooking, baking and pairing food with tea can help to enrich the depth and flavour of any meal. The recipe for these tasty ice cream sandwiches is also available on my Cooking with Colour Food Blog. The rich and buttery taste of these shortbread cookies, with the additional ingredients of brewed tea and citrus is a fresh accompaniment to any dining experience this summer season!

Ingredients:

1 c unsalted butter

½ c granulated sugar

1 tsp. fresh lemon zest

1 tsp. fresh lemon rind

3 tsp. Earl Grey Tea, brewed

2 ½ c shifted all-purpose flour

2 c vanilla ice cream, softened

½ c fresh blackberries and blueberries

2 tbsp. granulated sugar for dusting

Parchment paper

Directions:

  1. In a large bowl, beat unsalted butter with sugar until the batter is light and fluffy. Stir in lemon zest and rind.
  2. Boil a kettle to make a cup of Earl Grey tea. Let the tea steep for 5-6 minutes, and then add three teaspoons of tea to the batter.
  3. Next, pour the sifted flour into the bowl and stir until the ingredients are combined. Divide the dough into two portions and cover separately with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for two hours.
  4. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Place a piece of parchment on a clean work surface. Lightly sugar the surface and roll out shortbread dough to a ½ inch thickness and use a 1 ½ inch cookie cutter (or the circumference of a glass cup) to shape the cookies. The batter should yield 22-24 cookies.
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  5. Place the cookies 1 inch apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool completely on a wire rack.
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  6. In a separate bowl, fold in berries and the softened ice cream together and stir until the berries are incorporated into the ice cream.
  7. When the cookies have cooled, take an ice cream scooper and place two tablespoons of ice cream and berries onto each of the 12 cookies. Place the other 12 cookies on top of the ice cream to complete each ice cream sandwich.

If desired, place ice cream sandwiches on a parchment -lined baking tray and freeze for up to three hours to allow the ice cream to harden before serving.

Spring Cleanup

By Rachel Rhoads

Spring is always a welcome sight, even for those who revel in winter sports. However, with spring comes the inevitable acrid smell of a season’s worth of sidewalk litter melting, and a horde of squirrels descending on the neighborhood in the annual ritual of digging up well-placed tulip bulbs and loaning them to your neighbors. There is very little one can do to stop the onslaught of the furry-tailed monsters who delight in wreaking havoc on urban gardeners, but at least we have spring cleanup in the garden, which is the seasonal ceremony marking the giddy goodbye to winter.

If this is your first year, or even your tenth, and you would like a few pointers on how to make the most of your outdoor endeavors, here are a few things you can do to make your garden spiffy in short order so that you can get back to more important tasks, like barbecuing, mixing mojitos, and chasing off squirrels.

Pick up any plant debris or litter that has broken off over winter and fallen into the lawn or garden beds. Cut back any dead perennials tops that weren’t cut back in the fall, making room for new growth. This is especially important for things like grasses, whose base is thick with last year’s growth, and can impede new growth if not trimmed annually. Now is also a good time to take a look through your trees and shrubs. You can get a good look at the structure of the tree before the leaves flush out, keeping an eye out for any branches that were broken over winter from snow or ice. Cut these branches out and remove now. Take note of any pruning you might want to do later. It’s not a good time to prune most trees, but it’s not too early to plan for next year’s winter dormancy pruning.

If you have an annual or shrub bed without perennials in it, it’s time to start weeding. Perennial weeds, like dandelions, can be seen in the garden almost as soon as the snow melts. Voracious seeders and frost tolerant plants like mustards will already be coming up. Getting them out of the way now, leaves more water, nutrients and space for your better looking plants, as well as cutting back on weeding time when things heat up. If you like to plant violas for spring bloom, it is not too early to put them in your garden, as they can tolerate frost, and even a bit of light snow.

If you have a perennial bed it’s sometimes best to wait until things start popping up before digging around in it. After six months of staring at a blank white canvas where plants are supposed to be, it’s easy to forget what was planted where. Before you know it, you’ve pulled out your spouse’s favorite Hosta, and began frantically searching for a way to blame it on the squirrels before your dearly beloved comes home from work. This is easily mitigated by just waiting a week or two until warmer weather pushes most of the plants up to a visible level.

Now that everything is cleaned up, all that’s left to do is to sit back and watch all your spring bulbs, and perennials start popping up, while you relish in the beauty and scents of nature. Once things are mostly grown out, fill in the empty spaces with annuals or new perennials. Keeping the entire growing space covered with plant material helps to minimize the necessity of weeding and watering, which is the end goal of gardeners.


Drink More Water 101 Written by Vanessa Tran

Years ago, when I was in college, I hated drinking water so I only drank about 1 or 2 cups of water a day. Little did I know at the time, that this was the main cause of my chronic headache, fatigue and indigestion issues.

I got tired of being tired all the time, so I signed up for a weekend nutrition workshop and learned all about the importance of drinking water. How it helps the body to get rid of toxins, reduce inflammation (aches and pains), increases energy, opens one up to feeling good in your body and even gives beautiful skin and hair. All of that sounded great and I definitely wanted beautiful skin, hair and energy to be more active to feel better. But I still hated drinking water; it’s just so boring to me! Even after knowing all of the great benefits of drinking water, I still couldn’t convince myself to drink enough until I learned to make water more appealing and nutritious.

As a rule of thumb, buy organic fruits and vegetables if the peel is kept on to avoid the intake of pesticides. Use filtered water and avoid plastic/BPA containers, glass jars are the best.

1. Citrus Water

Citrus is packed with vitamin C, good for the immune system, skin and promotes healthy digestion. They not only add refreshing flavours to the water but makes the water look amazing.

Slice the lemons and oranges thinly, add water and soak overnight if possible.image002

2. Cucumber Water

Cucumbers contain multiple B vitamins, including vitamin B1, vitamin B5, and vitamin B7 (biotin). B vitamins are known to help ease feelings of anxiety and buffer some of the damaging effects of stress.

Slice the cucumber thinly, add water and soak overnight if possible.

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3. Berry Water

The antioxidants in berries can help your body fight oxidative stress caused by free radicals that can lead to illness. Eating a diet rich in antioxidants can help improve your health, protect your skin and hair, and prevent certain diseases.

Smush any berries of your choice, add some water and some sparkling water. ?? did you mean water or both Garnish with mint leaves. Mint is also a rich source of Vitamin C, as well as important minerals like calcium and magnesium.

image0044. Lemon Ginger Honey Tea

Ginger contains very potent anti-inflammatory compounds called gingerols which help reduce aches and pains, helps promote digestion and eliminate intestinal gas.

Slice the ginger thinly, add hot water. Add a teaspoon of natural local honey for additional minerals such as iron, calcium, phosphate, sodium chlorine, potassium, magnesium. And a few slices of organic lemons for vitamin C and deliciousness.image005These are only a few suggestions to get your creativity juices going. The possibilities are endless. You can make your water as fun, nutritious and delicious as you need so you can drink more water.

Warning: get ready for people asking you what’s in your water and get compliments that it looks so good!

image006Vanessa Tran is a Holistic Nutritionist, Yoga Teacher and a Wellness Educator.

With the combination of Holistic Nutrition and Yoga, Vanessa teaches fun, yet sustainable and attainable ways to get healthy, lose extra weight in Discover YOUR Best Body, a 6 week Yoga & Nutrition program.

Qiyu Zhou, 15 Year Old High School Student From Ottawa, Is A World Youth Chess Champion!

Qiyu Zhou Award BrantfordIt is with great pride that we introduce Qiyu Zhou to you…. Qiyu is the daughter of Changrong Yu and Jiehan Zhou, a PT professor with our Information and Communication Technology Department, since 2013. Since 2003, Qiyu Zhou has represented Canada and excelled in various competitions, both nationally and internationally Chess. More recently, in 2014, Qiyu was crowned a “champion” at the World Youth Chess Championships where she won the “Girls Under-14” world title in Durban, South Africa. She scored an 8.5 out of 11, and was the only player to go undefeated, according to John Upper, Editor of Chess Canada. Zhou has recently also became a member of the Canadian women’s Olympiad chess team.

We would like to share links to various interviews with Qiyu and articles highlighting her performance at some of the competitions she has participated in:

U14 Girls Champion Qiyu Zhou - photo of her playing chessFollowing is an official list of the Chess events Qiyu Zhou has participated in and her accomplishments:

  • 2014 Represented Canada, became world youth U14G Champion, World Youth Chess Championship in 2014, Durban, South Africa (8.5/11)
  • 2014 Represented Canada, the 41st World Chess Olympiad in Tromsø, Norway, August 1-14, scored 6.5/9
  • 2014 North American Youth Chess Championship, Tarrytown, New York,JUNE 12-16, 2014 (6.5/9), 2th in U18G, gained the WFM title.
  • 2014 Canadian National Chess Challenge (CMA) Grade 8 National Chess Champion, May 18-19, Winnipeg, Manitoba (perfect score, 9/9)
  • 2014 Ontario Chess Challenge, April 6, Toronto, Ontario (1st in Grade 8)
  • 2008 Represented Finland, World Under 8 Girls Youth Chess Championship — 2nd place, Silver medal (8.5/11), Vietnam
  • 2005 Finnish Youth Chess championship Under 10 open (scored 6/7, 1st place, ahead of boys nearly twice my age), Finland

Biographies of Qiyu Zhou’s Parents:

Qiyu’s father Jiehan Zhou, (PhD in Computer Engineering) is a part-time teacher in Information and Communication Technology department. Before joining in Algonquin in September 2013, he worked in the Finnish Technical Center, French National Institute of Computer Science, and University of Oulu, Finland, for more than 10 years. He has had ‘visiting’ research experience at the University of Toronto, Carleton University, and University of Ottawa. He has managed Finland-China research projects and built students exchange programs, between universities.

Qiyu’s mother, Changrong Yu, (PhD in English Linguistics) is also an alumni of Algonquin College and has graduated, with honours, from the “Teachers of English As A Second/Foreign Language program. She is well known for her “Origami” exhibitions at the city library of Oulu, Finland.