Live – Nov 2015

Avocado Chocolate Mousse

By Nicole Sammut

No time to make a tasteful dessert for unexpected guests this holiday season? This simple, yet elegant dessert uses a handful of ingredients available from your pantry to help win over any guest this holiday season!

Ingredients:

(Yields 6 Servings)

• 4 ripe avocados
• ¼ cup cocoa powder
• ½ c guava juice
• ½ cup bittersweet chocolate, melted
• ½ cup semi-sweet chocolate, melted
• 1 tsp. amaretto liqueur
• 1 tsp. unsalted butter
• 1 pinch salt

Directions:

1. Cube ripe avocado into pieces and place in a mixer. Add cocoa powder and guava juice and mix all ingredients together on medium speed until smooth.
2. Next, combine bitter-sweet and semi-sweet chocolate and melt over a double boiler. Once chocolate is melted, ensure to add butter and remove from heat source. Once the chocolate is cooled, add amaretto liqueur for flavour.
3. Add melted chocolate and salt to avocado mixture and combine on medium-high speed. Make sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl until the consistency of the mousse is smooth and silky.
4. Place chocolate mousse into individual ramekins or decorative glasses and chill in the refrigerator for a minimum of three hours. Top with raspberries, serve and enjoy.

What Does Your Work Space Say About You?

By Rebecca Volk

It’s amazing what you can learn about colleagues at the College by checking out the space where they work. A visit to the lower level of C Building and the offices of the Parking, Lockers and Card Services will bring you to the space that Mike McMahon calls his home at work.

A visit to Mike’s office is like walking into a memory room; so many trinkets and pictures that one can tell all have a story linked to them. One can’t help be drawn to the huge model of a hummer that sits atop a shelf. Or the stuffed blue monster perched on a stack of books. What really dominates the space however, are the dozens upon dozens of key chains beautifully displayed on a wall.

It all started with a trip to Syracuse, New York in 2006 and a souvenir key chain that Mike brought back. Over the past 12 years, Mike’s penchant for key chains has turned into a focus not only for him, but for many colleagues at the College who now bring keychains for Mike from their travels all over the world. And each one has a story: the key chain from Australia is a real animal tooth; there’s a flashing Star Wars light sabre and real sand in a bottle from Mexico. Souvenirs from Alcatraz, Disney World, Vegas, Italy and the Hershey Factory in Smith’s Falls are carefully displayed beside some that double as other things: a Canada Day key chain opens into a locket; another one can be manipulated into a pair of nail clippers. The piece de resistance however, has to be the hand-made keychain fashioned by a colleague in the parking office: a huge rubber lobster from Nova Scotia lovingly pierced and hanging from a carabiner hook.

Mike McMahon has been at the College for over 15 years, first as a part-time employee while he studied full-time at La Cité collégiale and full-time as parking appeals officer since 2002. “It’s a tough job, dealing with people who are unhappy about their parking tickets”, admits Mike. “The key chains help to brighten up my office and keep things fun.” It’s true … it’s hard not to smile when looking at the 150 or so key chains on his wall.

So, if you want to check out an amazing collection, drop by C044 and say hello to Mike McMahon and leave with a smile!

How to Grow Sunflower Microgreens

By Vanessa Tran

Before we go into how to grow sunflower microgreens, let’s talk about their incredible health benefits. They are considered to be one of the most complete foods that you can add to your diet for overall health and well-being.

Some of Many Health Benefits:

1. They are a perfect source of complete protein. Great to have if you want reduce meat consumption or want to add a little more protein into your daily intake.
2. They are packed with:
   • Vitamin A, an antioxidant, good for immune system, vision and reproductive system.
   • Vitamin B Complex, especially Folate (B9), good for fetal development, heart, reduce cholesterol and neurological support.
   • Vitamin D, good for immune system and bone health.
   • Vitamin E, an antioxidant, also good for immune system and disease prevention.
   • Zinc, good for immune system and fertility.
   • Minerals calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, potassium and phosphorus. All essential to contribute to a healthy body
3. They are low in calories and high in nutrition, making them very ideal for any natural holistic and healthy fat loss program.

Here’s a video on How to Grow Sunflower Microgreens (3 minutes and 5 Seconds):

https://youtube.com/watch?v=nl7G_yCRaZg

My name is Vanessa Tran. I’m a Professor, Yoga Teacher and Registered Holistic Nutritionist, specialized in Digestive and Brain Health.

I help men and women increase their energy level, digestion, memory and brain functions by integrating simple holistic nutrition into their daily lives.

For more articles and free mini-ebook on Understand the Cause of YOUR Cravings, visit www.pranaquests.com.

Gardening for Winter Interest

By Rachel Rhoades

Fall garden prep is the prelude to the long awaited winter laziness. Soon, we will be sitting back with nothing to do but daydream about Spring glory. But first, we must prepare the garden and plants to present us with the best spring can offer, while still providing us with some amount of winter interest. Here is a brief overview of what can be done.

There are two options for Fall garden cleanup. One is to cut back everything –perennial and annual– and compost it. This makes for a very easy Spring– no cleanup when the snow melts –as well as helps to prevent disease and insects from overwintering in the garden. The second option is to leave as much foliage and grass as possible to encourage beneficial insects to stick around over winter, and provide a little winter decoration. Neither is correct or wrong, while perhaps slightly contradictory, it will depend mostly on your tastes and your garden and what happened over the course of this summer.

If you leave any perennial foliage for winter interest, you will need to trim it back in the spring as soon as you can get in the garden, especially for grasses which will become incredibly messy if left untended.

If you have had problem insects this year, like aphids it’s a good idea to remove the foliage of the plants they were on. This will help cut back on the amount of eggs that are able to make it through the winter, and theoretically you will see less of them the following year. Do the same if you have had any problem diseases like tar spot on your maples or powdery mildew on phlox, etc. These diseases will overwinter on the plant debris, and you’ll see the disease continue to crop up each year until you break the cycle.

If you have sedums or grasses–which look best in fall–you may wish to leave them up for winter interest, especially for gardens that are next to walkways, or visible out of a window. For larger pieces of properties, weigh the amount of times you will actually see the plant with the pain of trying to get back into the garden bed first thing in the spring in order to cut them back before the first growth starts. It’s often easier to cut back in the fall in those cases–especially if the ground is frozen and easy to walk on v/s the mud pits you will encounter after a spring thaw.

Alternatively, if you want the best of both worlds–visual interest during winter, but want to avoid the Spring cleanup–you can buy decorative planters to place near walkways or at front entrances. They will often consist of branches, grasses, pine cones, etc. You will see them for sale everywhere from the local grocery store to your favourite nursery.

For a more economical approach, you can make your own. Cut interesting shrub branches such as Dogwood, Spiral Willow or evergreen boughs; add grass seed heads and/or pine cones and add to a decorative planter. When cutting evergreen boughs, avoid Junipers, which are slow growing, and stick to trees like pines or cedars which are faster growing, and may need trimmed anyway. Do not cut boughs from the wild or off of trees in public gardens–unless you have received permission from the curator.

An Amazing #TYKTWD (Take Your Kids To Work Day) at AC!

By Trudy Price

What a fabulous day this ‘Group Of Seven’ had at AC for National Take Your Kid To Work Day on Nov. 4^th!

My son, along with some very excited grade 9 friends showed up on November 4^th looking forward to their day on campus. ‘Wow! Starbucks and Booster Juice!’ That was just the beginning of a day full of learning, sharing, dining and fun. Fortunately, some wonderful faculty friends offered to broaden the day by inviting these eager kids to share in their various classroom environments. BIG Shout Outs to professors Marg O’Brien and Wendy Threader (Business), Sean Edwards and Steve Price (Culinary Arts), Antonios Vitaliotis (Bartending) and Sandra Brancatelli (Advanced Technology)! These kids observed what professors do in a variety of environments and learned everything from business etiquette to the organized chaos of an industrial kitchen in full swing to the crazy fun of the bartending lab and finally they were pulling things apart in the ‘strength and materials lab’. They not only experienced the incredible energy of a day at AC but also a better understanding of what some parents do all day when they ‘go to work’! They were only here for one day but given the smiles and positive feedback, my guess is we will see them back again – perhaps as students or as staff!

Algonquin Mom
Trudy Price, Academic Development