Saturday, October 04, 2008

General Conference Fun! (updated)

A quickie, since I haven't blogged anything of significance for a little while...

General conference weekend always feels sort of like a holiday weekend to me. When I was young it was the weekend when we got to stay at home and essentially watch church on TV instead of getting all dressed up and going to the ward building. When I got to BYU it became even more of a holiday. People would gather at each others' apartments on both Saturday and Sunday, make food, talk, have girls' nights during the Priesthood session.

General conference weekend, however, is not a nationally or school-recognized holiday (even at BYU!), and general conference Saturday does not mean I have less work to do. Today I streamed the first session over the internet and puttered around the kitchen while I listened, but scrambled a little before and after the session to get things done. By the time the second session came around I still had a mound of grading to do. So I brought it with me when I walked down to Mike's apartment (he had invited anyone who cared to come watch it, and I figured streamed onto a large-screen TV with friends around might be nicer than streamed onto my little MacBook with just myself and Jin).

I felt like I did a pretty decent job of both listening and grading, and got a good amount of grading done in the midst of my spiritual uplift. I inadvertently distracted Brian with my grading; he felt compelled to try the Venn diagram problem I had assigned my students. And then he in return (completely advertently) distracted me with a math problem on a scrap of newspaper for me to solve.



Apparently the real solution was "not enough information." Even though the noodle was very clearly drawn for me. He also thought I could have done a better job at conserving meatballs by only using one four times, instead of four, once each. This is may be why I am the teacher and not the student.

Also, as per request, I am including the recipe for the cookies I brought to the girls' night at Rachel's during Priesthood session (the product of my puttering around in the kitchen during the first session).

Chocolate Almond Bonbons

4 oz. sweet baking chocolate (I used semi-sweet because that's what I had)
2 tablespoons milk
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup margarine or butter, softened
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 (3 1/2-ounce) tube almond paste
sugar

Heat oven to 350 degrees. In small saucepan over low heat, melt chocolate in milk, stirring occasionally until smooth. In large bowl, beat 1/4 cup sugar and margarine until light and fluffy. Blend in chocolate mixture and vanilla. Stir in flour and salt; mix well. Using rounded teaspoonfuls of dough, shape into balls. Place 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Make an indentation in center of each cookie. Fill each with 1/4 teaspoon almond paste; press dough around filling to cover.

Bake at 350 for 9 to 11 minutes or until set. Remove from cookie sheets; roll in sugar. Cool completely. Yield: 4 dozen cookies.

Happy general conference weekend everyone :).

3 comments:

Abominable's Main Squeeze said...

I'm impressed that you had almond paste but not sweet chocolate in your kitchen :-) Those cookies sound delicious--I'll have to give them a try.

The noodle problem hurts my noodle thinking about it!

Brian said...

So that's why you wanted to keep my math problem. I thought it was such a great problem that you decided that you wanted to steal it and use it on your own students.

Elizabeth Downie said...

I'm so excited you posted this recipe! Those cookies were so good!! :) (as is everything you make!)