Cran-Raspberry Pie

I whipped up an almost-exact-same feast from Christmas 2009 for this past Christmas. The only thing that was different was the pie. I had never been a big fan of mince pie- because I am more of a savory kind of girl, I got very upset when I first had mince pie. I thought it was going to be a glorious mince MEAT pie :(- and so this year I decided to bake a different kind of pie. Also because Jk likes pies (actually, he more than likes them. I think he'd be happy if I baked him pies all day long and he'd have them for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner... Actually, just the other day he skipped out of the toilet singing happily because he got to have pie for breakfast :p )

So anyway, I decided to do some research and happened upon the Cran-Raspberry Pie. The result: An amazing explosion of jeweled ruby colours and an overdose of berry sweetness enough to get a young toddler going for hours and hours on end. Because I am generally bad at following instructions for baking (especially pastry), I ended up buying the pie crust from Pilsbury. Don't judge, it was for Christmas dinner and I didn't want to screw anything up.

Ingredients:

2 cups frozen Cranberries

1 1/2 cups frozen Raspberries

1 1/4 cups Sugar

2 tbsp Cornstarch

1/2 tsp Almond extract

1/4 tsp Salt

Pastry for double crust pie (I bought these ready made ones from Pilsbury)

Method:

1- Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees Celsius.

2- Mix everything but the Pastry in a big bowl.

3- Line pie pan with a layer of pastry. Add filling. Top with a lattice crust or whatever else you feel like doing. (just remember there has to be some holes so the steam can escape ;) )

4- Bake at 375 degree Fahrenheit for 15 mins and reduce to 350 degrees Fahrenheit for another 35-40 mins or until the crust is golden brown and berry filling is bubbling away happily.

Let the pie rest for at least 4 hours in a safe place (I was not so smart, I learnt my lesson the hard way when I found the guilty pair Jk an Jy munching away on some crust that they got their hands on when I turned my back to attend to the Turkey...) Resting the pie will help the filling become thicker and gooier... And also give it time to come to terms that it will be ingested by a hungry horde of barbarians :p

(notice where the crust is torn off... courtesy of Jk and Jy..)

CPSC 110

So, it's the new year and the start of a new term. True to my nature, I've been trying to avoid weighing down my schedule with too many classes and so I've decided on Art History, Classical Studies, Medieval Studies and Latin (which up till now has me confused as to why in the world I would have taken it up in the first place...)

Anyway, which such a 'heavy' course load of arts subjects, I decided that it would be wise to sit in one some of Jk's Science classes to determine which science class I should take up next year to fulfill my Science Requirement for my degree. Here's a list of the classes I have sat in on and my verdict...

CHEM 123 (???)

I have sat in on this class TWICE. Not because I like it, but because I have nothing better to do at this time and spending time with Jk in a class was better than sitting alone somewhere (I have an aversion to being alone... even in bed sometimes...)

Verdict: I will never take this class. Chem was my enemy in high school and it seems that it is STILL my enemy. The only upside of sitting in on this class, other than getting to spend time with Jk, was that the professor reminded me of the actor from "The Flintstones" who played the role of Fred Flintstone. The over-usage of his favourite phrase 'turns out' makes Jk cringe every time he says it and thats also a little upside of that one hour of Chemistry :)

BIOL 112 (???)

I sat in on this class once. We got pretty decent seats, right at the back in a little gallery-like box... made me feel like I was attending the opera.

Verdict: I don't think that this is the class for me either. Not only could I not catch up with what the professor was saying, my mind strayed so far that I spent the whole 50 mins alternating between dozing off and drawing a Nerdosaurus Raptor for Jk.

MATH 200 (???)

I sat in on a class talking about matrices and vectors.

Verdict: Need I say more?? Matrices and Vectors and mangni-what-a-ma-bobs... I would not only fail, I would do it epically. I spent this entire class getting ready to poke Jk awake if he dozed off while sketching bug-eyed chicks and squirrels.

Of all the classes that I sat in on though, the one that took the cake was:

CSPC 110

I could at least understand more or less what the professors were talking about in the other classes; endothermic, exothermic, membranes, velocity and multiplications. But as I plopped myself down next to Jk for his CPSC 110 (Computer Science) class, I realized that not only was the population being dominated by males, but that the entire class was made up of nerds. Which made me feel even more like the bimbo that I get accused of being occasionally.

It took me less than 2 minutes to realize that I did not understand a SINGLE WORD that came out of the professor mouth.

Okay, I lied.

I understood the words alright. They were simple English words. I understood them perfectly. Individually. When strung into a sentence, it just made me feel like the professor was just throwing out a random bunch of words that were related to math and science.

One of the best examples I can give you is this:

Professor: So, how many of you are confident with 'render cat'?

*** 97% of the class population raised their hands. I'm pretty sure I was one of the 1/4 who didn't raise my hand. (I'm pretty sure that 1/4 of the class is not 97% of the class... but what the heck... as long as you understand that i was a minuscule minority...)

Professor: So you're confident you can do it? That's good. I want you to practice 'render cat'.

At this point, I was so confused that I was shouting (in my head) "WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY RENDER CAT??? Are we supposed to render them speechless???"

A whole load of other fancy smanshy terminology was used by the professor and I cannot for the life of me remember now.

Verdict: I would take Chem, Bio or Math before I would take on CPSC. This course is just crazy. I actually thought the professor sounded like he was a fluent Klingon. Plus, he walks up and down the aisles so much that I was SURE he'd notice that a bimbo was sitting in and call me out to banish me from the CPSC building. Never again.

An so my search for a suitable science course to fulfill my Science Requirement continues.

Wish me luck.