The Watermelon Radish

The Watermelon Radish
A Kid's Point of Food

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Charity Bake sale


A few Fridays ago I was getting ready for a big charity bake sale. I was all set with my ingredients and my friend M. who is also part of the charity was coming over to bake and hang out. The bake sale is for our charity called Coins 4 Hope, we help underprivileged children, set goals for ourselves, encourage others to give and we also help others to lead better lives. We are a group of friends, working together to make big changes in the lives of others. On Friday after school I went down the street to my art class for an hour, anticipating what M. and I would be baking. After class I went back to school, and followed the sound of singing, because M. was in an audition workshop. I found M. and we drove to my house. At home, we got right into baking, we started the sugar cookies first







We rolled out the dough my mom and I had made the night before. M. and I took turns trying to roll the dough evenly. After the dough was in a giant flat circle we took our cookie cutters and made cookie circles. We popped the sugar cookies into the oven to bake while we made the brownies. M. and I didn't read a lot of the directions while making the brownies. First we added the eggs, flour, sugar and tons (tons) of chocolate chips. The brownie mixture in the bowl looked a lot like cookie dough. I told M., "Do you think that these brownies will turn out more like cookies than brownies?" we both shrugged and continued to make them. Once the cookies came out of the oven we replaced them with the brownies. We had decided to make this batch of cookies with frosting instead of sprinkles. The only problem was that we didn't have the frosting pens and we wanted to write the name of the charity or hope or love. M. said, "I know how to make frosting pens." So I also learned how to make those that night. I held out a plastic bag and she filled it with frosting, then I squished the bag closed and we cut the top off. I did the same for her frosting pen. We decorated the tops of the cookies with frosting, edible glitter and sprinkles. The cookies looked wonderful!



As M. and I were sitting down for our dinner of Brie Pasta with tomatoes my mom rushed into the room with the tray of brownies we had made earlier. She thrust the tray in our faces and said, "There is something wrong with the brownies, they are really sweet and DO look like cookies!" I laughed and shook my head, thinking, 'They can't be that sweet!' One bite and I couldn't eat anymore, but they were good anyway. Later on we made real brownies. Then we went to sleep eagerly awaiting the bake sale the next day. When we woke up we had a lovely breakfast, M. had a bagel with cream cheese and I had (my own invention) a bagel with cream cheese and homeade corn beef. Believe it or not, this tastes really good. After M. left I changed into my Coins 4 Hope t-shirt and made some signs.


I was one of the first ones there and greeted my friends H. and E., who were already multiplying the number of signs we had. The table already had some yummy goodies like cupcakes and muffins. We made more signs as we talked about what we wanted to accomplish that day. We were joined by our friends A., E., R. and G. who were bringing cookies, cupcakes and more sweet treats, Oh My! We had a perfect strategy in mind, some people would stand with signs at the beginning of the block, a few kids would be positioned by the bake sale table itself, and finally three or four kids would stand on the far corner by the stop sign to yell into car windows. This strategy worked even more when M. and O. arrived. There was a man who had an estate sale on the other side of the street and this brought good business. The best part was when we flagged down a tour bus in the middle of the street, but the people in the bus couldn't get out so we brought the goodies to them, and it was quite fun. At the end we were all allowed to eat some of the leftovers, until a man bought all the rest of the sweets and we sold out! It was really fun!





If you are interested in the Coins 4 Hope charity please go to..
www.coins4hope.com and see the man looking at the moon logo.
We sell wristbands and t-shirts, too!

Watermelon Radish

Monday, October 10, 2011

Advisory Challenge



Last week my advisory was assigned to make a goal for the next day. Each person would make their own, some people chose to do all their homework or do their chores. I chose to make noodles and bring them into my advisory tomorrow. Ms. D'amato thought this was a great idea and I promised to make Peanut Noodles that night.

Well, when I got home my dad was still making dinner and wouldn't help me with my noodles, so it was agreed that I would make the noodles after dinner. We had a good meal but I saved some room for the taste test! After dinner I told my dad that I had to make them and not him. He nodded, but I'm not sure I got the point across.
First I put my ingredients in the Cuisinart, which (by the way) I pronounce Quiz-in-art. The recipe told me to put 1o garlic cloves into the Cuisinart, but I decided to put only 5 because I didn't want it to be too spicy. I put in the peanut butter because they're called Peanut Noodles. Then you add soy sauce or the fancy word, Shoyu. Followed by some sugar to make it extra sweet, like me! After the sugar, compliment the sweet with some spice, or 1/2 Tbsp. Ra-yu oil. To top all that you add some rice whine or even dry sherry. After adding all that mumbo jumbo you blend it and it becomes PEANUT DRESSING!




While that's sitting out, take some Chow Mein noodles that you can buy at ANY supermarket in the Asian section. Then, without chopping off any fingers I successfully and thinly sliced some green onions. Then I added some baby corn or those weird mini things and sliced some water chestnuts. Usually I shred a chicken breast (cooked, best to avoid getting Salmonella) on top of the noodles.

When I was done I felt really proud that I had made some AWESOMELY good noodles. The next day I came to school with not one but two lunchboxes. I had to get to my first class but I handed my precious noodles to Hiram with a warning of, "Give these straight to Ms.D'amato or....." well lets not go there. At advisory I took my noodles out of the science lab fridge and walked down to the advisory room. Everyone had a plateful and LOVED them. I am very happy that I made noodles and will make them again soon.

Till tomorrow!
Watermelon Radish