Apple Rose Pastries

January 2, 2017

New year means that I should start something new or...start back up something I have left behind. This blog was originally for when I was doing my student teaching and all the experiences that went along with that. I'm starting up this blog again but with the intention to share more than just my teaching endeavors.

I love to play around in the kitchen with new recipes. On Facebook a while ago, I saw a video for these apple rose pastries that just looked so lovely that I wanted to see if I could create them myself.

Below is my process for making...Apple Rose Pastries 

~Heat oven to 375͒ F.
~Set out puff pastry sheets to thaw.
~Clean 3 medium sized Red Delicious apples. I used my kitchen aid attaches to help speed up some of the process.

~In a large bowl (safe for oven use), add the juice from one lemon and then fill the rest of the bowl with water till it is about 3/4 full.

~Next is to cut the apples into thin slices. This is where my kitchen aid helped a great deal. With the spiralizer attachment, I was able to slice the apples along with cutting the core out. 

~Once the apples were sliced, all I had to do was cut them right down the middle. 

~Separate all the apple slices and place them in the bowl with lemon water. Make sure all slices are submerged. Place in the over for about 12 min or until the apple start to become soft.

~In the meantime, I rolled out the pastry sheets. I made them as skinny as I could get them. I used both pastry sheets that were in the package and once rolled out, I cut them into 6 sections. 

~When the apples became soft, I drained the water off and began preparing the roses.

~In a small dish, I combined equal parts of apricot preserve and water. This is used for the spread.

~With each rose, I spread a little bit of the apricot preserve on a piece of pastry dough, overlapped the apple slices so that about half was off the dough, sprinkled cinnamon over top, folded the dough over the rest of the apple slices, and then rolled the mixture into a rose.

~Once all the roses were assembled, they were placed in the oven for 40 min.

My grandma Marge always said that pies were only good if they ran over. I'm going to say that counts for these rose pastries as well. 

Here is a list of all the ingredients:

-1 frozen puff pastry sheet (contains two)

-3 med red delicious apples

-apricot preserve

-cinnamon

-flour (to help roll out dough)

-powdered sugar (to sprinkle on top)

I apologize for slacking so much with my blog. These last few weeks have been busy for me and I haven't had time to post. I did however take pictures everyday of my outfits so I will post those but I don't have time to chat about what I did those days. Over spring break, I was able to get caught up and a little ahead so hopefully I will be able to keep up with my blog better :)

Day 49:

Day 47:

Day 46:

Day 45:

Day 44:

Day 42:

Day 41:

Day 40:

 

 

Day 39:
Today was the last day that I gave the students in the computer lab to type up their reports. Most of the students worked hard the entire class period and said that they would email me their reports when they were finished. I had one student get very upset with me over their grade. I wasn't sure exactly how to deal with this situation so I tried my best and then let the student chill out for a while. At the end of class, this student apologized to me for their poor attitude and we worked out a deal for the assignment that the student was upset over. Jen called the parent of this student at the end of the day and she let me listen in on how she approached the call. This was good for me to see how a teacher should address parents in a respectful manner. I hope to eventually call a parent during my student teaching so that I have a better understanding of how this goes.
Sorry for no outfit picture today. I was in a hurry to get to my evening activities :)

Day 38:
Now that the students have finished their entire experiment, it is time for them to type them up. Last Friday when I was gone, they were given time to type up their introductions. They had an outline to fill out for their experimental process and if they followed this sheet, they should have been able to write their introductions in under ten minutes. But as we got to the lab today to type up these papers, many students had "lost" their previous work or only had their title typed. I feel that three days in the computer lab is an ample amount of class time for the students to have. The students that used their class time wisely, got almost completely done with their report and will only have a smidge of work to do on their own time. I also decided to give all my students my email so that they can send me their reports and I can give them corrections. I'm really hoping that they will utilize this information. Only time will tell.
This sweater is absolutely perfect, except it could be just one inch longer. It covers my butt completely, however a smidge more clearance would be nice. I usually wear this sweater with my black knee high boots but went with my dark browns today. I would say I like the brown better.

Day 37:
Even though I didn't teach today, I was still able to help many of the students in the bio classes. I have a student that is blind that I've started sitting next to so that when she misses something written on the board, I can tell her what it was. This has been quite eye opening for me to see such a large difference in learning techniques. I'm also starting to pay more attention to the bio 2 lecture since I will be taking over for the next unit.
This outfit makes it's way back to surface again. I really just feel so comfortable in this outfit that I could wear it everyday and not be ashamed. The addition I made to this attire was the pearl necklace that my sweetie pie got me for Valentine's Day. This gave it a nice bit of glam.

 And it was a little chilly today so I figured I'd share a picture of my new favorite knit cap. I could probably sleep in this hat I love it so much.

Day 36:
The students were all completing their projects today. I didn't have to do a whole lot of instruction today since they all designed their experiments on their own. I basically just walked around the room and made sure that no one was being unsafe and that everyone was collecting the data in the groups. I was impressed with the organization that some of the groups had going on in their set up. Of course not all the groups were organized, but there was a large amount that had a great system going. Ultimately, I was happy/proud of how hard my students were working on these experiments that they were designing themselves.
I almost forgot I even had this sweater until I found it in the back of my dresser. This sweater is great for teaching because it is a soft fabric and it has a higher neckline then others. I did wear jeans on a Tuesday but I would say they are my nicest pair of skinnys. And of course to accompany this attire are my Ariat knee high boots :)

Day 35:
Today was a work day for the students to get their procedures done for their independent experiment. I was excepting most everybody to complete their procedure today and to possibly even start their experiments. I had a couple students get done with their procedures and start on their experiments, and then I also had a large amount not get even close to having their experiments done.
Over the weekend, I had a students email me about the assignments and their frustration with what all was going on. When I approached this student in class, we worked out all their frustrations and set some time aside to work on the assignments. This as my first real interaction with student complaints and it went really well. I can only hope they will all go this well.
Today was the first day that I subbed for Jen. I had all the students to myself and that was a pretty cool thing. My chem classes were pretty simple since I have pretty much taken them over all the say. The bio classes on the other hand were a little different. In bio 1, we presented the rest of our projects and then I introduced the next unit of meiosis and mitosis. Then in bio 2, I had a full lecture on diseases related to autosomal traits. I was a little nervous for this lesson because these kids are so smart and I didn't want to not meet their standards. The lesson went great and they seemed be very engaged with my lesson.
I kept it simple with my pink baggy sweater, black skinny pants, and dark brown knee high boots. I wear skinnys and knee high boots often, but they are just the most comfortable when you have to teach all day.

Day 34:
Jen, Kali, and I went to the Science Summit up in Casper for the day. We were assigned a certain table so that there was a mix of teachers at each today. Each teacher was asked to bring an example of active learning to share with the group. I was a little nervous for this summit since I'm only a pre-service teacher and all don't have as much experience as the others there. Overall, I was very happy with my experience at this convention. It was great to hear the ideas that all the other teachers had and I made a friend with a professor at UW.
I didn't have a chance to take a picture of my outfit but I wore a flannel shirt with khaki pants and my dark brown riding boots.

Day 33:
Bio 1 was presenting their models today on protein synthesis. Many pairs were not ready to present today and this was a little disappointing. They had many days to complete this assignment and tons of class time to work on it as well. However, the groups that did present today were really good. In Chem, I allowed the students work time to get their experiment completely planned out. Today was also the day that the students were to turn in their Sports Snack Project. The students had over a week to complete this lab and I maybe had five students come into to get help. I had about a 5% of my students turn in their project today. This was very disheartening to me because I had offered so much of my help to them and reminded them to get help if they were stuck. I'll have to figure out what to do differently next time.
I was missing golf today so I decided to wear one of my golf pullovers. This one is from Troon North down in Arizona. Today was sort of my Friday so I went with jeans and my khaki flats.

Day 32:
 Today was just a work day in Bio 1 for them to finish their models. I mainly just wondered around answering any questions that they students had. It was great to see the progress that some of the groups have been making. Bio 2 continued on learning about inheritance. I've starting looking over the material that I will be teaching the bio 2 kids on Monday.
I went for fancy today. Well my kind of fancy. My red flowy cardigan and a black undershirt with my light khaki pants. My belt was my mom's back when she was in college. I matched my belt with my Ariat riding boots.

Day 31:
We started talking about enzymes more in depth today. I gave them a note outline so that they could follow along more easily. My student teaching advisor lady come to observe me during my 1st period. She was very pleased with my teaching abilities and had great advice for me. After we got through the notes, the students started to design their own experiment based on an enzyme. I was really proud of all the students working hard at trying to design an experiment on their own. Jen and I still helped them quite a bit with getting their ideas isolated.
I went with my off-white long sleeve shirt today and my mint pants. Now that I'm looking at my outfit, I can see that I wore a brown belt and black boots. This does not match at all. I need to pay more attention.

Day 30:
Today was a half day for the students but a full day for me. We only had 22 minutes with each class so I decided to show a demonstrations about enzymes. The demo that I showed was called Elephant's Toothpaste. I had a graduated cylinder and filled it with about 30mL of hydrogen peroxide. You have to add a little bit of dish soap to the mixture to help contain the bubbles. Next, I added a little bit of potassium iodide. Once this was added, the reaction started and it erupted like a volcano. I recommend all of you look up a video of this on YouTube so that you can get a better picture of what I'm talking about. This is an exothermic reaction so there was heat coming off of the cylinder. In all of the bubbles is concentrated oxygen gas. We then took a wood splint that was red hot with out flame. I would stick the splint in the bubbles and it would light on fire.
After all the students left for the day, we had a staff development were we talked about the freshman transition that would occur at the new high school. I really had no idea what to share at this gathering so I kept to myself for the most part. I did however got to leave early because Jen and I had to go to an IEP meeting. This was my first IEP meeting and I would have to say it went pretty well.
I forgot to take a picture of my outfit for the day so I decided to share a picture from the weekend. My fella came to visit me for Valentine's Day. He gave me the necklace I'm wearing in the picture, which is an emerald pearl from Fiji. 

 Instead of going out to dinner, we decided to make dinner ourselves. We made two fondues, a beer cheese and a garlic beef broth. Our dipping items were marinated steak, artesian bread, pretzel bites, broccoli, asparagus, and apples. This dinner was quite amazing and I would love to do a fondue night again sometime.

Day 28:
Today was another work day for the Chem students. This was for them to work on their sports snack project. I had hoped that they would be able to finish all their tables but I guess this was a little much for me to expect out of them. They all worked really hard so I wasn't disappointed at all. I did give them the whole class period to work on this so I hope their project are high quality when they turn them in.
I have worn this outfit before but I really like how it all goes together so I will probably wear it again. I wore my plaid button up with khaki skinny jeans and my Ariat riding boots.

Day 27:
I didn't teach today since it was a biology day but I remember to take an outfit picture so I'll still share my day. The Bio 1 kids were working on their project for the unit where they had to create a model that represented protein synthesis. There were a lot of different ideas being passed around. One group is writing a song, another is making a cupcake display, and another is making it out of clay. I'm really excited to see their presentations next week. The Bio 2 students are taking their unit test, which is also about protein synthesis. Their information just goes more in depth. I thought I knew this information pretty well and then they asked me questions while taking the test and holy crap it was hard. I have learned biology information so many times and I still struggle with conveying the information.
I wore my loose pink sweater with my bullet necklace. My pants are my black skinny pants with my maroon brown riding boots. I also wore my leather Pandora bracelet.

 

Day 26:
The students started their culminating event for this unit today. I gave them a scenario where they worked for a fitness company and they had to determine which "sports snack" the company should use. This project put together all the lab information that they had obtained from the unit. Many of the students did not like having little instruction with this assignment. It was healthy for them to struggle through this project but I did help them a little bit. This day seemed to go by really slow by then again so did the whole week.
Sorry no outfit picture today. I had little motivation this week.



Day 25:
Today was a work day for the students to finish their calculations from the calorimeter lab. Some of the students struggle with these calculations so it was important for them to get questions answered today. We also calculated how many calories they personally need to consume on a daily basis. This calculation required them to consider how much physical activity they do daily. I would definitely say that they students over estimated their physical activity. As I was walking around the room, I had a student noticed that I painted my nails over the weekend. This student was male and a rancher. It was pretty cute that he noticed my manicure.
I went for casual today and had on a blue cardigan, skinny khaki pants, and flats.

Day 24:

FRIDAY!!! This was a very long week but overall I learned a great deal from the week. In Chem today, we finished the calorimeter lab and then they worked on their calculations. Each class had different motivational levels and I had to work differently with all of them. The last class was of course the most challenging, but luckily the weekend came right after. Jen and I decided that for next Friday we would do a Science Friday dedicated to love for valentine's day. I'm pretty excited for this.

I wore my gray drappy cardigan with a blueish under shirt. My light khaki skinny pants went well with my Ariat riding boots. I also wore my Teton necklace to compliment the whole attire.

 

 

Day 23:

 Today was a total rollercoaster. There were a ton of ups and downs but I just want to focus on the ups. The students did a lab with a calorimeter where they determined the amount of calories in a food sample. This lab seemed to catch the students attention because they had to light things on fire. I went through a short description of the set up and safety, then let the students go wild. With all the food samples being lite on fire, the room did not smell that grand. A few students said they could smell the burnt food all the way down the hallway. I also had my teacher from the university come in during 7th block and observe me. I was glad that she came during the third time I was teaching this class because I had time to practice before her. After class, I chatted with her for a little while and she seemed pretty impressed with my lessons and teaching abilities.

After teaching dance class today, I went over to Cheyenne to have dinner with my brother. He came to this side of the state for an engineering convention. We ate at a restaurant by the train depot and splurged to have crème brulee for desert.

 I know I've worn this outfit before but I really love this sweater. I'm red skinny's are a nice touch of color and the black riding boots are practical when there it is snowy out.

 

Day 22:
I wrote the largest check of my life today. I had to run into campus today to pay for my tuition. Even though it was a lot of money, it is the last one I will have to pay ever. Today in Bio 1, we did a microbiology lab. We isolated a bacteria on a petri dish and each pair streaked their agar plate with the bacteria and then put an aluminum foil cut out on top of it. Once all this was done, they put the dish under a UV lamp for one minute. This process will kill all the bacteria that is not underneath the aluminum foil. All the students seemed to enjoy this lab because it made them feel like they were doing real science. I practiced the lab I'm going to do with my Chem students tomorrow and I think I have all the kinks worked out. Burn yourself once and you find a better way to do something.
I wore my purple pink sweater today. Typically, I wear this sweater with legging because it is kind of longer but that wouldn't have been that appropriate. Instead, I wore my black skinny jeans and my black riding boots.