Tired Feet and Black Beans

Today was my second day of summer school and boy am I tired.  Now, I have it good; I know this.  I work a max of 5 hours a day 4 days a week (for the summer anyway), and I just had over a month off.  HOWEVER, when I teach, it's exhausting.  It is emotionally tiring "entertaining" students for 2.4 hours with math.  I say entertaining because that's what I feel like I have to do sometimes to keep them on task.  Today for example, I was using some of my best "make them laugh at me" material; their eyes were totally glazed over, not listening anymore.  What the kids don't realize is that I'm just as tired as they are if not more.  I know it's hard to pay attention and try to absorb all the information beyond 30 minutes let alone 2 hours, so try teaching it for that long.

Ok, now I sound like I'm whining.  I love my job, and I'm a little burnt out.  I've taught 20 to 21 hours a semester for at least the past 5 semesters.  These extra classes have made for some nice extra money, but I have paid for it in the end.  I'm really looking forward to going part-time in the fall.  I hope that the change of pace will get me fired up again.

With my tired feet and empty stomach, I decided to make some soup this afternoon for dinner.  I made an easy black bean soup.  It's nice and creamy without any cream, so it's healthy too!  The trick is to blend up some of the beans and leave the others whole.  For those that are interested, here's the recipe:

Spicy Black Bean Soup

Ingredients

cooking spray

1 medium onion, finely chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

45 oz canned black beans, undrained, divided (three 15 oz cans)

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes, or to taste

1 tsp ground cumin (though I like to add a little more)

14 1/2 oz chicken or vegetable broth

10 oz canned tomatoes with green chilies, such as Rotel Tomatoes

Instructions

--Coat bottom of a large stockpot with cooking spray.  Add onion and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until onions are soft but not brown, about 5 minutes.

--Place one can of beans in blender; add sauteed onion mixture, red pepper flakes, and cumin.  Cover and blend on high until smooth, about 30 seconds.  Pour mixture back into stockpot.

--Place second can of beans and broth in blender and puree until smooth; add to stockpot.

--Stir in third can of beans (do not puree first) and tomatoes and green chilies into stockpot.  Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes.  

Originally the recipe had a can of corn in it too, so that's why the pictures has corn in the soup but I didn't have corn as an ingredient.  I left out the corn because I didn't have any the first time I made it, so I just never added it in since then.  Also, I don't add the entire 14 1/2 oz of chicken broth.  It made the soup a little too thin for me the first go round, so I cut it down to 12 oz.  If you like a really thick soup, add less broth and let it simmer and set for more than 20 to 25 minutes.

With all that said, I'm spent.  What a long day.  Tomorrow is my Friday, so hopefully it will be better.

Brisket Update

I know you all have been anxiously waiting my update on the brisket, so here it is!  The meat turned out good.  I had sort of a hectic day of cooking it though.  I started the hunk o meat at 8:30am at 250 degrees.  I cooked it for about 4 hours on that temperature then turned the oven up to 300 because of some other creation Brittney and I were cooking up (to read all about this item go here and read the section titled "My Current Obsession").  In total, it cooked for about 7 hours at my house and still was not pull-apart goodness, almost but not quite.  Thus, I had to transport the mess to my mom's and let it finish cooking there.  She had her oven up to 400 for something she was cooking, a little high for what I needed, but I decided to go ahead and plop my meat in thinking it wouldn't be too bad.  I checked after about 45 minutes, and it was good to go.  When it came to eating the brisket, everyone thought it was melt-in-your-mouth great but Garrett.  He felt like it was a little dry.  With the juice over it, the meat was heaven; without, it was a little dry.  I have decided that it would have been perfection if I could have left it alone in my oven on 250 or 300 for about another hour; I think the 400 temperature took it over the edge into the almost perfection range.  With all this said, I have decided that my first brisket attempt was a success as it has made for some amazing leftovers (I stored it in all the yummy juices thus making it super tender as Garrett can confirm).

Here are the only pictures of the brisket I have once it was done.  (I totally forgot to take more as I was too busy stuffing my face)  The one on the left has a lovely shot of the brisket juice aka "heaven in a gravy boat" in some nice polish pottery.

HGTV and Me

I am in love with HGTV.  It's true.  If Garrett and I had cable, then I would probably have an addiction.  When we go to my parents house to watch football or basketball games, I will camp out in the back room for hours watching whatever HGTV has to offer: House Hunters, Design on a Dime, Curb Appeal, etc.  You name it, and I've probably seen it.

Recently, I discovered that HGTV and the DIY Network have full episodes on Hulu (our only source to the outside TV world) for free.  Imagine my excitement when I saw that I can watch season after season of House Hunters International dreaming of the villa that I'll have in Italy one day!

Watching HGTV makes me feel like I have the ability to make my house look like something out of an episode of Dear Genevieve.  When I'm done with an HGTV marathon, I am the next Design Star.
 ---Those that have no idea what I'm referring to, shame on you for not knowing more about the wonderful world of the Home and Garden Network!--- 
Still on my high, I walk into my house thinking, "What's this room's Hidden Potential?"  In fact, moments ago I finished watching the latest episode of Wasted Spaces (from the DIY network, which is essentially HGTV), and I looked around my house wondering if I too had any space that is wasted that could be filled with a built-in something or another.  This show is my latest obsession (ok, there I admit it).  Though the host is a bit annoying, the show itself is awesome!  The host, Carl (he's Australian, so it's really more like Kaal), shows people how to build amazing shelving units and storage spaces within nooks and crannies throughout their house.  Wonderful.

This is Carl.  Does he look Australian?

So now you're probably thinking, "Brooke must have a beautifully decorated home, with all the design shows she has watched and learned from."  Well my friend, you'd be mostly wrong.  My house is beautiful, but it is not beautifully decorated; it is rather plain.  I am one of those people who has no idea how to practically apply the design knowledge I have stored in my brain.  I can tell you how to build a closet between two dormers, but I cannot arrange and accessorize my living room so that it looks warm, inviting, and put together.  My sister gets frustrated with me because rather than try a bunch of things, I just do nothing.  You see there are a couple of other things holding me back, I'm cheap.  I know there are ways to get around the money, but I am a bit lazy too.  When it comes down to going to Starbucks and hanging out or working all afternoon shopping for and designing my living room, I'll go for the Starbucks every time.  I guess this means I don't actually want my living room to be the things I say I want because "you do what you want to do and don't do what you don't want to do."  It's probably a good thing that I'm moving into an apartment that I can't change.  I'll get the design itch though; I know it.  I'll be at home one evening and start to dream about a way to make my little kitchen more "me."  That'll involve a trip to Hobby Lobby where I'll walk around and won't buy anything.  Don't fret though, I'll catch up with my mind one day, or I'll leave the design dreams behind and be content with what I have.  I'm not worried.

Brisket!

Tomorrow I'll be attempting, for the first time, to cook a brisket.  I'll be cooking it the way my mom does.  Her brisket is always awesome and magnificent (yes, both), so I hope mine turns out that way too.  I'll be marinating it in a marinade that she swears by (Claude's Brisket Marinade Sauce), then cooking it long and low in the oven.  It sounds too easy to screw up, right?  Well, if it can be screwed up I will be the one to do it.  I'm not a horrible cook; in fact, I think I'm pretty decent.  But, like anything else, it takes practice to get "the feel" of some things.  And for some reason, new big meat dishes take me a couple of trials to get right.  For example, the first time I cooked pot roast was a disaster.  "How can you screw up pot roast?" you might be asking.  Well, you can, and I did.  I have no idea what I did wrong, but I know that the large lump of meat was inedible in the end.  It was dry and tough and ended up in the trash.  Hopefully, this will not be the case for my first brisket.  This huge hunk of meat came from the quarter of a cow that Garrett and I bought last August.  This purchase was one of the best things we have invested in, and I recommend it to anyone.  My brisket is being cooked in celebration of my dad's and grandmother's birthdays, no pressure.

So here's my process, I cut off some of the excess fat (there was quite a bit on this puppy), then tenderized the meat with a fork and some meat tenderizer.  Next, I placed it in a tin, that was far too small, and poured the marinade over it.  By the time I cook it tomorrow, it will have marinaded for 24+ hours.  Tomorrow morning, I'll put it in a 250 degree oven for at least 6 hours.  I have no idea if that is long enough for this chunk of meat; after tomorrow, I'll let you know how long it actually took and post some pictures of the beefy goodness.  Here are some pictures of the marinade and the soaking brisket in it's small container (it's all I had, don't judge me).  The pictures were taken with my phone, so forgive the poor quality.

 

The marinaded brisket actually looks kind of gross, but I'm hoping it'll turn out heavenly.  If this works out well, I think I'll try The Pioneer Woman's homemade brisket marinade to kick my culinary skills up a notch.  Again, I'll post pictures of the finished product and tell you how wonderful or awful it turned out.

A Little Reward

Today I was at Starbucks (of course, where else would I be), when one of my old students came over to say hello and share her latest news.

To give a little background info here, this woman was one of my Math Structures students.  Math Structures is meant for students who are majoring in Education (primarily Elementary Ed).  It's a math class that they have to take; thus, most take it begrudgingly not realizing they'll have to do actual math in the course. ---To all my friends who are non-math lovers and teachers, I'm not talking about you :-). ---

I LOVE that I got to teach this class; I LOVE that I got to have some impact on who becomes an educator, to impart some passion and knowledge that I have gained over my eight years of teaching.  With this, I HATE some of the things that come with this class.  The saying, "ignorance is bliss" describes my experience well.  Before this class, I assumed that all students who go on to be teachers do this after passing courses based on their knowledge of subject matter and competence in being able to teach a subject.  This, I have discovered, is not always the case.  I have had students cuss me out because I would not let them use a calculator on a test that was over a fourth grade level topic.  More and more I see students struggling over basic concepts they once were taught in elementary school and will have to teach themselves.  This I can forgive; this struggle can be met with studying and relearning elementary mathematics.  Unfortunately, though, I don't often see students embrace the work that must be done to relearn the very subject they'll be asking their students to learn.  In fact, I see students trying to do the bare minimum (self-admittedly) to "just get by" and get out of school, so they can do what they want.  WHY? I AM DUMBFOUNDED.  I don't understand this generation of student.  I don't understand why someone, who wants to teach little kids information and lessons to be better than they are, refuses to do the same for themselves!  What hypocrites we are creating.  I ask my students, when they start to complain and slack off, to be the kind of student they will ask their future students to be.  Sometimes this is met with nods and the realization that they are choosing a profession that insists they be better than they are, and sometimes it is met with yawns and rolling eyes.  Now, I have had several brilliant and talented students come through my classroom over the years (though they unfortunately are the minority), so not all students fit into the picture I am painting for you.  

With that rant, I'll bring you back to my student I ran into today.  This girl was definitely one of the exceptions I mentioned earlier.  She worked hard.  She understood that to get to her goal, she had to not only know the material, but also to understand it (yes, there's a difference but that's for another day and another rant).  She finished her schooling last semester and was one of the fortunate ones to find a job at a local elementary school teaching fourth grade.  I am super happy for her.  She proceeded to tell me that with the restructuring in education that Arkansas is taking on (to try to catch up with the rest of the nation), her grade will be departmentalizing, having each teacher specialize in a particular subject rather than teaching their one class every subject.  In her latest meeting, they chose who would teach what.  She was one of the first to speak up (if you knew her, you'd say "of course").  Of the subjects to choose from, one being literacy--her level of specialization, she chose math!  She told me that everyone sighed a huge sigh of relief because no one else wanted math.  This student of mine was smart, but not a math major.  She had the same amount of math that everyone else in that room had (or less).  She took on math because she found it an exciting  challenge.  She was so jazzed telling me about all the information she's finding about teaching fourth and fifth grade level math (because you have to know what you're students will need to know in the future).

This interaction with my past student made my heart smile.  It has encouraged me that something I do has meaning.  I have complete confidence that a student that I passed out of my course is a true teacher.  She's going to influence students in a positive way towards math; I believe that students coming out of her class will know and understand their material no matter their personal feelings about it.