My favourite recipe

What's your favourite recipe?

Where did you learn it?

Is it something your mother taught you?

Or something you learnt from a cookbook or magazine?

My favourite recipe is for carrot cake.

You might think 'ehhh??? Carrot in a cake??' :O

But carrot cake is really delicious. :)

It's really moist and has lots of spices.

Here's a picture to tantalise you. ;)



And the best bit about carrot cake? It's really easy to make!!

Here's a recipe for you:

EASY CARROT CAKE

CAKE:

2 med. carrots
2 lg. eggs
1 c. sugar
3/4 c. oil
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 c. chopped walnuts

FROSTING;
1/2 stick unsalted butter
4 oz. cream cheese
1 tsp. vanilla
1 3/4 c. confectioners sugar

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 4x8 loaf pan. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon; set aside. Shred carrots. Mix together eggs, sugar, oil, and vanilla. Add dry ingredients to mixture. Fold in carrots and walnuts. Bake for 1 hour, or until tester comes out clean.
To make frosting, mix together all ingredients until smooth. Cover top and sides of cake and garnish with walnut halves.

Enjoy!!

gardening

Hey!

Long time no see!

How have you been?

I've been really busy lately.

I've been planting lots of vegetables in my garden.

Do you have a vegetable garden?

I like growing my own vegetables because I don't like the idea of eating all those agricultural chemicals.

And it's just great to be able to walk outside with a basket and come back in with a salad! :)

You can also grow vegetables that you can't find easily in Japan.

Do you know what these vegetables are? They're all growing in my garden.




It's rhubarb. The leaves are poisonous but the stems are delicious!

How about this one:




It's called button squash. It's like a little yellow zucchini. I love how bright the colour is.

Finally, how about this one?



It's called beetroot. It's the most amazing colour. It's like a really sweet turnip.

What's in your garden?

Who am I? Who are you?

How much do you know about the teachers at Richard's Easy English Schools?

How much does your teacher know about you?

I'm going to interview the teachers and introduce them here.

I'll start with me. :)

What is your full name?
Heather Mary Fukase

Where were you born?
Kincardine, Ontario, Canada

What is your earliest memory?
Dropping a raw egg on my new dress at Kinder. The egg broke. I cried. My teacher hugged me and told me it didn't matter. I still love my Kinder teacher!


What kind of student were you?
Very quiet. Very quick to finish my work. I loved school.

What is your most embarrassing moment?
Calling out "Daisuki!!" when I meant "Daisuke!" at University. :'(

What is your favourite food?
Tropical fruit salad with frozen yoghurt

What book are you reading?
Watermelon by Marian Keyes
http://www.amazon.com/Watermelon-Marian-Keyes/dp/0060090367

What's in your CD player today?
Abba Gold


What's your favourite movie?
The Princess Bride


Where in the world do you hope to travel one day? Why?
Greece. I love the beach, watermelon, spanokopita, greek yoghurt and baklava. :)

How do you relieve stress?
Listen to 1980's rock music way too loudly and sing along. :)

Do you prefer to watch a sun rise or sun set?
Sunset. If I see the sunrise it means I woke up too early. ;)

What is your favorite smell?
Peaches warm from the sun.

Who is your ultimate celebrity crush?
Yutaka Takenouchi or Johnny Depp

Vanilla or chocolate?
Chocolate

Summer or Winter?
Summer. Always summer!

Dogs or cats?
Dogs. I'm afraid of cats.

So, that's me. :)

Tell me about you!

Or send in some more questions for me to ask the teachers here. :)

Karaoke!

I hate Karaoke.

It's too noisy.

I don't know any of the songs.

I can't talk to my friends.

The food is terrible.

And... um.... I really, really can't sing!!

Did you know Karaoke is popular outside Japan?

That's right. And we even call it karaoke.

Only with really bad pronunciation.

It sounds like 'Ka-ri-oh-key'.

Recently I've found a new way to do Karaoke.

And I like it!!

It's on the internet using YouTube.

Go to Youtube.com and type in 'karaoke'.

There are hundreds of songs to choose from.

I like this song by Britney Spears. It's called Everytime.



If that's a little slow and sad for you, how about this one?



And this one's not karaoke but I love it anyway. :)



Enjoy!

Leap year

2008 is a leap year.

We have 366 days this year.

One extra day to learn English! ;)

How do you remember which months have 30 days and which ones have 31?

Here's a short video about leap years that includes the rhyme I use to remember:



Did you catch the rhyme?

It's:

30 days has September,
April June and November,
All the rest have 31,
Except February,
Which has 28, in fine
Until leap year makes it 29.

When you were a kid...

The other day I was having lunch with Richard, Kanae, and two students: Yuki and Tatsu.

We were talking about what we wanted to be when we were little.

Richard wanted to be on the Brady Bunch.

Do you know the Brady Bunch?

It was a TV programme about a family with six children. Here's the opening from the show:



Me?

I always wanted to go to school with the kids from Degrassi Junior High.

Their school was so exciting!

Here's the opening:



What about you?

What TV programme did you love as a child?

Happy ending!

I love happy endings.

When I was a child my favourite books were the ones that ended: 'and they all lived happily ever after'.

Even now I prefer American romance movies to Japanese ones.

Why?

Well, in American movies you just know that everything will be ok in the end.

In Japanese ones there's a good chance someone will die, or leave, or get sick, or something else horrible.

If you know a Japanese romance movie with a happy ending please tell me. I'd love to see it!

Anyway, remember my bad day? Well it had a happy ending!

Yesterday I found my keys!

They were on the roof of my car, stuck under the aerial.

I had been driving around for three days with my keys on the roof!

That's not just a happy ending, it's a miracle!!

I feel very lucky today.

Tell me about something lucky that's happened to you.