Eva's Favorite Recipes

**These recipes are American and therefore have different measurements for some things that can be hard to figure out, so I have posted the recipe with changes to make it easier for you.**

90 Minute Cinnamon Rolls

These cinnamon rolls may look hard to make, but  they really aren't!!! Using yeast tends to scare me, because there are so many ways that it can go wrong, but these rolls are practically foolproof! They rise really quickly and taste AMAZING :)

INGREDIENTS

Dough:

¾ cup milk

60g butter

3¼ cups all-purpose flour

7g instant yeast (or 2¼ teaspoons)

¼ cup white sugar

½ teaspoon salt

¼ cup water

1 egg

Filling:

1 cup brown sugar, packed

1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

60g plus 1 tablespoon of butter

Frosting:

2 tablespoons softened butter

115g cream cheese

1 tsp vanilla extract or paste

2-3 cups of powdered sugar (depending on how sweet you like it.)

METHOD

1. Heat the milk in a small saucepan until it bubbles, then remove from heat. Mix in butter; stir until melted. Let cool until lukewarm.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine 2¼ cup flour, yeast, sugar and salt; whisk together. Add water, egg and the milk mixture; beat well with an electric mixer. Add the remaining flour, ½ cup at a time, using a wooden spoon to stir well after each addition. (dough will be too thick and sticky to use the mixers at this point.)
3. When the dough has just pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth, about 5 minutes, or alternately use the dough hook in a stand mixer. When ready, the dough will spring back when lightly pressed.
4. Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let rest on the counter for 10 minutes.
5. Meanwhile, brown your butter by placing it in a small microwave safe glass bowl or container. Cover it with a saucer or other well-fitted cover and microwave for 3-5 minutes. Butter will melt, pop and then turn brown. (you can also do this over the stove-top, but I find the microwave method pretty easy.) While butter cools slightly, mix together brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.
6. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough into a 12x9 inch rectangle. (use your 9x13 baking dish as a guide.) Using a pastry brush- slather the dough with the brown butter. Sprinkle dough with cinnamon sugar mixture and press in lightly so it doesn't fall out when you roll it, getting all the way to the edges.
7. Roll up dough and pinch seam to seal. Using a serrated knife, cut into 12 equal size rolls and place in a 9x13 baking dish. Cover and let the rolls rise in a warm place* until doubled, about 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
8. Bake in the preheated oven for 17-20 minutes, or until golden. Let cool for about 10 minutes and then spread them with frosting. (directions below) Serve warm.

To make the frosting:

9. Whip together the softened butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer until smooth and creamy. Add the vanilla and the powdered sugar, ½ cup at a time. Beat until creamy and spreadable.

Recipe from http://www.thebakerchick.com/2015/12/90-minute-brown-butter-cinnamon-rolls/

Brookies

Half Chocolate chip cookie, half brownie, these are FANTASTIC!!! Although they do have a lot of steps, these brookies are well worth the effort. They are soft and squishy and delicious.

INGREDIENTS

BROWNIE COOKIES

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

75g unsalted butter

60g unsweetened chocolate, chopped

1 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

SOFT CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

1 1/4 cups packed LIGHT brown sugar

345g butter, softened

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

3 eggs

4 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2-4 cups chocolate chips

METHOD
 

**Begin brownie cookie recipe first**

BROWNIE COOKIES

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment or silicon baking liner; set aside.

In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.

2. In a large bowl, melt butter and chocolate in microwave on HIGH setting for 30 seconds, stir. Reheat for an additional 15-30 seconds until fully melted, stir again.
3. Mix in sugar, eggs and vanilla. Add the flour mixture and stir until batter is completely blended. NOTE: batter may appear thin and tacky. Set bowl aside to thicken while preparing soft chocolate chip cookies.

SOFT CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE

4. In large bowl, cream granulated sugar, light brown sugar and butter until light and fluffy.
5. Beat in vanilla and eggs until blended. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt. Add chocolate chips.
6. Using a small ice cream scoop or tablespoon, scoop rounds of chocolate chip cookie dough onto prepared baking sheets.
7. Wipe ice cream scooper clean or use a second tablespoon to scoop rounds of brownie cookie dough next to each round of chocolate chip cookie dough.
8. Join the two cookie doughs together by a small pinch to adhere any gaps.
9. Bake 8-10 minutes. Leave cookies to cool in pan for 1 minute then transfer cookies to a cooling rack. Serve immediately or save for later in an air tight container for one week. ENJOY!

Notes

Brownie cookie recipe can be doubled to make enough to use the remaining chocolate chip cookie dough.

If either cookie doughs appear too thin to scoop and mound, cover and refrigerate dough(s) for 20-30 minutes. Remove and shape accordingly. Refrigerating will help stiffen the dough therefore, it should not fall flat upon baking.

Recipe from http://urbanbakes.com/the-best-brookie-cookies-giveaway/

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Bars

This recipe is wonderful. The cookie dough is amazing, and the condensed milk in it makes it taste even better. The chocolate and peanut butter topping makes it even more delicious.

INGREDIENTS

115g unsalted butter, softened

¾ c. packed light brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 c. plain flour

1 (395g) can sweetened condensed milk

2 c. mini chocolate chips

½ cup creamy peanut butter

½ cup milk chocolate chips

METHOD
 

Line an 8x8 inch pan with parchment paper or aluminum foil and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, mix together butter and brown sugar until it is fluffy. This takes about 3 minutes. Add vanilla and bet until combined.

Turn the mixer to low and alternate the flour and the sweetened condensed milk until combined. Gently fold in chocolate chips.

Press the cookie dough into the bottom of the 8x8 pan. It will be sticky so lightly flour your hands if needed.

Cover your bars with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 3 hours or overnight until firm.

To make the topping, combine the peanut butter and ½ cup chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl. Stir every 30 seconds until smooth. Pour and spread over the top of the chilled dough and chill at least for 1 hour until firm.

Recipe from http://therecipecritic.com/2013/09/chocolate-chip-cookie-dough-bars/ 

Anxiety, Depression and How To Help

So helping a friend with anxiety and/or depression is a big job and one that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Experiencing symptoms of anxiety and depression can feel overwhelming. This can be made more difficult if you are trying to deal with it alone. This often the case for people struggling with the symptoms of anxiety and depression. It often starts as a private and hidden struggle. A piece of advice I was given by Ms Firmin - Sarra is whilst it is important to be a supportive friend if someone close to you is struggling with any difficulties, it is equally important to practice self-care and ensure that you are looking after yourself and also get the support you need. Anxiety and depression can be very complex conditions to understand so it is always important that you seek the help of an adult/health care professional if experiencing or even supporting a person the myriad of associated symptoms. As anxiety and depression can present differently for each person, let's start with some information about the conditions themselves. Remember though, whilst the internet can give us some great information, sometimes google can give us so much info that we can be left overwhelmed. Remember, it's always important to seek the help and support of mental health care professionals to ensure the info we are reading is accurate.

Google's definition of Anxiety:
a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome.
"he felt a surge of anxiety"

worry, concern, apprehension, apprehensiveness, consternation, uneasiness, unease,fearfulness,  fear, disquiet, disquietude, perturbation, fretfulness, agitation, angst,nervousness,  nerves, edginess, tension, tenseness, stress, misgiving, trepidation,foreboding, suspense;

So it's important to mention that there are different types of anxiety and different things trigger different people. This link here gives you a name and description of each one:  https://www.beyondblue.org.au/the-facts/anxiety/types-of-anxiety

So my anxiety tends to be triggered by just the thought of stressful or dangerous situations. So theme parks are my enemy. The best way for me to control my anxiety when I'm anxious is by lying in bed or somewhere comfortable and just playing an app on my phone or scrolling through social media. 

When you're helping a friend through anxiety, being open to understanding what they're going through can be incredibly beneficial for both of you. So knowing what might and might not help is a big step in the right direction

Although well intended, sometimes things we say can feel unhelpful. Here's a few things to steer clear of saying to someone with anxiety:

http://www.realsimple.com/health/anxiety-what-not-to-say

Here are some things you might like to try saying:

https://themighty.com/2015/07/things-to-say-to-people-with-anxiety/

.

Google's definition of depression:
feelings of severe despondency and dejection.
"self-doubt creeps in and that swiftly turns to depression"

melancholy, misery, sadness, unhappiness, sorrow, woe, gloom, gloominess,dejection, downheartedness,  despondency, dispiritedness, low spirits, heavy heartedness, moroseness,  discouragement, despair,  desolation, dolefulness,moodiness, pessimism, hopelessness;

Similar to anxiety, knowing about depression and what it is, is really important. Depression is really serious but can be so easily misread as those synonyms above. It's important to remember that depression is very treatable, but it might take some encouragement to get your friend to seek help. I also encourage you though to see a counsellor yourself about how to help them.

As I did with anxiety, here is some information about depression:

https://www.beyondblue.org.au/the-facts/depression/types-of-depression

So here are some things you should and shouldn’t say to someone with depression:

http://www.health.com/health/gallery/0,,20393228,00.html

Just recently I was talking to a friend with depression and I gave them a big pep talk about how they needed to find things that could help make them happier, whether that was drawing, running, or seeing a counsellor. They had recently gone through a rough time and they had accepted that they were just going to felt like this forever so it wasn't worth trying to fix it. I was listing off all the amazing things about them and all the great things they've done and how they need to take the steps to make sure everyone could see that side of them.  I guess when you think about it, if they could find their own happiness or snap out of it, they would. So it is really important to be there for them and help them through it.

Well done if you got this far down. I know it's a lot of information but anxiety and depression aren't things to be taken lightly. I encourage anyone reading this to continue reading and learning about it, whether you know someone suffering from either of these or not. Remember there are information sheets in the foyer of the Sophia Centre that you can grab (you can easily slip in without being particularly noticed). Please feel free to give me feedback on this article. Either through email, DM or just commenting. 

Thanks for reading xx

Year 9 Camp

So it's a bit late but I thought you guys might still want to know what you have to look forward to for Year 9 camp. It was a lot of fun so I hope you guys enjoy it too.

Wednesday:

Camp this year for the year 9s was a 3 day camp to varying  places. The first day, Wednesday, was a hike up the Kokoda track on Mt Cootha. This day was HARD, especially for me because I prefer the water rather than the dirt. We started by being split into groups, not being with your absolute bestie didn’t even phase most girls just because you really did meet new friends. Part of this day was your team holding on to a rope and walking up the very steep hill that only had rocks and dirt to grip onto, needless to say, many people fell over. We then stopped for a break and recap. The next part of the journey involved your team building a stretcher and carrying everyone on it at least once. Once we got to the top, we did a variety of team building challenges. These were extremely fun but they aren't called challenges for nothing. After this we cooked our own BBQ lunch. This was a real test of teamwork and leadership because not everybody knew what to do, but it ended up showing a lot of girls strengths and weaknesses you wouldn’t have known otherwise. This was just one day!

Thursday:

So Thursday was the beach day! It was AMAZING. We went to Palm Beach, Currumbin. This day involved beach games, paddle boarding, a free swim and a sand maze/ball challenge. My group started with paddle boarding. I had never done it before but I can say it is so easy to pick up. Our whole team was so supportive and kind and that just made it such a fantastic experience. Our next rotation was doing the sand maze/ball thing. This involved us digging a track out of the sand for our ball to roll down. The aim was for it to roll the longest. This challenge was a great demonstration of how much you listen in science, in terms of gravity and velocity :p. My team worked really well and our ball ran along our track for 8.66 seconds, the highest in the group. My team worked so well together and the cohesion of ideas was just astounding. Everybody had a job and everybody made sure nobody was stuck or left out. The third rotation was a free swim! This was so much fun. We spent majority of our time trying to catch fish with our hands (only one girl actually caught one) and doing a handstand competition, I had no chance in winning this. Our fourth rotation was another sand challenge, I would tell you about it but I don't want to spoil it for you. I will say though that I am not a huge fan of sand and getting up close and personal with it is not my idea of fun, but other girls absolutely enjoyed it. My one HUGE tip is to wear sunscreen and a swim shirt and you have to re-apply every 30 minutes or so because I didn’t and I was red for dayssssss. 

Friday:

WOW! What a day! Friday was so much fun. We did a treasure hunt around the Brisbane CBD without a teacher. We were split into groups of 5 and then sent off into the city with a camera, clipboard and a $10 bill. The clipboard had mandatory challenges on it as well as optional challenges. The goal was to complete as many of the challenges with the most creative photos of each challenge. One of our optional challenges was to take a photo with a dragon fly. So my group found one of those big Chinese dragons and took a photo of us all jumping next to it :). There were lots of other challenges but don’t want to spoil it for you. This day was lots of fun and I made 4 new friends. I have two tips for when you do this:

1. complete all the mandatory challenges and do the optional challenges on the way to mandatory challenges
2. Try not to get lost 😂

3 Ways To Help You De-Stress

Exams are stressful. Assignments are stressful. School is just very stressful! We can all agree that we get very tired and stressed during exam weeks. But there are so many ways to avoid this stress or at least minimise it. Here are some of my favourite quick ways to de-stress:

Disclaimer: It's different for everyone, you just have to find what's best for you. Also if you feel                extremely stressed, go to a councillor, don’t try to fix on your own.

1. Cooking

This way to destress is so great because you get to eat the food you make while studying after cooking. Although choose a recipe that is simple and won't take too long. This is one of my favourites:

Ingredients

500g dried apricots, chopped

395g can sweetened condensed milk

2 1/2 cups shredded coconut

Extra coconut, for rolling

Method

Combine all ingredients except the extra coconut. Wet hands and roll into small balls, then coat in extra coconut. Refrigerate.

2. Walking

Going for a walk can help clear your mind and help you think more clearly. Also when you walk you release endorphins which makes you feel happier.

3. Music

Just go sit outside somewhere (perhaps in a park or green space) and put in your earphones and listen to some of your favourite music. Some of my favourite artists to listen to when I feel stressed is:

• Christina Perri
• Adele
• Sam Smith
• Ella Henderson
• Ruth B

20 Movies You Need To Watch This Weekend!!!

Check the rating beforehand ;)

Twilight - very dramatic and intense (good visuals though)                   

Me Before You - romance movie (might need some tissues)

Abduction - action movie

Cinderella - really good remake of the original story

Harry Potter - just such an amazing series

She's the Man - hilarious (good movie on beating sexism)

What a Girl Wants - just really sassy, cute and funny

You Again - hilarious movie about past rivals 

Maleficent - it's Angelina Jolie (it's amazing)

Finding Dory - such a good and cute movie

Johnny English - a stupidly funny movie

Princess Diaries - a really funny but sweet movie

Sleepover - great chick flick movie (don't repeat what you see in it though)

Aquamarine - it's a good lighthearted movie 

13 Going on 30 - a really sweet romantic movie

Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

Devil Wears Prada - hopefully you never get a boss like this

If I Stay - just start crying now

The Longest Ride - and continue crying 

Legally Blonde - now you can laugh 

Term 4 Blogging

Heyyyy! Long-time no see, but no worries, we're back. Last term was our assignment term, meaning we had an assignment for almost every subject and sometimes an exam as well. So writing blog posts wasn't exactly a priority… but we're back now. Later this term we'll be introducing next year's blog writers to the team as next year Elli and I are leaving Brigo and the rest of the team we'll be classified as seniors, so show them a lotta love.

Some posts you have to look forward to are:

22 Movies You Need To Watch

More DIY Projects

3 Ways to De stress

4 Easy DIY Dinners

The Dads n Daughters Evening (includes footage of Mr Cahill lip syncing)

And I (Imogen) am going to start kind of like a mini series of more serious blog posts, like life lessons I've learnt, also including some anecdotes. These will include topics such as:

Never judge a book by its cover

Making the most of a bad situation

Dealing with anxiety and stress

Dealing with divorce and separation

The importance of good friends

So a lot of good posts to look forward to as we finish the school year. I promise I will try my hardest to make some sort of upload schedule ;)