Strawberry Cream Cheese Tart

Strawberry Cream Cheese Tart with a thick layer of cream cheese filling and an easy press-in crust. With a gluten-free option.

Tarts are one of my favorite desserts. They’re usually pretty easy to throw together and for me at least, the whole process is so much less stressful than making a pie.

Like I said in this key lime pie bars post, I like my dessert filling layers to be nice and thick. So this strawberry cream cheese tart has twice the amount of filling that similar tarts have!

The crust is quite thin which means there’s more space for the filling. The crust, by the way, has enough sugar in it and a little lemon zest to give it some flavor. I don’t know about you but one thing I don’t like is bland and almost flavorless crust!

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3 Important Things to Consider in Choosing a Reliable Security Monitoring Company

An alarm monitoring company should be accessible and respond promptly to your inquiries and requests. Thus, there are several important things to consider when choosing a reliable home security monitoring company, including: recommendations, credentials and services.

Image Source: Flickr

Below are 3 important things to consider in choosing a reliable security monitoring company:

Recommendations
As with any major purchase, it pays to shop around. I asked friends for recommendations and did a lot of online research, although I couldn’t get accurate pricing information without speaking to sales representatives. Don’t fall for high-pressure sales techniques or scare tactics. Once you’ve identified a few good candidates, check for customer complaints with the Better Business Bureau, Angie’s List or other trusted reviewers. The Federal Trade Commission provides tips for choosing a home security system and identifying common scams. Source: HuffingtonPost

Credentials
Think of the process like you are interviewing candidates for a job. You want to find the best fit for your situation. You also want to make sure the security company you choose has the proper credentials to help you if/when you need it. Here are a few things to look for.

• Monitoring Station– Is the monitoring station company-owned, or do they outsource it? Is the station CSAA and U.L. Certified? A station with these certifications has to meet stringent security and monitoring standards and is regularly tested to ensure compliance.
• Reputation– Look around your community. What security signs do you see in your neighbors’ lawns? Ask them about their experience with those companies. Ask friends and family who they use and if they would recommend their security company. Check the Better Business Bureau to see the security company’s grade.
• History– How long has the company been in business? Just as a long, detailed employment history looks good on a job application, if the company has been in business awhile, it usually means they are doing something right. Source: AckermanSecurity

Services
Trustworthy alarm services, from companies like Alarm Relay, believe that successful monitoring is not just about using the most up-to-date technology. Monitoring also requires dedicated Central Station operators who are truly concerned for your safety. It is important to be sure that the alarm monitoring company you choose to use is accessible and responds promptly to your inquiries and requests. Source: AlarmRelay

For more information about our high quality alarm monitoring services, contact us here!

The post 3 Important Things to Consider in Choosing a Reliable Security Monitoring Company appeared first on Mr Locksmith Calgary.

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Lost Among the Living by Simone St. James

I have been eagerly waiting to read the latest by Simone St. James.  She's the author of four previous novels, all set in England, all revolving around World War I and the supernatural.  I've reviewed The Haunting of Maddy Clare , An Inquiry into Love and Death,  Silence for the Dead, and The Other Side of Midnight. Just click on each title to find my reviews.  As you can see, I'm a big fan of Simone St. James.  She has the mix that I can't resist:  history, a bit of mystery, and enough paranormal creepiness to keep me glued to the pages but not afraid to turn out the light at night. 

In her latest novel, Simone's heroine, Jo Manders is living in 1921 England.  She's the paid companion to Dottie Forsyth.  This job is all that stands between Jo and poverty.  Her husband Alex was listed as missing in action during World War I after his plane was shot down over Germany and his body was never found.  Jo is alone in the world, except for her mother.  But, her mother is institutionalized and doesn't really know who Jo is, and lives completely in her imagination.  Dottie is Alex's Aunt, and in a roundabout way, the closest thing to family Jo has besides her mother. But that doesn't stop Dottie from taking advantage of Jo's situation.  

Jo travels with Dottie to the family estate in the countryside outside of London.  Wych Elm House is a bit neglected and was the site of the suicide of Dottie's fifteen year old daughter Frances.  Three years previously, Frances had jumped to her death from the top of the Wych Elm House.  Village stories of Frances and her demon dog haunting the woods around the estate cast a eerie miasma around the home and all who lived there.  

It doesn't help that Jo sees Frances sitting in the parlor on her first day at Wych Elm.  Yes, Frances is dead.  And Jo just saw a ghost.  Why is Jo seeing Frances around Wych Elm?  Why is Frances trying to get Jo's attention?  

Jo's intuition tells her that Frances didn't commit suicide, but was murdered.  But by whom and for what reason would someone kill a fifteen year old girl?  Was it her own mother, Dottie?  Or perhaps Martin, Frances' older brother, who is recovering from terrible wounds suffered in battle, and addicted to morphine. Or was it the stranger found dead in the woods the same day Frances died?

To top it all off, Jo is haunted by not knowing what happened to Alex, the love of her life.  She's convinced she doesn't know the whole story, and Alex's role in the military was more than she realized.  This becomes even more complicated in Jo's mind when she finds out Alex was at Wych Elm House the day Frances died, when he never told Jo he was even in England.  Why the secrets?  

I've got to say Frances' presence in this one is a bit creepy only because her appearances seem random and she never says anything.  Frances makes things move around, appear and disappear. The atmosphere at Wych Elm House is cold and unwelcoming, even though it is a beautiful country home.  You read the book and can feel that damp fall weather and bone chilling cold that keeps Jo struggling to stay warm.  Even reading  this in very hot temperatures and uncomfortable mugginess (summer in Iowa!) made me want to grab a blanket for warmth and comfort.  

I've really loved all of Simone St. James' books, but I have to say this was my least favorite.  I can't put my finger on it, but I felt her previous novels had a more solid storyline and were definitely up a notch in the paranormal element.  I will certainly keep reading anything Ms. St. James has to offer in the coming years; I just hope she keeps giving me chills in the middle of  the summer.  

Rating:  6/10 for an interesting story line, but one that could have had more paranormal creepiness.  Historical background was very interesting, and you can tell the author does her homework.  

Available in paperback and e-book.



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Cultivating a Culture of Growth

When I was a boy, one day my dad walked me to the back pasture of our farm.

Image source: seattlefoodshed.com

At the end of long rows of corn, he had set aside an area that he had tilled and planted with potato cuttings. The plants had grown and died. In this patch, I couldn’t see any sign of life.

“Get down on your hands and knees,” he said, as he squatted on all fours. So I followed suit.

“Now start digging down below the top layer of soil until you feel something,” he told me as he began moving dirt.

Soon I felt the warm topsoil give way to the cool, rich dirt below. And before long I was digging up dozens of new, red potatoes. We made piles of them, loaded them up and carried them home to clean.

How Is Your School’s Soil?

Recently, I had a couple of school leaders ask me the following questions:

1. How do you keep teachers motivated during budget shortfalls?
2. What are the most effective ways to promote positive collaboration with administrators and educators?

Both questions reminded me of how important the “soil” of school culture is for staying motivated and working together. Just like a gardener or farmer cultivates a field so it produces a bountiful crop, we can only see healthy results in our schools when we also cultivate a collaborative school culture.

So what are some ways to cultivate a healthy school culture?

Three Ways for Growing Healthy Culture

1. Identify your most important values, and center all your goals on those priorities.
What is the greatest motivation behind the initiatives, programs, and schedules in your school? When your mindset is built on creating a learning environment where all students can be successful, your decisions, hiring choices, curriculum, master schedule, and time management follow suit.

I recently heard a presentation from Tim Brown, co-author of Creating and Protecting a Shared Foundation. As a career principal in secondary and elementary schools, Brown explained that school members must not only identify their driving motivation, but also they must “say it, model it, organize it, protect it, and reward it.”

If you begin with your motivations grounded in the right values, you have the beginnings of a healthy environment that influence every aspect of school.

2. Surround yourself with people who share those values and goals in common.
When times get hard, people have a tendency to either give up or work harder. But tough times should remind us even more how much we need one another to work smarter. Partner with others who share a commitment to help students succeed. When you do, you have resources in one another that you can never experience alone.

For instance, every time we make a new hire in our building, we ask ourselves: Would this person be someone I would want teaching my child? Does this person share the values we hold dear?

Sharing values doesn’t mean everyone is the same. Your strengths and weaknesses will vary from person to person. But even people with a diversity of backgrounds and skills can do amazing work when they’re united around a common purpose.

3. Schedule time for collaboration.
Collaboration does not happen by accident. At our school, we have embedded it in our schedule.

First, our teachers who share common curriculum standards meet regularly to team around those goals. For instance, we design our master schedule so that all Language Arts teachers share a common plan, all Math teachers share a common plan, and Biology and U.S. History teachers share common plans.

Also, we rotate weekly to schedule times for leadership collaboration on Thursdays. Week one, we meet with district leadership. Week two, we meet with department chairs and other teacher leaders. Week three, we meet with our entire faculty. Week four is time scheduled with our student leadership group.

When times are tough, the natural tendency is to either isolate, begin complaining, or simply give up. But staying connected with one another, or collaborating to find positive solutions, keeps you accountable to the goals and priorities you set for your students and your school.

Conclusion

I’ll never forget digging potatoes with my dad. Later when we had steamed, buttered, and salted them, I’m convinced that they tasted even better because I had gotten my hands dirty harvesting them from the well-cultivated soil.

School cultures can either be places of beautiful cultivation or toxic environments. And much depends on the attitudes, commitment, and teamwork we encourage in one another.

In the end, identifying your core values, surrounding yourself with like-minded team members, and making time for collaboration keeps the soil of your school cultivated so that everyone has the best environment for staying motivated and serving up great learning.

Now It’s Your Turn

What are some other suggestions you would add to the questions of keeping your team motivated? What are ways you’ve learned to promote positive collaboration?

Posted originally at WilliamDParker.com Copyright 2016, Connect through Twitter with handle @williamdp or at http://ift.tt/1j5BB4E Check out Will’s new PMPodcast!

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Peanut Butter Banana Protein Smoothie + Video

This Peanut Butter Banana Protein Smoothie is going to be your new go-to breakfast, lunch, or afternoon snack. I’m sure of it, because it’s AMAZING.

This is a sponsored post on behalf of thinkThin® High Protein Smoothie Mix. Thank you for supporting the brands that make My Baking Addiction possible.

So here we are, and it’s June, you guys. We’re halfway through the year. I’m not 100% sure how I feel about that, but I am enjoying the warmer weather.

Back in January, I’m pretty sure I mentioned a few times that Eric and I were making an effort to have a decent breakfast every morning. With all three of us home every day, the behaviors we model for Elle seem like something we should concentrate on – and eating well when you also have a baking blog seems like it should be top of the list, right?

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Do People Really Care About Feng Shui? Here’s The Truth

 

 

 

What If The House is on a T-Junction?

What If The House Is Facing The Big Street?

What If The House Is Facing North?

What If The House Is Facing South?

 

 

What I’ve learned in the industry is that there are many people out there who care about a property’s Feng Shui.  

What I’ve also learned is that though they care about the Feng Shui, they don’t all care it for the same reason.

Some people care about the Feng Shui because they think the property’s Feng Shui will affect the homeowner’s fortune and such.  They stay away from the property because they consider it “bad luck”.  

Then, when the price is reduced, all of a sudden, a portion of these people say “I want it, I’ll buy it.  I don’t care about Feng Shui…”

So, I learned that many people care about Feng Shui until the price is right.  If the price is right, they’ll throw their Feng Shui beliefs out the door.  Or maybe they’re using Feng Shui as a reason to get a better price on the property.  

I also learned that Feng Shui can be very subjective.  Taiwanese Feng Shui is different from Mainland Chinese Feng Shui which is also different from Hong Kong Feng Shui.  

The post Do People Really Care About Feng Shui? Here’s The Truth appeared first on Gary Wong Realty Vancouver, BC.

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Sandor Katz’s Fermentation Residency Program

Back in April I traveled to Walnut Ridge, Tennessee to participate in a Fermentation Residency Program taught by the well-known fermentation expert; Sandor Ellix Katz. It was a great experience at a wonderful venue with an amazing group of fellow fermenters.

The program is offered twice each year and there is huge demand for the opportunity to study at the school. I submitted an application to attend the spring residency back in January and was excited when in February I received notice that I had been accepted into the program.

Perfect Setting and Cast of Characters for a Fermentation Retreat

The fermentation school is based at Sandor’s residence; a cozy cabin with all the comforts of home and a wonderful gourmet kitchen containing modern features despite it being off the grid, solar-powered, and situated in a rather remote and isolated location. Totally surrounded by mountains, forests, and beautiful landscapes. Sandor opened the doors to his home wide for us and we couldn’t have been made to feel any more welcomed during our stay.

A dozen participants took part in this fermentation workshop and traveled from points as close as nearby Nashville, and as distant as the country of Argentina. The cast of attendees included a couple of professional chefs, a farmer from Texas, a number of fermentation business owners, and a few everyday foodies who just enjoy crafting their own tasty and healthful fermented products.

New Documentary and a Fermentation Based Research Project

This particular residency program was unique in a couple of respects; first of all it was recorded by filmmaker M. Sean Kaminsky who is creating a new documentary about fermentation. Sean is also the producer of Open Sesame – The Story of Seeds which was released in 2014. In addition to filming the proceedings, Sean also conducted interviews with Sandor and many of the residency participants.

Another interesting aspect of this residency is the involvement of Dr. Rob Knight and the researchers from the University of California at San Diego who will be compiling microbiome samples of our skin, mouth, and gut bacteria taken before, during, and after the program to be analyzed through the American Gut Project. We took samples of the various ferments we prepared throughout the week to be analyzed as well; with a goal of determining the impact that making and eating fermented foods has on the body.

So what’s the Big Deal over Fermented Foods Anyway?

Fermentation is a mystery to many people in spite of the history that it holds in most cultures; and the dependence that we had on ferments and “cultured foods” before the days of refrigeration. We also don’t realize that fermentation is an essential part of the processing of many common foods that we eat; butter, coffee, teas, ketchup, chocolate, beer, wine, salami, cheese, yogurt, vinegar, sauerkraut, sourdough breads, and naturally pickled foods are all traditionally created through the workings of fermentation!

So what was once considered survival food for storing and preserving food to eat over winter or during long voyages, is now being touted as survival food in terms of the nutrition and healthful properties that they have to offer. In light of an overuse of prescription antibiotics, outbreaks of C. diff and other gut infections, and the realization that most bacteria are beneficial, many people are turning to fermented food products to address potential deficiencies in these essential organisms.

Lessons Learned and Experiences Gained at Walnut Ridge

We certainly did our share of making and eating fermented foods during the stay at Walnut Ridge. Sandor Katz is an excellent teacher who is on a mission to inspire others to explore the world of fermented foods. He has a talent for simplifying the processes of fermenting foods and instills confidence within his students to venture off afterward to experiment and ferment their own products.

Part of that simplification is the result of Sandor’s old-school flavor that shuns the use of gadgets and technology in favor of basic tools like crocks and jars to forge his craft. That means that his students can leave the residence program, return home, and jump right into creating their own ferments quickly and easily. Many students have left the program and turned their experiences directly into businesses catering to unique fermented food products.

Typical Schedule and Routine at the Fermentation Residency

The residency program isn’t designed for beginners and it skipped right over the basics of fermenting to cover more advanced concepts and techniques. In spite of that everything was easy to grasp and the instruction was comfortable to follow along with. Our days started out with breakfast, which like every meal was improvised and a collaborative effort that always included fermented creations such as sourdough hotcakes, cereals, and even pickled dishes and assorted krauts.

After breakfast we moved right into our fermentation lessons, with the days divided into specific subject areas such as; grains and sourdoughs, various vegetable ferments, tempeh production, making miso, kefirs, fermented beverages, etc. Frequently we would start on one project and then move on to another, only to return and pick up on a previous project when it was ready for the next stage. There was a nice flow that allowed us to track the progress of our ferments from start to finish throughout the term of the residency.

Working and Collaborating with Varied Skills and Talents

We had breaks for lunch and dinner which were always a mix of planned dishes incorporating the ferments that we produced along with spontaneous creations that were more spur of the moment and the result of our culinary imaginations! The food was so good and of course a great proportion of it was the result of the fermentation processes that we were studying. Everyone worked together and even the meal prep turned out to be part of the lessons of the program. My favorite foods during the week were the simple fermented breads, Sandor’s whole pickled daikon radishes, and the tempeh that we made.

The professionals in our group also shared their expertise and skills; first there was Trevor a local Nashville chef, and Sarah who owns two Nashville restaurants. Then a number of talented fermenters who shared their knowledge and even brought along samples to share with the class; Cheryl who runs a fermentation CSA in NYC, Manu, a beverage fermenter from Argentina, Loren who sells krauts and kombucha in Mississippi, Jeanne who offered up some great water kefirs, and Manda who markets an impressive line of unique “fermental” and herbal products in Denver, Colorado.

Closing Thoughts on Sandor’s Fermentation Residency

Let me close by attempting to list all of the ferments and processes that we studied and worked with during the week such as: Kvass, sourdoughs, ginger bugs, koji, amazake, dosas, Idli, yogurt, kefirs, raw milk cheeses, butter, injera, nuka pots, doogh, tempeh, natto, kim chi, miso, vinegars, a gluten free buckwheat bread, gundruk, other fermented beverages, and takuan. It was all exciting and even the basic sauerkrauts and pickles took on new twists and techniques as we learned variations in styles and preparations

There were also field trips, foraging opportunities, a journey into Sandor’s fermentation cellar, visits from friendly neighbors, the formation of the “Bacteria Band” made up of stringed instruments, horns, and vocalists, lots of laughter, campfires, beautiful days, cool nights, great conversations, and so much more that I could write about! It was a great experience and I think everyone learned a lot and left anxious to get home and try some new ferments on their own.

I have a few things bubbling away right now including Jun, sourdoughs, and some krauts. At the top of my to-do list are some new vegetable ferments and condiments, and I really can’t wait to prepare a batch of homemade tempeh! If you’ve never tried it, fermentation is simple, easy, safe, and a great skill to add to any gardener’s knowledge base.

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