Entry #6: No-bake cookie butter cheesecake

 Hi everyone welcome back!

Since I learned how to make cookie butter cheesecake, I have been sending off some to my boyfriend to take to work and share with his co-workers. It turns out it was a hit at his office and since then they have been requesting I make them individual ones to take home. It’s always exciting to hear that someone enjoys what you make so I thought I would share the recipe here too. Sooo get your cooking tools and follow these easy steps below to create one yourself!

Disclaimer: You will not be required to cook, bake, or heat anything which makes this easy recipe perfect for those who want to save time and still have something delicious. 

Ingredients: 

Biscoff cookie butter spread 

Biscoff cookies 1 pack

Half a stick of butter

Two blocks of cream cheese 

Powdered sugar

Vanilla extract 

Heavy cream

Tools/Cooking utensils: 

Hand mixer

Silicone spatula

Measuring tools ranging from 1 tsp - 1 cup

Medium-sized baking dish to store your cheesecake (don't worry, you won't be baking anything!)

Two mixer bowls to mix your ingredients in

Food processor or blender 

Step 1:

Take your food processor/blender and place about ⅔ of your Biscoff cookies inside. You are going to want to blend the cookies until they are crumby. After blended place crumbs into your baking dish. 

Step 2: 

Melt a half stick of butter in the microwave for 20 seconds then take it out. Pour over the cookie crumbs and mix the ingredients together until butter is fully mixed in. You’re going to then smooth the mixture to cover the bottom of the baking dish. 

Step 3:

Once the cookie and butter mixture is smoothed out you're going to place the baking dish in the freezer. This will be your cheesecake crust.

Step 4:

In a mixing bowl, you are going to add two blocks of cream cheese, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1 cup of cookie butter spread,  and half a cup of powdered sugar in the bowl.

Step 5: 

With a hand mixer, mix the ingredients together until it combines fully to create a light brown and creamy mix. Set that bowl aside, clean your mixer, and move on to the next step.

Step 6: 

In another mixing bowl, add 2 cups of heavy whipping cream and 1 cup of powdered sugar. With the same hand mixer, mix the two ingredients together until you start to form a whipped cream consistency or stiffed peak. Once done, pour that mixture into the first mixing bowl you set aside.

Step 7:

With a silicone spatula, gently fold the mixtures through eachother. You don’t want to stir the mixture. 

Step 8:

Once mixtures are folded together, you have now made your cheesecake mix!  You're going to grab your baking dish from the freezer and place it on a hard surface. With your silicone spatula, scrape the cheesecake mix into the baking dish on top of the crust. 

Step 9:

With the spatula, gently smooth out the cheesecake mix to the ends of the baking dish. 

Step 10: 

With your food processor/ blender, make more cookie crumbs. You're going to sprinkle these crumbs over your cheesecake mix until fully covered. 

Step 11:

Place the baking dish filled with your now complete cheesecake into the fridge overnight to chill or for 24 hours for best results.

Congratulations!! You have now made the easiest, most tasty, no-bake cookie butter cheesecake! Cut a slice and enjoy! 

I hope you find this useful and decide to give it a try. I promise you, you won't be disappointed. 

Catch you in the next blog!

Entry 5: Local story respond

 Hey there welcome back!

Today I read an article that governor Ducey wrote about increasing the number of adults with college degrees or certificates. The article can be read here if you want to read it yourself. 

His article focuses on the importance of having an education beyond high school and how he strives to have at least 60 percent of the adult population in Arizona have a degree of some sort or certificate by the year 2030. His claim is strong and highlights the importance of having a college education by relating it to the real world. For example, he discusses that most careers require you to have an education beyond high school in order to be hired. In his words: Education equals opportunity. This is important when you take into consideration the difference between higher educated people and those who have only finished high school. In his article, he mentions that “the unemployment rate for individuals with only a high school diploma is nearly double that of those with a bachelor’s degree” 

In this case, I agree with that statement of education equalling opportunity. I come from a low-income family myself and it was not the easiest way of living. My parents basically lived paycheck to paycheck for the first 17 years of my life. It wasn't until my mom went back to school and earned her master's degree that she was able to get a more life-sustaining job. Now she is in a place where she doesn’t have to worry about how to pay bills or take care of her family. I hope that I can do something with the degree I am working for so that I can be in a better place than my parents first were. 

Throughout his article, Ducey addresses his readers as not just the governor but as a friend to the Arizona community which he states at the very beginning of his writing. This lets the readers know that this is more than just a political stance but a personal stance as he has a family of his own. We are able to stay connected with him and understand that as a parent he wants to see Arizonians not only get a degree but thrive with it. 

When I think of a politician my mind always goes to something politically or money-motivated because that's mostly what they are there for. However, while reading this article it did not feel like this was an issue being pushed upon us but more of a cause he is fighting for and wants us to join. With his appeal to emotion with the phrase, “I’m writing not just as an elected official, but as a husband and father”, he was able to connect with his audience on the same level and not just as someone in a position of power. For this reason, I wanted to learn more about this issue because as part of this community, I want to do what I can to ensure it is the best it can be. Like Ducey says, “We all have a stake in Arizona’s future.” 

Later on in the article, he discusses the “how-to” part of his plan to raise the number of people who acquire a college education. This is where he mentions that he’s added 142 million dollars to k-12 education and 38 million to universities. This is supposed to kick start the move to increase college readiness. I am personally happy with his plan to aid low-income and minority students as we are the ones who struggle the most with obtaining college opportunities. 

However, towards the end, he mentions that he wants kids to be competitive which I think loses some of his meaning of wanting ALL or MOST Arizonians to obtain a degree. I understand that to some degree college is competitive and unless you have the resources available your chances of going to college are close to nothing. Even so, the whole argument of his article was to make it easier for those who struggle with the means and resources to do so to ensure a better life so what competition is he discussing here? Maybe he meant to say motivated where motivation might mean competitive. Nonetheless, I still thought that was a poor choice of words if you are wanting to aid the state of Arizona in success not pin them against eachother to see who gets the better opportunity. 

 If I had to change something about the article I would have added more of the “Why” you should get a college degree. As a current college student, why should I want to go to college other than to ensure I get a career? What would happen if I decided to quit college? What are other negative effects of not having an education other than to get a better job that might pay more? Although I know most of the answers to these questions, maybe it's not common knowledge to others and maybe that's why they haven’t given a thought to college or its importance. 

I would have also liked to hear more about the direct resources available to attend college. How can I afford school and work my 9-5 job that only pays 15 an hour? What is there to encourage me to do so if I don't think I can afford it?  A majority of this article was aimed at high school students or their parents even though it seems like he's targeting the adult population of Arizona which is where the initial issue stems from. 

Overall, I think there are good intentions here and I thought the article was written well enough to encourage its readers that education is important. 

I hope this found you well, catch you in the next blog!

Entry #4: Air fryer: Worth it?

 

Hi friends and welcome back to my page! 

Have you ever wondered if getting an air fryer is worth the hype and expensive dollars? At first, I didn't, I always cooked the normal way using an oven or oil fryer to do most of my cooking. I always thought it would be a waste of my money and I would probably never use it and honestly I hardly ever cooked anyway so I didn't see a definite reason to purchase one for my house. 

I guess you're probably wondering where I'm going with this by now so let me tell you the story of how I switched to the air fryer! It was a typical Sunday night, I always make dinner for my boyfriend and me because that’s when he gets off the earliest and the day I have the most time to prepare a new recipe. 

At around 9 am I pulled some frozen chicken wings from the freezer and put them into the fridge to thaw out throughout the day. I have never made chicken wings before and I wanted to make everything from scratch including the sauces. It was going to be an adventure for me to figure this out and pull it off without a hitch. Around 5 pm I wanted to get the cooking started and prepare my chicken wings so I went into the fridge and took out the thawing chicken wings. Apparently, the 8 hours it sat in the fridge wasn't enough for the chicken to even remotely thaw as they were still completely FROZEN! 

I tried not to freak out as my boyfriend would be home in a couple of hours and I was still at ground zero with chicken wings that could very well be icepacks. Nevertheless, I just ran the chicken wings under some cold water while they were still in their package and hoped for the best while I preheated the oven. “Everything will go according to plan!” That is what I said to myself while silently panicking. I have always had dinner ready before he has gotten home and I wasn't about to let this meal defeat me. 

The chicken is sitting in cold water and I’m preparing the spices to rub on the chicken to give them flavor. My oven was preheating while I was watching TikTok recipes to make a honey hot sauce (my favorite) and a garlic parmesan sauce (his favorite). I check on the chicken and see that they are ready and thawed out but at this point, I am already pressed for time. I toss my wings in the spices, sprinkle some baking powder on them to make sure they get crispy and place them on a cooking tray. The oven beeps telling me it is ready for me to put my wings in and so in they went. Relieved that things seem to be going according to plan I start on my sauces and set my timer. About halfway through that timer I check on the wings and see that they still look raw, not half cooked raw but completely raw. My oven was not cooking the food at all! 

I was so frustrated that I just turned off my oven and was getting ready to text my boyfriend that dinner was a bust tonight. When I opened my phone it still had TikTok in the background and a video of someone cooking food in an air fryer popped up. “That’s it!” I said to myself. I grabbed my keys and went to the nearest Walmart and bought an air fryer worth more than my college books. Go big or go home right?

I rushed home and didn't even read the directions on it just plugged it in and popped those wings in. It even had a button for wings so guess what I did? Clicked it. The thing just did the work for me and get this, the wings were cooked in half the time it would have taken an oven to cook them. I finished making the sauces and by then the air fryer beeps to tell me the food is ready. My boyfriend comes home to a home-cooked meal and I got through the day. As we sat eating the most delicious wings ever made, I made sure to glance back at my air fryer and silently thank them for saving my behind. 

So yeah, anyway, make sure you have an air fryer you won't regret it and it is worth the big bucks!

Catch you in the next blog! 

Entry #3: Slanted reporting Quest

 Hey guys!

I was on youtube and I came across this video that talks about Russia's attack on Ukraine. I'm sure many of us know of the current events taking place around the world so I thought this would be an interesting topic to talk about. More specifically I want to get into the bits of bias I noticed while watching it. 

Here's the link.

So in the beginning you see one news anchor asking the other anchor why he thinks we should turn back Vladimir Putin and why we should be taking this event seriously. 

Immediately the other news anchor responds with "It reminds me of September first, 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland". Right off the bat, we know that he is going to compare Putins' actions to that of Hitlers'. Now when we think about Hitler, we think of this vicious, evil, person who attacked and killed innocent people. Not only that but we know he was the reason why world war 2 happened as well as the holocaust. Some would even go as far as calling him a monster. Right here we know that the responding news anchor is biased towards Russia and Putin. 

Just in that alone, you can get a sense of how the news anchor feels about Putin by comparing him to one of the evilest men in history who caused a great deal of pain and sorrow. With just this information, we can gather that this news anchor believes Putin to be evil like Hitler so, what he really means to say is that Putin is really Hilter 2.0. 

He then goes as far as saying that we have to stand towards the "right side" and towards the "Non-evil side" and stand with Ukraine. Just by using these phrases, he has singled out Russia to be the Evil side and the Wrong side to support. 

The next thing he says is, though we cannot get involved in this war or go to war over Ukraine, we must do our best to stop Putin from his evil and illegitimate invasion of Ukraine. In this statement, he means to say that Putin is ultimately unlawful as well as his plan and that he is vicious in his actions against Ukraine. 

It is clear where this reporter stands even though there is no actual news being reported and more of just opinionated expressions of his view of the current events. 

If one was to watch this news clip, they would be inclined to support Ukraine and think the worst of Russia even without knowing all the facts. Comparing Putin to one of the evilest men in history would automatically create a visual for anyone watching that Putin is just as Evil if not more than Hitler. This is because many of us empathize with what happened during world war two. What happened during World war 2 was not something that should have happened so when an audience hears a comparison like this being said, it can make up their mind almost completely. What if Putin isn't evil and this is just the opinion of one individual? Well, if that was the case it would not matter to those who have already seen this news clip. 

However, since no information was presented in this matter about the current event, just opinion and relation, we can't rely on his credibility. The source is now unreliable since there was no evidence to back up his claims or feelings of this event because the only thing he has done was compare two separate events. Now, if he had given us specific incidents on what Russia has been doing to attack Ukraine, maybe mention the bombings on schools or anything in relation to his opinion, this could have been a more credible source of information. Unfortunately, this clip was more of an " I feel this way and it's the right way" instead of      "These are the facts and why I feel this way"

This just goes to show how strong a slanted bias can be when reporting news or information to a public who may not have any idea of what is actually going on. Having a slanted bias ruins his credibility and that of his news station where it could have been avoided if all the facts have been provided instead of just mentioning what the current event reminded him of and how he feels about it. 

I hope this was interesting to read and make sure to click on the link I provided with this news clip to get the full picture and comment what you think! 

Catch you in the next blog.