Month: December 2014

Halloween Recipes

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Severed Halloween Finger Cookies

From bigoven.com

Ingredients

2 whole eggs

2 egg yolks

1 teaspoon vanilla

¼ teaspoon almond extract

1 cup softened, unsalted butter

1 cup powdered sugar

3 1/3 cup all-purpose flour

2/3 cup granulated sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

¾ cup blanched whole almonds

Red food coloring

Preparation

In small bowl, combine whole eggs, egg yolks vanilla and almond extracts.

In a separate large mixing bowl, beat the butter, flour, powdered sugar, gran­ulated sugar, and salt until well combined.

Add the egg mixture to this large bowl and mix thoroughly to form your cookie dough.

Unroll a rectangle of plastic wrap onto counter. Form a log shape with your dough and wrap dough in plastic wrap. Refrigerate dough for 30-40 minutes, or until firm.

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

When dough is firm, cut dough into 4 equal portions. Remove 1 portion at a time to work with, while keeping other portions refrigerated. With each portion of dough, divide into approximately 15 equal pieces and form your finger shapes by rolling dough in your fingers to create a cylin­der shape. Work quickly while dough is cold, as the warmth of your hands may make your dough too moist. Lay out each finger cookie onto the parch­ment paper-lined cookie sheet.

When all 15 fingers are done, take a sharp knife and indent each finger with the wrinkles for the knuckles to make them look realistic.

Then, take an almond and press one into the end of each finger to represent the nail. Bake at 350 degrees F for 12 minutes or until golden.

Towards the end of the baking process, check cookies and indent again, if needed.

When cookies are done, indent or make any changes necessary while cookies are still hot. Allow to cool on wire racks.

Repeat process with remaining dough.

When cookies are cool, make bloody effect if you wish. Mix red food coloring paste with water until you reach your desired shade of red color. Using a small pastry brush, “paint” your blood around the cuticle of each fingernail.

These cookies may look gross, but they are very tasty!

Vegan Candy Corn Bites

Ingredients

1/4 cup soy milk powder, plus more for rolling

3 tablespoons cashew butter

3 tablespoons brown rice syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Pinch of finely ground sea salt

1 1/4 teaspoons ground turmeric, divided

Preparation

Lay out parchment or wax paper over a half-sheet pan or cookie sheet. Sprinkle lightly with soy milk powder.

In a large bowl, mix together soy milk powder, cashew butter, brown rice syrup, vanilla, and salt. Knead until a Play-Doh-like con­sistency forms. Divide dough into three parts.

Carefully stretch and pull the first part into a long rope shape, about 1 foot long and 1/2 inch wide. Place on the lined cookie sheet.

Working in a bowl, knead 1/4 teaspoon turmeric into the second part of dough. Once it’s dyed yellow, repeat the process of stretching and pulling it into a long rope shape, about 1 foot long and 1/2 inch wide. Place on the lined cookie sheet, about 1 1/2 inches away from the white section.

Working in a bowl, knead 1 tea­spoon turmeric into the third part of dough. Once it’s dyed orange, repeat the process of stretching and pulling it into a long rope shape, about 1 foot long and 1/2 inch wide. Place on the lined cookie sheet, between the white and yellow sections.

Carefully squeeze and press the three dough ropes together. Flatten with the palm of your hand to create one even, thick rope. Transfer to the freezer for 15 minutes.

Remove from the freezer, and using a sharp knife, cut into 32 even triangle shapes. Although candy corns can be eaten at room tempera­ture, it’s best to transfer to an air­tight container, each layer separated with parchment paper, and store in the freezer. Before eating, let them thaw slightly.

Inter$ession; Financial aid, and classes offered during winter break

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By Guadalupe Santos-Sanchez, Staff Reporter

Financial Aid will be offered for intersession, said Lee Carrillo, senior director of Financial Aid.

Students do not have to apply separately to receive financial aid for intersession, the FAFSA application for 2014-2015 is the only application that needs to be com­pleted, he said.

How much financial aid a students receive depends on the hours they enrolled in and their eligibility, he said.

“Tuition for intersession courses is the same as full term courses for each individual student,” said Yolanda Pacheco, associate director of Academic Advisement and Job Connection Services.

Intersession will be from Dec.29, 2014 to Jan.18, 2015, she said.

Intersession is a term in between regular semesters in which select classes are offered in a condensed format, she said.

It provides students with the opportunity to shorten their time to graduation, she said.

“The majority of intersession courses are only offered as 100 percent online or as a blended course,” Pacheco said.

There are some courses that are offered in person, according to cnm.edu, these courses are offered in the Main, Montoya, and Rio Rancho campuses.

Most intersession courses are two weeks, but it varies and depends on the credit hours of the course, Pacheco said.

The schedule of classes at cnm.edu will show exact dates, she said.

Courses are currently listed for the dates Dec.29 to Jan.18, Jan. 5 to Jan.11, Jan.5 to Jan. 18, and Jan. 12 to Jan. 18, according to cnm.edu, meaning that courses are 3-weeks, 2-weeks, or 1-week long.

“I think it’s a good idea because a lot of students might just need that one class to graduate so they just take it during that term and they’re done,” said Lucy Santos, Early Childhood Multicultural Education major.

Students who do not want to spend three or four months on a class can also take it during intersession and get it out of the way, she said.

In person classes are only offered at some campuses, which can be an inconvenience, she said.

“If they are going to offer classes, they should do it everywhere so that it will be equal and everyone has an opportunity to do it,” she said.

The exact time frame depends on the individual course, Pacheco said.

Courses range from being three hours long to being eight hours long, according to cnm.edu.

The length of an intersession course varies, again based on the credit hours, Pacheco said.

“However it is estimated that for a 3 credit hour course a student will be expected to commit 65 – 70 hours per week to successfully complete the course,” she said.

This is because the student is covering the same amount of course work, reading, and assignments in a few weeks that he or she would be covering in a regular semes­ter, she said.

“It has to be condensed, I mean they have to get all that info in just a couple of weeks you just have to dedicate a lot of time in those two weeks,” Santos said.

Students give up their holidays, so they have to make sure that they are willing and able to sacrifice that, she said.

But it saves you from spending a whole semester in a class, and the main point of intersession is to save time and graduate faster, she said.

“Blended courses range from 51 percent to 99 percent online,” Pacheco said.

The amount of time spent online and in class depends on the individual course, she said.

Condensed online courses are probably not a good idea, Santos said.

“If you’re online you start slacking off, at least in the semester you got time to catch up but in a condensed course you only have two weeks and no time to slack off,” she said.

For in person classes, a student knows that they have to show up and do the work, she said.

The CNM Schedule of Classes at cnm.edu can be a bit confusing at first glance, said Michael Faulhaber, Health, Wellness, and Public Safety instructor.

For example, as it pertains to Health 1001 courses, he said.

“Being that the class is a blended course there are two sets of dates: the first set is the start and finish dates of the course and the second is the week in which the skill labs meet,” he said.

Pacheco said she would refer students to Schedule of Classes at cnm.edu to find out whether a course is being offered online or in person, and on what campus.

Fractacular; Students present annual fractal show

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By Guadalupe Santos-Sanchez, Staff Reporter

The many months’ worth of hard work and research done by CNM students was put together for the Math League’s fourth annual Fractal Show, said Vicki Kelsey, Math League president.

The CNM Student Math League hosted this year’s Fractal Show on Nov. 21, she said.

“We look at different aspects of fractals, it is a huge research project that members of the math league do so that we can present this show,” she said.

The hard work and research done by all of the stu­dents that put this together rivals the work and research that is presented in any major research university, she said.

Every year the show is different and presents differ­ent aspects of what a fractal is, she said.

“The presentation is meant to inform and teach, so we set up our presentation to focus on different things,” she said.

The goal of this presentation was to show people how math really relates to their everyday world, in both complex and ordinary ways, she said.

This year the presentation consisted of an intro­duction to fractals, the Fibonacci sequence, fractals in nature, fractals in a complex plane, and the golden ratio, Kelsey said.

The whole presentation also included interac­tive activities and visuals that were passed around to the audience.

This year the show consisted of presenters like DJ Lopez, Vicki Kelsey, Chris Bryer, Eric Torres, Vidar Sanchez, Greg Dugay, and many other people that have a love for fractals, said Math League faculty advi­sor Judy Lalani.

Fractals occur all throughout nature and the universe, Kelsey said.

It is the repetition of self-similarity, so a fractal is something that is looked at down to the smallest dimensions in a microscope and shows similar copies of what it looks like in its larger state,” she said.

“Mathematically we can compute that self-similarity is basically what some people would call defined chaos,” she said.

The Fibonacci sequence was thoroughly explained by Physics League president Chris Bryer and Physics League vice president Eric Torres.

“The Fibonacci sequence is found all over in nature, it is also in architecture and art, and it is an infinite sequence that just repeats itself over and over,” Bryer said.

Fractals were shown in Fibonacci sequence in nature, in art and architecture, and even in a song, he said.

The presentation also allowed for the further expla­nation of how the Fibonacci sequence, the golden ratio, and irrational numbers all relate, said Torres

The presenters also used interactive activities to help better visualize the Fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio, he said.

Vidar Sanchez, secretary of the Student Math League focused on the fractals in nature part of the presentation.

“There are two main characteristics of fractals that I encourage, one is that they are everywhere and the other is their feature of self-similarity,” Sanchez said.

To help the audience better visualize fractals and self-similarity in nature a Romanesco broccoli, which is a plant with a self-similar form was passed around the audience, he said.

Aside from speaking of fractals in nature, Sanchez also spoke of fractals in technology and in medicine.

Aaron Legits, Student Math League treasurer pre­sented the topic of fractals on a complex plane.

At the end of the presentation, audience members were given the chance to ask questions that were then answered by the faculty advisor, Judy Lalani.

The Student Math League is a chartered student organization that meets to work every Saturday at 10 a.m. in the JS building, room 303, Kelsey said.

They hope, with the Fractal Show, to peak people’s interest in math and the Student Math League, she said.