biscotti

This week in foods we made biscotti. Biscotti is a dry bread stick that you can dip in your coffee.
we made it twice this week using two different recipes.
For the first recipe, we started with mixing the oil, eggs, and sugar together. Then we added  the flour and  baking powder. we mixed until it was a think dough. Then we flattened it to about a 1/2 inch think and put it in the oven for 20 minutes. when it got out we sliced them, flipped them on their side, and put them back in for another 10 minutes. when they got out of the oven they tasted really good.
for the second recipe we did the same thing but with butter instead of olive oil, and we added vanilla.
overall I liked the second recipe more then the first one, it had more flavor.
I would defiantly make the second one again just because they are so easy to make and take so little time.

lentils

This week we made lentils and rice, and lentil soup.
 For the lentil soup, we fried up leeks with unions in butter, then we added water and lentils. we boiled the lentils with thyme and bay leaves until they were soft, then we blended them in a blender. After blending we put the soup back on the stove to heat it up again. It didn't taste very good so we added garlic and chili  powder.
On Thursday we made rice and lentils.
We started frying unions and garlic in a pan, then we added curry powder and water. we put the lentils in the water and let them simmer until the water started to get think and the lentils started to break down. Then we added rice and put a lid on it until the rice finished cooking.
When it was done the lentils had all dissolved into the water and it was just the rice left.
The second lentil dish tasted a lot better then the first one did.
I would defiantly make the second soup again but not the first one.

Food Comparison

Food Comparison
On Tuesday we made grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup. On Wednesday however, we made gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches and gourmet tomato soup.
For the first grilled cheese sandwiches we made, all we did is butter one side of each slice of bread, put a slice of cheese in it, and fry it up in a pan. For the tomato soup, we opened the can of soup, put the contents in a pot, added milk, and heated it up.  A child could probably do it because it was just that simple.
For the gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches  we chopped up peppers and basil, and used tomato slices with real cheese.
For the gourmet soup, we used caned tomatoes, bay leaves, onions, and garlic.
The gourmet sandwich tasted a lot better because it had some vegetables it and better quality cheese. Surprisingly, the gourmet soup didn't taste as good as the canned soup (at least to me). Overall, both grilled cheese sandwiches tasted good, but the second one tasted better.

forensic specialist

The forensic specialist I am interested in is the forensic chemist. Forensic chemistry is very interesting to me because the chemists can find small details and do precise tests on them.(eg, small blood splatters, ink samples, DNA samples etc) I think that forensic chemistry is the most important type of forensic, although the others are important too. If it wasn't for the chemists there would be no one to do the drug tests, blood analysis and DNA tests. there have been people who were serving time in jail for many years until they came out with a way to test DNA. Many people have been proven innocent as a result of these tests.

Here is a video showing some of what forensic chemists do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1lrid2nobMd2nobM

Show and tell

Watch "Science of Murder: Blood Spatter" on YouTube

Watch "Ohio University Forensic Chemistry Lab, Color Tests" on YouTube

Watch "NATURE | Crime Scene Creatures | Fly Justice | PBS" on YouTube

H2 yield

H2 yield lab
In this lab we reacted magnesium ribbon with hydrochloric acid, and we tried to capture the hydrogen gas that was produced in the reaction in a graduated  cylinder.
What we did is weigh piece of magnesium ribbon and wrap it in copper wire.
Then we got to graduated calendars and put a tube from the bottom of one onto the other one. The one that we added were going to add magnesium to was air tight so no air could escape from it. Next we added 20 ml of HCl water and magnesium to the cylinder.
We quickly caped it off so no gas could escape. As gas built up in the cylinder it slowly forced the water up the tube and into the other cylinder. Once the reaction was finished we wrote down the amount of water in the second cylinder, and that equals the amount of gas produced.

apparatus
               2 graduated cylinder
              magnesium ribbon
              hydrochloric acid
              distilled water
              plastic tubing
              copper wire

malachite lab

malachite lab
In this lab we decomposed copper (II) hydroxide carbonate into copper oxide and water.
We measured out a precise amount of the malachite and calculated the the amount of product we would obtain and calculated the % yield. Then we did the experiment.  we started with scooping the malachite into a crucible, then we put the crucible on a hot plate, and we heated the malachite stirring it constantly until it turned from a green to a dark black. The we removed the copper oxide from the crucible and weighed it. The product weighed the same as what we predicted it would weigh. their was a 110% yield.

apparatus.
                1 crucible.
                1 glass stirring rod.
                1 hot plate.
                3 grams of malachite.
                1 weigh scale.
                1 lab scoop.