St. Patrick’s Snack Ideas for Your Household and Designated Visitors

St. Patrick’s Snack Ideas for Your Household and Designated Visitors

By: Maria Garcia Manzano

Screen Shot 2021-03-16 at 10.29.02 AM.png

Photo Credits: Google Images

As with all prior holidays, this St. Patrick’s Day will be different from previous years. Last year during this time, Brandon was beginning to enter the Covid-19 era. Under current restrictions, households can have either another household visit or two designated visitors. Outdoor gatherings can be up to ten people. With beautiful weather forecasted for St. Patrick’s Day, I thought it would be a good idea to provide you with some green-themed snack ideas. These are perfect for you to share with your household and designated visitors. I believe that sharing delicious food with loved ones can help take our minds off that for a year now, we have lived during a global pandemic that has drastically changed our way of life. I will provide four recipes for green-themed savory snacks that will help lift your spirits!  

1. Green Stuffed Pepper

Stuffed peppers are a great appetizer for St. Patrick’s Day as they fit with the green theme of the holiday and are generally liked by all. They are a tasty quick and easy snack to make. 


Ingredients:

  • 6 green bell peppers

  • 2 tablespoons olive oil

  • 2 garlic cloves minced

  • 1-pound ground turkey

  • 2 cups cooked rice (see note in the post for tips and tricks)

  • 1 teaspoon onion powder

  • 1 tablespoon dried parsley

  • 1 tablespoon dried basil

  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt

  • 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

  • 1 1/2 cups pasta sauce

  • 2 1/2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese

Instructions:

  • Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

  • Cut the tops off of the peppers, remove the ribs and seeds, and then dice the tops of the peppers.

  • Place the hallowed-out peppers in a large bowl and drizzle with a little olive oil. Cover with a plate and microwave for 7 to 10 minutes. Be very careful when you remove the plate as there will be a lot of steam.

  • While the peppers cook, heat a large skillet over medium heat, add olive oil. Add the chopped bell pepper tops and garlic. Sauté until soft, about five to seven minutes.

  • Add the ground turkey and break up as you cook it. Season with onion powder, parsley, basil, salt, and pepper. Cook until the meat is no longer pink.

  • Stir in the cooked rice, pasta sauce, and one cup of the mozzarella cheese. Taste the mixture and add more salt and pepper to taste. Divide the mixture between the five hollowed out bell peppers. Top with the remaining cheese.

  • Bake uncovered for 25 minutes. Serve immediately.

2. Spinach & Artichoke Cups

Spinach cups are easy and festive, everyone will be sure to love them! You can either buy Tostitos scoops from the store and reduce your workload or you can make your own shells. You can also fill them with store bought spinach dip (again easier option) or you can make your own. 


Ingredients:

  • Cooking spray

  • 1 (10-oz.) package frozen spinach, defrosted and chopped

  • 1 c. canned artichoke hearts, drained and chopped

  • 4 oz. cream cheese, softened

  • 1/4 c. sour cream

  • 1 1/2 c. shredded mozzarella

  • 1/4 c. grated Parmesan

  • 2 cloves garlic, minced

  • Kosher salt

  • Freshly ground black pepper

  • 1 tube crescent dough

Instructions:

  • Preheat oven to 375°. Grease a mini muffin tin with cooking spray. In a large bowl, combine spinach, artichokes, cream cheese, sour cream, 1 cup mozzarella, Parmesan, and garlic. Season with salt and pepper.

  • On a lightly floured surface, roll out crescent dough, pinching seams together. Cut into 24 squares. Place squares into muffin tin slots and spoon 1 tablespoon of dip into the dough. Top with remaining mozzarella.

  • Bake until pastry is golden and cheese is melted, about 15 minutes

3. Jalapeno Potato Poppers

They are a staple party snack and they fit in with the green-themed. While these are typically served in bigger gatherings, I am sure your household and designated visitors will have no problem eating all of them by yourselves!

Ingredients:  

  • 15 small red potatoes approximately 1 pound

  • 6 slices bacon

  • 4 ounces cream cheese softened

  • 1/4 cup jalapeno chopped into small pieces + additional to slice

  • 1 cup cheddar cheese

Instructions: 

  • Preheat oven to 400°.

  • Wash potatoes and dry with a paper towel. Poke each potato once or twice with a fork. Place on a foil lined baking sheet and bake for 30-35 minutes or until tender.

  • While potatoes bake, cook and crumble bacon, dice 1/4 cup jalapenos and cut 30 thin slices.

  • Let cool enough to handle. Cut each potato in half, scoop out insides with a melon baller, leaving a thin layer of potato close to the skin. Place inside of potato in a medium bowl.

  • Add cream cheese, bacon, and jalapenos to the potato, mix well.

  • Divide filling among potato halves. Top with cheddar cheese and one jalapeno slice; bake for 20 minutes.

  • Serve warm.

4. Leprechaun Bark

So far, we have covered our salty and cheesy basis. However, if you have a sweet tooth this sweet addition is sure to conquer it! Leprechaun bark is easy to make and this recipe will save you even more time since it is a no-bake recipe. 


Ingredients: 

  • Rainbow Candy

  • Lucky Charms Cereal

  • Gold Cake Decorations

  • White Chocolate

  • Green Candy Melts

Instructions: 

  • Melt the white chocolate and green candy melts in separate bowls. Melt them by putting them in the microwave for 1 minute on high heat. Spread a white later and then a green layer and decorate with your St. Patrick's Day-themed candy.

  • Freeze until hard and then break apart to eat. Super simple, super tasty and fun.

Snacks for Studying

Snacks for Studying

By Kiersten Garbutt

Screen Shot 2021-03-09 at 8.50.30 AM.png

It is important to stay fueled during stressful times. Here is a list of quick snacks you can make while you study!

A smoothie bowl! All you need is some frozen fruit, yogurt, and around ¼ cups of either water or milk. Once this is blended you can add your choice of toppings. You can add chia seeds, granola, fresh fruit, nuts, coconut, etc. This snack is healthy, and quick and easy to make.

Next up, are sweet potatoes chips! All you need is a sweet potato, your choice of seasoning, and some kind of oil. First you are going to thinly slice the potato, next lay them on a cooking sheet and coat the potato in oil and then sprinkle the seasoning on top. Bake at 400F for 20 mins, flipping the chips halfway. This snack is not time consuming to make and still very delicious. 

Additionally, there are a lot of snacks you can make just using peanut butter. If you are feeling lazy, here are some foods you can pair with peanut butter. You can pair apples, celery, crackers, and bananas with peanut butter to make a really fast and yummy snack. 

Finally, cheese and crackers. Cheese and crackers are super easy to make all you need is crackers and cut up some cheese. If your feeling fancy you can add salami or ham or even pickles. 

Remember it is important to fuel your brain during studying. Instead of reaching for a bag a chips take a few extra minutes to make a healthier option! 

Valentines in Isolation

Valentines in Isolation

Screen Shot 2021-02-09 at 9.12.55 AM.png

By Kiersten Garbutt

Valentine’s day like any other holiday we spent in isolation will be hard. Valentines day is often spent with the person you care for the most. So, its not wrong to say spending it apart will be tough. Here are some fun isolation valentine ideas to use if you will be apart from your significant other this year. 

The first idea is just to have a movie night together, you can try the feature called Netflix party where you can stream movies together. This feature takes away all the hassle of trying to set up a movie manually by syncing you both up automatically. Its definitely not the same as in person. But you can prepare your favourite snacks and spend the night in together but apart!

Have an arranged facetime dinner! You both can cook your own versions of the same meal and have a fancy virtual dinner date. If you are not into cooking, ordering in is also an option. Either way having a meal together can be a lot of fun!

If you are able to see each other on valentine’s day, then here are some creative date ideas you can do at home instead of going out;

A painting night is a great activity to indulge in, especially if you both enjoy the arts. There are many painting tutorials available on YouTube, and Bob Ross episodes can be found on Netflix! An at home spa day is also a great idea, you could pamper each other with facemasks and bubble baths. If your not feeling up to anything too crazy, a movie night will suffice. I mean as long as your spending the day together its hard to go wrong! 

  

Overcoming Procrastination: Time management

Overcoming Procrastination: Time management

By: Kiersten Garbutt

Screen Shot 2021-02-02 at 9.48.45 AM.png

The art of procrastination is something I’m sure we have all mastered. But since mid-terms are quickly coming, it is for the best that we all use our time productively. The key to managing your time is to get a calendar or agenda of some sort. Keeping track of important due dates will let you work ahead, and you will have a general idea of your busier weeks, so you can prepare accordingly. Many of us have to work during the school semester, which can be really hard to manage. Like previously stated, writing your schedule down weekly will help you plan ahead. Making a to do list for everyday weekly will help you remember important assignments; this is important because stressing about when you have time to complete an assignment can raise your stress levels even more. This way you know when you will be devoting your time to each of your assignments. The trick to time management is to get assignments done a few days before they are due, when you are working ahead you have more time to study for big tests or mid-terms and to carefully edit essays. Additionally, working ahead allows more flexibility in your life, if you wanted to pick up another shift or hang out with a friend you can and probably would experience less guilt when doing so. 

Studying can be a really hard task when we have distractions like our phone right beside us, I recommend putting your phone on do not disturb and throwing it to the side when you are studying. While studying it is important to limit your distractions, even listening to music can alter how much you are retaining. Studying with limited distractions will cause you to get your work done faster, which in the end makes you more productive. Also, while studying it is very important to take breaks. I recommend a method where you are productive for thirty minutes and then take a five-minute break. This gives your brain a mental break and will allow you to retain information so much easier. While taking your break it is important to leave the ‘productive’ spot. Separating your productive area and your relaxing area is very important, it will trick your brain into thinking that once in the productive spot you should be doing something productive. To conclude a huge part of having good time management skills is using your time wisely and to your best advantage.

Brandon University Politics Society Hosts “How Inciteful: Reflections on Trump’s Interdisciplinary Impacts on Academia.”

Brandon University Politics Society Hosts “How Inciteful: Reflections on Trump’s Interdisciplinary Impacts on Academia.”

Aidan Trembath

With Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20th, Trump’s impacts on academia will continue to be analyzed for years to come. The Brandon University Politics Society is excited to host a multidisciplinary roster of professors to explore Trump’s presidency through a myriad of academic fields. The speaker series, called “How Inciteful,” will begin on January 19th, from 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM, and will continue for the following two Tuesdays, January 26th and February 2nd. Each Tuesday, three professors from a diverse range of fields, including biology, English, gender and women’s studies, sociology, music, philosophy, and political science, will present on how Trump’s presidency has either impacted their field of study or how their field of study may understand his brand of politics. Trump’s influence on academia has no borders, and Canadians must understand “Trumpism” from the source in order to understand its effects on Canada’s own politics and scholarship.

The speaker series will be comprised of talks by Brandon University’s President and professor of political science, Dr. David Docherty, associate professor of Gender and Women’s Studies, Dr. Corinne Mason, and professor of English and Creative Writing, Dr. Reinhold Kramer. Dr. Docherty will explore the governmental transitions in the American context, Dr. Mason will discuss the intersections of race, gender, and sexuality through a lens of anti-carceral activism, and Dr. Kramer will reflect on Trump’s brand of truth and its reliance on emotional cogency. The 26th will have presentations by Dr. Christopher Schneider of Sociology, Dr. Richard Baker of Political Science, and Dr. Rachel Elliott of Philosophy; the 2nd will be comprised of talks by Dr. Bernadette Ardelli of Biology, Dr. Hailey Murphy of Political Science, and Dr. Leanne Zacharias of Music. 

“How Inciteful” will be hosted over Zoom with the event description and Zoom call link located under Brandon University’s website’s list of events. Each Tuesday’s speaker series will utilize the same call link. A Q&A will follow all three presentations per night to allow audience members to explore the presentations’ insights.

Screen Shot 2021-01-19 at 11.21.28 AM.png

DIY Christmas

DIY Christmas

By: Cedric Bell

Christmas can be an expensive time of year, especially for University students. One of the easiest ways to circumvent this problem is by getting homemade or cost effective gifts for others. Not only are they generally cheaper, but they can also be much more personally meaningful to the recipient if they can see the time, effort, and personal thought that has gone into making them. There are a variety of different kinds of DIY projects that can turn into great Christmas gifts, such as art, decoration, trade skills, or items that would be personal to the other person.

Art

There are many different mediums of art that could turn into a great DIY gift for someone, no matter what your artistic inclination is. Whether it's knitting, painting, drawing, or even writing to some extent, like poetry. For example, one of the Christmas gifts I gave someone one year was wood burning art of their favourite animal.

(Photo Credit: artofmanliness.com A Beginners Guide Pyrography, aka Wood burning)

(Photo Credit: artofmanliness.com A Beginners Guide Pyrography, aka Wood burning)

Decoration

This one works especially well for anyone you live with, such as family, roommates, or significant others. Redecorating a room or wall to make it more functional or visually appealing would make for a great surprise as a Christmas gift, provided of course that the person is alright with their things being changed. This could include painting a mural, putting up a shelf for someone's collection, or other things like that to make their living spaces more suited to them.

Trades

If you’re not as artistically inclined, there are still plenty of options to turn to for DIY gifts. For example, if you have any skills in the trades like construction, wood or metalwork, there are lots of gifts you could make someone. Maybe you could make them that shelf they need, or a fire pit for when it gets nicer out. There are also lots of decorative things you can make out of wood and metal, if you want a less complicated but more visual gift to give, like a wooden mug or metal art.

Personal items

While these aren’t as easy to make yourself, they can be cheaper than most gifts, and can carry a lot of personal weight. Meaningful gifts outweigh expensive ones, and as long as you know the person well enough, there should be some good options. For instance, you could get them something with emotional meaning, like a photo album, or something to do with an inside joke. 

Christmas can be expensive and pricey, but it doesn't have to be. One of the best alternatives to make it a better experience is to give out homemade gifts rather than store bought ones. It cuts down on costs, and often means a lot more to the person receiving the gift. These examples should help to get an idea of what you can make for others, but shouldn’t be constraining in any way. There are plenty of creative and thoughtful ways to show people that you care about them over the holidays, and these are just a few.

STUDY TIPS DURING READING WEEK

STUDY TIPS DURING READING WEEK

Screen Shot 2020-11-03 at 10.28.14 AM.png

Hello everyone,

Since we have reading week coming up, sharing some tips and ideas that have worked for me and some of my friends would not be a bad idea. Personally, I know that our gadgets, and some activities that go on in our lives, may serve as major distractions during this week off from school, so I am going to try to address as much as I can.

CURBING SOME COMMON DISTRACTIONS

  • Try writing down some of the distractions you tend to face while trying to study. For example, if you begin to think about a movie when you are studying, just write it out somewhere, that way you can just come back to it at the end of the day.

  • Create a study group. Most times, all we need is motivation. Find those friends that share common goals with you and have your best interest at heart. They will not let you waste your time when exams are around the corner.

  • Make use of apps that help you focus. Fortunately for everyone, technology is making things very easy for us. There are special apps that are built to help you focus, just in case you find it hard to stay off social media.

  • Try to motivate yourself and not procrastinate. These tips I have given cannot work if you personally do not have any plans to help yourself. You need to develop the mindset that whatever you study or do is for your own benefit. Netflix and YouTube and other streaming platforms or social media are there to stay and when you pass your tests, you can go back to them.

I hope you find these useful and apply them during the reading week.

Goodluck.

By: Kosy Ijeoma

 Lowering Stress During Midterms

 Lowering Stress During Midterms

By: Mary Okorie, Reporter

Exam periods can be extremely stressful, and students tend to face anxiety during this time of the term. This is due to many factors, such as not preparing well before exams, or not sleeping and eating healthy. To reduce stress during exam periods students should make sure to prepare well and study, eat healthy, and have adequate sleep. They can talk to someone if it’s needed.

Good preparation

Screen Shot 2020-11-03 at 10.21.55 AM.png

Preparing before an exam would really help to reduce the stress during midterms. Students would likely feel more confident about the exam and that can help them relax a bit. Due to heavy course load or various other reasons, students might find it hard to study before the day of the exam. This is where time management comes in. students should set apart time to study and reading goals to reach for a particular day. Reading should never be left to the day before the exam. When students study each day and prepare well in advance, they can know their weak points and find ways to clarify what they do not understand. So, when the exam is close, students do not need to start rushing and putting stress on themselves since they will have prepared enough ahead of time.

Healthy Food and Adequate Sleep 

Screen Shot 2020-11-03 at 10.22.11 AM.png

Good food and sufficient sleep also helps reduce stress during exams. The brain needs enough rest and energy to function so students need to eat and sleep well. This goes in hand with preparing because if students prepare well, they will not have to give up their sleep to study the night before an exam or disrupt their eating patterns. Stress levels can go up when there is not sufficient sleep or consumption of unhealthy foods, which can make students fall sick. If students still can not deal with the stress, another effective method is to talk to someone who can give them better advice on how to manage their stress levels during exam periods.

Stress can really lead to a lot of other things and it is much better to try and keep it low when possible.

Fun Ideas for Halloween Activities

Fun Ideas for Halloween Activities

By Zach Roozendaal

Screen Shot 2020-10-27 at 11.21.28 AM.png

As the world is still battling the threat of COVID-19, many families are going to unfortunately be looking at having to cancel trick-or-treating this year. But don’t worry, because if you’re one of those families who hasn’t got candy to hand out or is going out to take a child to get a big supply of candy, then here are some great alternative ideas to help you beat your fear of being bored to death this October 31st.

First of all, look at getting a pumpkin. Nothing says fall like pumpkins, and you can make jack-o-lanterns with them. You can carve all kinds of cool designs into them, or go for a classic toothy smiling face with the triangular eyes and nose.

Still wishing to dress up? Invite a few close friends over, maybe like 5 or 6 and get a few drinks and some snack sized candies and have a costume party at your place, just make sure everyone is safe and uses hand sanitizer on the way in and hasn’t been feeling sick lately.

Another great idea you can try is watch a scary movie, as it is Halloween after all. You don’t have to watch a horror movie necessarily, I mean you could binge all the Treehouse of Horror episodes of The Simpsons, or watch the Charlie Brown Halloween special. If you want to watch a scary movie on Halloween, then my personal recommendation is maybe something sci-fi.

If you’re really looking to get into the spirit of all things scary and creepy, then check out the immortal and timeless classic from 1978, Halloween directed by John Carpenter and Deborah Hill, besides despite Michael Myers reputation of being a cold blooded killer he only manages 5 kills in the film, and only 4 take place on screen and they’re not very gory, since it was the 70’s after all and that’s not something audiences were used to at the time.

Go buy yourself a kiddy pool at your local store, and fill it with apples and go bobbing for apples, and buy some caramels and nuts and seeds and candies and you can make candy apples after you’re done. Caramel and candy apples taste great, and if you’re looking for something a little more interesting than caramel, you can always melt down candies like starbursts or Jolly Ranchers to use as a different sweet coating. 

In addition to carving pumpkins, you can use the seeds for some baking. Make some spooky pumpkin seed muffins or cupcakes with pumpkin spiced cream cheese frosting that’ll bring out the fall festiveness in everyone. Get some pumpkin spiced coffee from your local coffee shop, like Starbucks, Tim Hortons or Forbidden Flavours. 

        Make sugar cookies and get pumpkin, ghost, witch, skeleton, bat and vampire shaped cookie cutters. You can also get cat shaped ones or maybe even tombstone or spider shaped ones too. Get lots of multicoloured frosting or sprinkles in Halloween colours like orange, green, purple, white, yellow and black.

        Maybe this year you won’t be going out for treats, but you can still stay at home and do plenty of tricks. For example, you can get a cheap mask from your local costume shop like I did, (I got Michael Myers, what can I say? It’s a great film!) and scare your friends or family.

Looking for costumes ideas this year? Well with my vast pop culture knowledge, that’s no problem my friend! You could always dress up as Joe Biden or Donald Trump, since it’s an election year and those costumes will be trending. Don’t have enough money? No problem. Go to your local thrift store and buy some old clothes or an outfit to do a simple costume. Get a Hawaiian shirt and pop on some shorts and grab a coconut or two and some rum and soda with a pair of shades because who said you can’t go as a beachgoer for Halloween? Put on a black suit and black tie with a white shirt and grab some shades and go as one of the agents from Men in Black. You can also just put on a collared shirt and tie with some dress pants or khakis and carry a mug and go as an office employee. Get some scrubs and go as a doctor, or wear a suit with a white pillowcase and dress as Slenderman. Or you can be like me and print off a Kazakh flag and get a grey suit and beige tie with a fake moustache and go as everyone’s favourite Kazakh journalist, Borat Sagdiyev, which is sure to be a smash hit and a great success, high five wawaweewa!

Go visit a spooky location and record an EVP session. Get palm readings and visit a psychic or do whatever, or take a walk in the woods in the dark, but just in case bring a flashlight or lantern. Play a scary game, like Slender or Amnesia, although my personal recommendation is Dead by Daylight, a game I’ve been hooked on for months on mobile, and they’ll have released their Silent Hill Chapter on mobile by Halloween, meaning you can play as Pyramid Head or Cheryl Mason, or a whole list of other characters, like Ash Williams from Evil Dead, (as voiced by Bruce Campbell), Ghost Face, Freddy Krueger, Bill Overbeck, Laurie Strode, Leatherface, the Demogorgon, and Michael Myers. Check it out as it’s free on the app store.

And there you have it, some fun and safe activities this Halloween. Remember to wash or sanitize your hands often and wear a mask, social distance when possible, stay home if you feel sick and have fun and be safe this Halloween season. And now as always, here’s my final thought for this article:

Fear is something that can both strengthen and cripple us, but in the right scenarios, it prepares us.

Until next time, this is Zach Roozendaal, signing off. Goodbye for now, and Happy Halloween.

On the Future of Lecturing

On the Future of Lecturing

By N. Monk, Futurist and Philosopher          

 In the future, lecturing will look quite different from what the world is used to now because of the further advancements that will be made in education. Continuously, new ways of teaching students are turning up. Before the recent pandemic, it was believed that classes would never be able to take place online after the pandemic the complete opposite was shown to be true. However, lectures being taught online are a mixed blessing.

           There are plenty of technical advantages with online lecturing that do not currently exist with in-class lecturing. For example, in online classes, students have the option of captions in which for people who are hard of hearing or deaf this helps eliminate the difficulty of figuring out what the professor is saying. Another example is that in online lecture form because students and professors can use headphones to listen to the audio, the volume can be adjusted for people regardless of the hearing of the person. This too helps eliminate a problem with in-person lectures. More specifically, the students in the front rows right in front of the professors have the advantage of being able to hear more clearly what the speaker is saying, the further away one sits the more this decreases. Online lectures do not have this problem. Similarly, the people in the front rows have the advantages of being able to perfectly see everything that is written, like the sound this will decrease the further away one is. Once again online lectures eliminate this problem as well.

           Online lectures are not what I believe will be the future of lecturing in general. One major problem with online lecturing is that the sound and audio quality depends on way too many factors. One has to consider webcam quality, microphone quality, internet download speeds, upload speeds, et cetera. For everyone in a class of 30+ or more to have all of these things to a reasonable standard is not a likely possibility at all, and even in the future, this may not be solved either. Physical lectures do not have these problems. From these examples, it becomes more apparent that a balance of virtual lecturing and in person lecturing is needed. This link may very well be with the use of holograms or three-dimensional holographic imagery.

           The first thing one can note that will probably be different about the future lecture room is the seating and shape of the room. Ideally only one row in front or surrounding the speaker, so that the problems of decreasing sound and vision disappear. A circular arrangement of a desk or even a spherical arrangement of desks could be a strong possibility. Furthermore, to eliminate sound problems speakers could be imbedded in each desk and a good microphone placed on the speaker. Even so, if a student does not want to listen through the speaker on their desk, a headphone connection port could be placed in the desk as well and be used. This can be taken even further, a small lengthwise screen could be hidden in the desk and if the student chooses to have captions during the physical lecture the student can view the captions on the screen that pops up from in their desk. This is not all that can be done, for the lecturer, in the future interactive holograms could be a versatile tool. Let us say one is teaching about the solar system, with the use of holograms the lecturer could speak into the air and call upon a solar system hologram to aid instruction, as a bonus each of the solar system holograms can be manipulated by size, colour et cetera. A virtual assistant can also be present in each classroom to ask for all sorts of questions to the ever-growing database of knowledge to once again aid in the instruction of the lecturer. Because this lecture room is in person, the problems of online lecturing I outlined earlier also disappear. The only real problem with these lecture ideas is that they do not exist, but who is to say in fifty years or so it will not?