Healthy Eating

I've been trying new cooking, experimenting different combinations between ingredients,  from recipes I knew o read before, and also,  depending on wich ingredients do I really have in my kitchen ;)
So to avoid forgetting I decide to post the nice results.

Shrimp Avocado Salad

15-20 cocktail shrimps (no skin or tail, already cooked and cold)
1 avocado
1 spoon of mayonnaise (natural)
1/2 lettuce
1 Pepper (yellow or red)
2 tomatoes
1 bunch of coriander
1 green lemon
1/2 spoon balsamic white vinegar
1 chile jalapeño
12 olives or 6 gherkins
Salt and black or grey pepper

Cut the pepper, tomatoes, coriander, lettuce and jalapeño in little peaces and mix them with the shrimps and olives (or gherkins). Mix the avocado, lemon juice, mayonnaise, vinegar, salt and pepper until you get a soft green dressing, once this is ready you can mix it with the rest of the ingredients and that's it, easy and yummi. You can eat them with salad cookies or salad nachos.

The Universe

Probably everyone knows or "should know" about the basic topics that explain our universe, people presumably learn this at school science class, and then if u enjoy reading sciences, or might watch it on TV programs from time to time. I found a very easy understanding ilustration that might help to remember how the universe is made.

The Earth, the Sun and the Moon, are not very similar to us, althought, the material that compose such things has the same origin as the materia that compose our bodies. So quoting the famous musical artist, Moby... "We are all made of stars".

What stars are? The stars are extreamly hot gas spheres whom produce energy and emit light, is inside the stars where the esential bricks of materia are built.

How far are we from stars? The stars are very remote from us, the sun is 150 km far from the Earth, wich is the closest star and provides the light that makes possible life in the Earth, apart from the sun the other "closest" star for us is due 40,000 billions of kilometers.

What are the planets and the moon? A planet is a spheric corp that spins around the sun. The moon is a satellite that spins around the earth. In difference with the stars, the planets and the moons, they do not emit any light, they refer from the sun.

What is the size of the Earth? The Earth is sphere almost perfect wich diameter is 12,756 kilometers, flattened a little bit in each pole, must travel 40,076 km to go around along the equator.

What is the Earth made of? The Earth is a sphere composed by rocks, the water from the oceans covers three quarters from its surface, in the center of this sphere there is an iron-rich core. The Earth as the other planets, exist as long as the sun, wich is 4,6 billions of years ago.

What is the Sun made of? The sun 110 times bigger and 330 000 heaviest than the Earth is a giant sphere essentially made of the two lightest gases: hydrogen and helium. It shines because its extreamly hot and by the energy it produce in its center.

What about us? What are we made of? All the elements that conforme the human body are found as well in the rest of the universe, they were formed during the first three minutes of the aparition of the universe, and a bit later in the stars as well.

So enjoy this valuabable link, you already have the translation in english to explain to your kids ;)
And talking about energy production ... what about getting some Led's bulbs to save some cash?

Voir l'animation Les étoiles, le Soleil, les planètes, la Lune, la Terre... et moi ! sur www.cea.fr

   

Type of fruits

The flowering plants called angiosperms are those plants whom produce fruits, and when we say fruit we must include the vegetables, because Yes, a vegetable scientifically speaking is a fruit.

I found this useful link to see their classification:
http://www.biologyreference.com/Fo-Gr/Fruits.html

Ops... Wrong Volcano!

I grow in a warm country full of beaches, corn and volcanos, our childhood was great when our parents used to take us out of the city for vacations, chasing lizzards and climbing on mountains of corn. 

One of those summer days my mother decided to take all her 9 kids to do a little "climbing" up to an inactive Volcano, the "Nevado de Colima" up, up, up, we went, but we never saw the top, no water, no food, broken shoes, getting dark  and suddenly... a hunters truck! They looked at us with eyes wide open, and a surprise expresion on their faces, then they asked us: "Where are you going?" and my mother answer them: "Up!",  and that single word would be enough for the hunters to realize we were in the wrong volcano, and this volcano in particular, was an active one and full of dangerous gases in the top. We went down , down, down and the next time my mother take us to do volcano climbing, she always made sure it was an inactive volcano! 

When I was little I always wonder how volcanos "function" I had a Geology class afterwards, so to know and explain even to a kid everything about Volcanos, I found this french link quoting a larousse explication on the web, is in french and is excelent!

http://www.curiosphere.tv/ressource/1710-les-volcans

Voir l'animation Les différentes roches de la Terre sur www.cea.fr

        

Ecosystem Discovery: In Australia, drunk parrots are falling from the s...

Ecosystem Discovery: In Australia, drunk parrots are falling from the s...: "Source Every year in May, a strange phenomenon is happening in Darwin region of Australia. Parrots intoxicated by a plant that contains a..."

The Prisoner

One day I bought a pet to my daughter, it was a cute baby rabbit, was so small and probably the pet shop took it away from the mother to soon, so, the rabbit died just 5 days after we took it home. Since then my daughter can not forget the tragedy and she cries asking me, "why did he died?"... 

One day while I was vacuming the carpet in my bedroom, I notice we had a visitor, in my own bed there was a cute brunette long legs spider, and no, my husband was NOT having an affair, it was a real spider! Quickly I called my daughter to bring me the hunting equipment we bought for insects to capture the intruder, and there was she, inside an empty mermelade bottle, trying to sew her silk couture inside her new home. It have been more than a week since she lives with us, and she is fearless, everytime we feed her with ants, flyes and any other univited insect, she attacks, jumps and bites no mercy what so ever! 

Could sound like a bad show for a kid but, in the other hand, it helped my kid to understand life is a chain and we all are part of it, survive by eating other living creatures does not make us better or worse, it just make us one more animal species, and there is beauty in all living things. Finally I realize this is the perfect pet for a kid, there is no mess to clean, no hands to wash, no special food to bought, and the best is that if someday we have to go on vacation away from home, we can always set her free back to her spider life and she won't die of starvation. Just make sure the spider is not a dangerous one !

Hanging out in the balcony

The Pink Lady

For the last months, I have been trying on tasting different variety of apples, since in the country where I am from there is not such a big gamma to choose in the market from this fruit in particular, and me… I love tasting new flavors! In France in a market, some times you can find as much different types of apples as the fingers in both of your hands.

One day while having by breakfast a “pink lady” apple, I took the time to separate all the seeds inside the pulp to place them near to the window where the sun could warm them up, and as I was giving the last bites I start thinking on how pretty could be a pink lady apple tree…

The days went by and the seeds remain close to the window, every morning I look at them and wonder if I should better throw them away since in an apartment there is no place for an apple tree.  Finally after a few weeks, whilst doing gardening in the balcony I push the seeds inside a plastic bag full of soil I was hesitating on getting rid off, but instead, I left it in the kitchen, near to the calefaction… then again, the days went by and when I finally decide to put the bag on the trash I saw a little tiny green living plant growing on and wearing the remains of a broken seed as a hat.

Like that, she grow what I call two baby milk leaves, later she let them dry and fell, to keep growing serrated leaves in pairs, 2, 4, 6… and now I wish I could have taken a picture of such cute growing baby tree. I vacillate between taking care of her till she is grow enough to plant her outdoors in an appropriated clime or to assign a place for her in one of the bonsai pots with the hope of seeing her grow, but not to much so she can stay in the apartment. I went for option two.
My advice to you is; put a seed in the ground, and watch it grow... it will remaind you how incredible nature is.