Continue reading »]]> Here at Science Getaways world headquarters (aka our house in Boulder), we’re starting to gear up for Science Ranch 2012. It’s only a little over 5 weeks away and we’re working out the final details for our scheduled science talks and activities at the C Lazy U Ranch. Our scientists, Holly Brunkal, Dave Armstrong, and Phil Plait, are working on plans for the hikes, star gazing, and of course their talks about the local geology and biology of the region.

In fact, Phil has been going out on clear nights to see what’s visible; on his Bad Astronomy blog he recently wrote about the Coathanger Cluster – a group of stars shaped like, well, a coat hanger! It’s one of many fun things we’ll be observing at the ranch. Speaking of which – we’ll have a couple of telescopes and binoculars, but if you’re coming to Science Ranch 2012 and have your own binocs you might want to bring them. The more, the merrier. Plus, they’ll be handy on the hikes to look at the flora and fauna.

We’re excited about this Getaway and looking forward to five days of fresh air and wonderful sights. We hope you are too!

Image credit: Anthony Ayiomamitis

Continue reading »]]> When we get to the C Lazy U ranch for Science Getaways in September, I’m really hoping for clear skies. That’s a wish that’s very likely to be granted; we get a lot of sunny days and crisp, clear nights here in Colorado. But even if it’s cloudy — a little cloudy, mind you — that’ll still be cool. I know, clouds are the mortal enemies of astronomers. But clouds in Colorado can be pretty amazing.

One of my favorite kinds of clouds are lenticular clouds — literally, lens-shaped. They’re pretty common around here: they form when moisture-laden air blows in from the west, rises up as it flows over the Rockies, and then cools. The water forms droplets, creating clouds. But the air flowing around the peaks forms a tear-drop shape, round on the side facing into the wind. The result can be spectacular:

Looks like something out of Star Wars, doesn’t it? I took that picture in Boulder, just over the mountains from C Lazy U. Backlit by the sun it was very pretty, but I wonder what it looked like from the other side… especially when the Sun got lower and redder. We’ll find out this summer, I guess.

Here’s another one I took:

This is a more classic lenticular, layered and round over a big ol’ cumulus cloud. I’ve lived on the east and west coasts, and never saw clouds like this. Out here near the mountains I see them all the time. And the best part? They tend to clear out after sunset, leaving the skies dark and the stars bright. It’s quite literally the best of both worlds.

Continue reading »]]> Our whole family went to dinner at my parents’ house last night – Phil, the Little Astronomer, myself, Canis Major and Canis Minor. We had a great time; my brother was there, as well as his son who’s visiting from Austria for the holidays. A good friend was also there, which makes any dinner party better. After dinner our friend suggested we go Christmas caroling. Being a terrible singer and a not-very-enthusiastic public performer, my first instinct was to try to talk everyone out of it. But then I saw my daughter smile at the idea (easy for her – she’s got a great singing voice), and my objections died away. If the worst that could happen was for my parents’ neighbors to find out that I’m a lousy singer, that was a small price to pay for making everyone else happy.

So we bundled up and headed out. By that time it had been snowing hard for a couple of hours and we hadn’t come prepared with boots and scarves and hats, but we would not be deterred. One neighbor forgot to turn off her alarm system before opening the door, so she had to call the police to tell them everything was fine. Another neighbor’s dog decided it wanted to join our group and had to be bribed back inside with the promise of a treat. We actually only sang at 4 houses because the sidewalks were very slick and we were very cold. But overall it was a great success, despite my poor singing and the horizontal snow stinging our faces, and the fact that we couldn’t quite remember the second verse of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” – is it glad tidings or good tidings we bring? It didn’t matter. The people in those houses were genuinely pleased to receive us (after they got over their shock and confusion), we had a good time and I think we actually spread good cheer. When we got home we made our “special” coffee (a home version of a Starbuck’s caramel macchiato, but better because it doesn’t cost $4) and ate cookies and watched the greatest Christmas movie of all time – Elf.

To quote Stan Marsh – I learned something today. Feeling a little silly or a little embarrassed in order to make other people happy is OK, and quite selfless, and good for one’s character.  And you may be rewarded with cookies. Speaking of cookies, I think our family has the greatest cutout cookie recipe of all time so I’m going to share it, because I feel that’s a noble thing to do with great recipes. Unless you’re planning to enter some sort of recipe contest and win a million dollars, why not share the joy?

We’re planning to make these cookies today and I’ll add photos to the post to show you the finished results.

Holiday Cutout Cookies

Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup salted real butter
1/2 cup plain vegetable shortening (not butter flavored)
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 tablesppons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
(I know it’s weird that this recipe contains no salt, but we’ve never added it and never felt they needed it.)

At high altitude, use these amounts instead (these measurements are perfect at 5,300 feet – adjust as needed if you live at the top of a fourteener*)
3 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 cups minus 2 tablespoons sugar

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the butter and shortening. Add the sugar and mix until creamy, then add the eggs, vanilla and milk and mix until well combined. In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder and baking soda, then add to the mixing bowl slowly and beat just until it’s well blended. Humidity can greatly affect the consistency, so if the dough is extremely wet and you just can’t work with it, add another 1/8 to 1/4 cup flour until you have a rollable dough.

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Line cookie trays with parchment paper. Dust a counter or board with flour. Take out 1/3 of the dough and pat it into a flat circle, dust lightly with flour and roll it to about 1/8 inch (3-4 millimeters) thick. Do one test cut with a cookie cutter and if the dough is still too wet to release from the cutter, work a little more flour in. The trick here is to be gentle with the dough and not work in more flour than needed. If you overwork a baking powder dough the cookies can be tough and too much flour will make them dry and hard.

Cut out all the dough you’ve rolled and place the cookies on the trays with at least an inch between them. Bake for 5 to 7 minutes or until the cookies are lightly browned on the bottom. After about 2 minutes move the cookies to a wire rack to cool. When they’re completely cool, frost or decorate as desired. We always like a simple sugar icing the best for flavor. Mix powdered sugar, a tiny bit of water, a smidgen of salt and the food coloring of your choice until you have an icing that is thick enough to spread over the cookie and stay in place while it dries. My favorite tools for icing cookies are a small offset spatula and a toothpick. If you want to make a snowman with buttons and a face, for example, spread the white icing over the whole cookie, let it dry, then you can use a toothpick to dab on other colors for the buttons, nose, eyes and mouth. If you don’t let the undercoat dry first, the colors will run together and you’ll have a psychedelic snowman.

I store these cookies uncovered for the first few hours so the icing really has a chance to firm up, then I put them in plastic containers with lids.

Cookie Cutting Tip – some cookie cutters are more intricate and difficult to use than others. I have some snowflakes with a lot of small detail pieces on the ends, so I save these for the last bit of dough I roll out. You see, toward the end more flour will have been worked into the dough as you scrape up unused bits and put them back into the bowl. This dough that has more flour in it will release better from the small parts of the cookie cutter. So start with the simplest shapes and end with the most detailed shapes.

*A fourteener is a mountain higher than 14,000 feet above sea level

Decorate ALL the cookies!

Continue reading »]]> Welcome to the Science Getaways blog. Here we’ll share amusing anecdotes, tasty recipes and anything else we feel you might like. Marcella and Phil will both be blogging, but it’s safe to say if it’s about cooking it’s by Marcella and if it’s about astronomy it’s by Phil. We know this shamefully reinforces gender stereotypes, but the truth is that Marcella doesn’t know a lot about outer space and Phil knows even less about cooking.

Phil trying black squid in Venice

We here at Science Getaways like to eat. We find that one of the most fun parts of traveling is trying new cuisines. Here’s a picture of Phil trying squid in its own ink sauce in Venice (I could barely look at the dish long enough to take this photo and it smelled even worse.) Since it’s holiday time and lots of people are cooking and baking for friends and family, we thought we’d kick off the SG Blog by sharing a great recipe with you.

Double Chocolate Fudge Cookies 

Makes about 30 large, chewy, decadent cookies. They were so rich Phil could only eat 2 in a day. He highly recommends them for making mint chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches. 

Click to ensalivate. Photo courtesy Chris Setter Photography

Here’s a recipe I made for the first time a few days ago and they were perfect – very fudge and chewy. I didn’t even need to adjust for high altitude (probably because the fat to flour ratio is so high.) Phil and our daughter (aka The Little Astronomer) went nuts for them. They’re a little more work than drop cookies, but definitely worth the trouble. Do not skip the step of setting the trays of cookie dough in the refrigerator or you will have thin, flat cookies. You can also just refrigerate the dough and put it on the pan right before baking so it’s still nice and cold, although the cold dough is a bit crumbly and takes some effort to shape into a cookie. And don’t overbake them or the insides will not be chewy. I found 17 minutes to be just right in my oven. Transfer the cookies to a cooling rack as soon as possible because cookies keep baking on the hot pan even after you take them out of the oven.

Ingredients:

4 cups (24 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips, divided
1/2 cup butter (NOT margarine-blech!)
2 large eggs (I actually use extra large eggs because it seems like large eggs are smaller than they used to be)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
2/3 cup all-purpose flour*
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder (I like to use Dutch processed cocoa, but I didn’t have any on hand so I used plain old Nestle cocoa powder and it was fine)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

* When baking, always be sure you measure the flour correctly. Lightly spoon the flour into the measuring cup then use a straight edge (the back of a butter knife works well) to level off the top. Don’t tap the cup to settle the flour. If you don’t measure flour this way you will end up with too much and your baked goods will be dry and too dense.

1. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper
2. Combine 2 cups (12 ounces) chocolate chips and butter in a large microwavable bowl. Microwave on HIGH 30 seconds; stir and repeat until chips are melted and mixture is smooth. Let cool slightly.
3. Beat eggs and vanilla in large bowl with electric mixer at medium speed until it’s well blended and a little foamy. Add sugar and beat until thick and lighter in color. Add melted chocolate and butter and beat until blended, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. (Do not overbeat the dough – they’re cookies, not bread, and overbeating will get the gluten in the flour working and make the cookies tough.) Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt in medium bowl and slowly add to the butter mixture, beating until blended. Stir in the remaining chocolate chips by hand (the dough will be very soft.)
4. Drop dough by rounded, heaping tablespoonsful 2 inches apart on the prepared cookie sheets and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
5. Preheat oven to 325 degrees farenheit. Bake 16 to 20 minutes or until cookies are just cooked enough to hold together. They should still be slightly shiny on top. Cool on cookie sheets for 2 minutes and then move to wire racks to finish cooling completely.

If you try this recipe leave a comment and let us know how you liked it.