First, making the pumpkin seed flour is not as simple as it sounds. There's a lot of factors they may become a problem to consider when blitzing nuts or seeds. An good example is the natural oils in the nuts or seeds itself may cause the mixture to clump up into a semi paste if your blade is generating too much heat from spinning. So you might have to think about doing this in a 2 step or 3 step process, giving time to allow the nuts to cool down and dry off a bit before continuing to blitz the nuts into a finer consistency.
Just some simple tools. Hand blender with the food processor attachment.
Luckily, my kitchen aid hand blender comes with 10 speeds. The blender is a roaring beast. But even at it's highest speed, it is unable to slice the seeds into a finer, flour-like consistency.
I had to stop the machine eventually because the cup was getting warm and I knew if I had let it continue spinning, it would create too much moisture and clump up into a semi-paste.
Then I sifted out the pumpkin seed flour and there were still some bigger nibblets that I had to go through again with my blender. However, the pumpkin seed flour is still too big for me to use, so tomorrow I will have to blend it again, hoping it will become finer.
The end result of today's trial for pumpkin seed flour. As you can tell, it looks alright but it's still a bit too gritty. If all else fails and I cannot get it to be like powder then I'll just tell the judges that "I did it on purpose to add the gritty texture". YUP! all part of the master plan.
The previous event hosted Pastry Chicago was pie contest and sponsored by California Raisins. I had the opportunity to volunteer for this wonderful event and got to witness the judging of the pies by Pastry Chefs through out Chicago and also got to test the winning pie! 
Making French bread is quite the thrill!!.. HA.. no.. not really. It's actually quite boring. The only fun part of it is the shaping aspect. The dough is so soft and easy on the hand to play with. I started yesterday with a poolish, which in simple terms is just a starter dough that will give you a boost of flavor in your bread with early fermentation. What is interesting about the Poolish or starter dough is that, it is actually ALIVE! Yup, it's alive. Like frankenstein alive. And just like all living organisms, you need to feed it food to keep it alive and healthy. As for the Poolish, it eats flour, so every morning you feed it with some flour and it's happy. There are stories of crazy bakers, mostly frenchies, where they would bring their poolish around as they travel. This way they can feed it everyday and also make delicious bread where ever they go. It's pretty neat. I think. 
As boring as making bread is for me, I still admire the process of making it. It makes me happy to see perfectly shaped dough, ready to be scored and baked. The feel of working with lots amount of flour, eggs, yeast and salt.. getting messy with your hands, sometimes it's annoying but there are times, where you just feel so relaxed with kneading all the ingredients together into a soft dough. The feel of your hands and finger tips, crusty with the bits and pieces of dried dough, yes.. it's quite annoying also but hey! It's well worth the effort and the mess. 
So sometimes we would make up to 40-50 loaves a day of french bread or other types of breads, pastries and desserts, but by the time I get home, I only have 1 loaf of bread in my hand. Yes, I give them all away to people I see. People who I don't even know that I bump into, people who happen to sit next to me on the train, or neighbors that just happen to walk in the elevator when I'm in it. 
Final note. People are always so surprised when I offer food to them, and although I'm shy and I don't really like confrontation of such behavior from strangers. I know this loaf of bread, cake, or pastry will make the rest of their night a more positive one. They will go home and say, " Hey honey! guess what.. some asian kid just gave me a free loaf of bread ! " .. lol. strange.. but is it? Should it be? It makes me wonder.. what has this world become to when the thought of giving without asking for anything in return is a suspicious motive. But I'm not going to let that thought stop me from sharing what I love the most. Making YOU happy by doing what I love to do. Sharing the food that i make DUH!!!
I've recently added a whole slew of new Make It Real Learning activity workbooks to my site (I have had some already).
Geometry Lapbook at Homeschool Bin - this seems to be a completely free download (in several parts).
A new book for the Math Mammoth Blue Series topical books.... South African Money.
The goal is to free one of the vehicles (the red one in the image) and let it slide out of the board. You simply slide the pieces in the direction of their orientation--either up/down or right/left.
Many children study Math Mammoth with this stuffed toy mammoth! You can get one at Amazon.
Want to do some problem solving? MathCounts Handbook for 2012-2013 not only includes information about their programs, but also creative and fun 300 problems to work! Answers are included as well.
Five Years of posting my random musings! Now while I am highly anticipating the Five Year Anniversary of my transplant when the docs will consider me cured (and the Guy intends to give me an emerald bracelet to replace the hundreds of hospital bracelets I have had to wear over these years), five years of blogging is a good reason to celebrate. 
