Nov. 2, 2007 - Apples
Apples are one of my favorite things to bake with. We were blessed with a couple of huge boxes of free apples from "a friend of a friend" a few weeks ago. Though they weren't really baking apples, I managed to use them in a few recipes I had been wanting to make for awhile. My mom and I also made a few batches of apple butter and apple sauce, the first canning we had done at a high altitude, which really wasn't that different. And there are still quite a few apples left!
Here are a couple of the recipes I made:
Apple Turnovers
Crust:
1 cup flour
1/2 t salt
1/3 c butter or Crisco
3 oz cream cheese
Filling:
1 1/2 c finely chopped apples
1/4 c sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
dash nutmeg
Combine crust ingredients like you would a pie crust - first, mix together flour and salt. Cut in the shortening evenly. Then rub in the cream cheese until evenly moistened. Make into 4 to 6 little balls. Chill. Mix together filling ingredients. Preheat oven to 400. Roll out each ball of dough, not too thin, into a square. Spoon filling into half of each square to make individual turnovers. Don't over fill, or turnover will tear. Then fold each square carefully in half, to make a triangle. Seal edges with a fork. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes. If desired, sprinkle with powdered sugar.
I doubled the above recipe, and made eight turnovers. This was my first time making turnovers, and most of them didn't turn out that great looking as the original directions were much "simpler." Because we had leftover Apple Pizza from the night before, we saved them for breakfast the next morning, and they were still good. 
Apple Muffins
2 c all-purpose flour
1/2 c white sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 c apple juice
1/3 c vegetable oil
1 egg
1 c apples, peeled, cored, and finely diced
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease 12 muffin cups or line with paper liners. In a small bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt, and mix well. In a medium bowl, combine apple juice (I used some freshly squeezed apple cider), oil, and egg, and mix well. Add dry ingredients all at once. Stir just until dry ingtedients are completely moistened. Batter will be lumpy for some strange reason. 
Stir in chopped apples, and fill muffin cups, about 2/3 full. Bake for 18 to 22 minutes at 400 degrees or until toothpick tests done. Cool a minute before removing from pan. If using paper liners, cool completely before eating. Otherwise, the muffin will stick dreadfully to them.
I also made a yummy recipe called "Country Apple Crumb Cake" which has four parts - crumb cake, layer of crumb topping, layer of apples, and remaining crumb topping. But the pan it calls for is much too small, resulting in it overflowing tremendously to the bottom of our oven. So I need to change something in that recipe before I post it. Any ideas? Should I just halve the crumb cake part of it, the apple, the topping, or all? Or make the same amount in a much larger pan?
Oct. 31, 2007 - Our First Year in Colorado (Warning: Photo Heavy!)
Today is the one year anniversary of when we arrived in Colorado. It has been a very full and memorable year. So I am reviving my poor, forgotten blog to post a quick overview of the highlights of the past year!
We experienced our first "real" winter, with lots of snow - at least, compared to the high desert of California.
I received a GPS for Christmas, and have used it mainly to geocache. I have found about 40 so far, in Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. 
I learned, thanks to our friend Mrs. Colvin in California, how to make pie crusts.
Also, bread at high altitude. I tweaked and nearly perfected a recipe, except recently, I have tried to adjust it to increase the percentage of wheat, and it had enormous air bubbles in each loaf. Is there anyone who knows why it did that?
And, also thanks to our friends the Colvins, I made my first blouse for my mom, which won a 2nd at the local fair. I was surprised it did that well, considering that the flaws the judge noted were not the ones that bothered me the most about it. 
Tried new things
And explored many beautiful places. Do you know how hard it is to pick just a couple of pictures of the probably thousands I've taken this year? I have probably taken more pictures in one month here than I did in one year in California!
Also, some of the many memorable books I've read in the last year, thanks to our wonderful library mainly:
Bleak House, Old Curiosity Shop, and Barnaby Rudge, by Charles Dickens
Wives and Daughters & North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
Up from Slavery by Booker T Washington
Rickenbacker: An Autobiography by Eddie Rickenbacker
Freckles, A Girl of the Limberlost, Laddie, and Song of the Cardinal by Gene Stratton Porter
Crime and Punishment by Fydor Dostoevsky
And others. I'm currently reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, Michael O'Halloran by Gene Stratton Porter, and Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell.
Nov. 29, 2006 - Using the Juice - pt. 1
There are literally hundreds of great tools available for the independent video producer. One of my favorites are the products of the Digital Juice company.
Whether you need music, stock footage, or motion graphics, Digital Juice has what you need.
NOTE: I apologize if this sounds like a sales pitch. I don't work for Digital Juice, nor do I get any money for recomending their products. I'm just a satisfied customer who thinks everyone should use Digital Juice.
That said, let's move on to what kind of stuff Digital Juice offers.
VideoTraxx stock footage collections. There are three volumes of VideoTraxx. Each collection has hundreds of high quailty clips of varrying themes, from animals, to NASA, from teens to business.
BackTraxx royalty-free music collections. There are two volumes of BackTraxx. Each volume has hundreds of royalty-free music that you can use for promotional videos, commercials, or anything else. Royalty-free means you don't have to pay royalties each time you use a song, just the initial purchasing fee and you're free to go. Each song comes in different lengths for whatever project you're doing, and each volume is divided by categories such as Coporate, Cool Stuff, Classical, Mellow, etc.
StackTraxx royalty-free music collections. These are some of the coolest things ever. It's just like BackTraxx, except you can actually choose which instruments you want in the song. Say there's a great, high energy song you want to use in your commercial, but the drums are a little too rowdy for what you need. Go into the Juicer, DJ's proprietary rendering software that comes free with all DJ products, and deselect the drums track. It's that simple.
Digital Juice has other products, but I must be off to shoot some videos for church.
In Christ,
Zack
Nov. 18, 2006 - FYI...
I just found out that the episode of Heroes that my dad and I saw being filmed will be airing Monday night on NBC. The episode is entitled "Homecoming," and according to the website will be a pivotal episode in the series. I watched last week's episode on the NBC website, www.nbc.com/Heroes and recognized the diner set they used. I had actually walked through that set when my dad and I visited the studio. It'll be interesting to see how the scene we saw turned out. Despite the evolutionary foundation of the show, the storyline is quite interesting, especially seeing how the different subplots begin to intersect with one another.
Oct. 22, 2006 - SAICFF - The Results.
Well, the 2006 San Antonio Independent Christian Film Festival is over. While Close Encounters did not win the "Best Trailer" Award, it was selected as one of the top four finalists, and was very well received by those who saw it. A big "Thank You!" to all who helped with making the trailer. I couldn't have done it without you guys!
In Christ,
Zack
Oct. 20, 2006 - Been Busy
Time has really flown since my last entry. So much for trying to update the "identify this object" weekly! We'll be moving in just eleven days. I'm still amazed that in less than two weeks I'll be living in Colorado, not California where I've lived my whole life.
I had to move the ticker down to the very bottom of the page as it was causing some problems with the sidebar overlapping the entries. I hope everything is fixed with that now. Please let me know by leaving a comment if it isn't.
Last Sunday, my dad and older brother went to San Antonio to attend the Independent Christian Film Festival. My younger brothers, mom, and I went to Fort Tejon's Civil War reenactment.
On the way home, we stopped at a "Last Chance" peach orchard and bought some peaches. I made a peach crisp with some of them. Here's the recipe I used, which turned out quite well:
Old-Fashioned Peach Crisp
Yield: 6 servings
Prep time: 10 minutes (ready in 45 minutes)
Ingredients:
4 cups peaches, cut into bite-size chunks
cinnamon
Topping:
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup softened butter
Heat oven to 375 degrees F. Place peaches in an ungreased 1 1/2 quart baking dish. Sprinkle liberally with cinnamon. In a large bowl, combine all topping ingredients; mix until crumbly. Sprinkle crumb mixture evenly over peaches. Bake at 375 for 25-35 minutes, or until peaches are tender and topping is golden brown. Serve warm with ice cream.
I hope, once we move, to update my blog more regularly including the "identify the object" posts. Here is the answer to last time's picture:
It was a leaf hopper - or at least, that's what we call them. I don't know if that's what their "real" name is or not. Please check back in a couple weeks for a new picture.
Oct. 18, 2006 - SAICFA- Days 2 & 3
Boy, it's been a busy last couple of days here in San Antonio. As I write this from our hotel room, the Academy is over and the Film Festival will kick off tomorrow evening. My dad and I just got back from watching Facing the Giants, which I highly recommend. Check www.facingthegiants.com and look to see if it's playing in your area. I believe Christians across the country need to rise up and support these kinds of films. This will send the message to the Hollywood-humanists that these are the kinds of movies we want to see, movies that extol the Biblical family model, that show children to be a blessing, and not a curse, movies that show children repenting and apologizing to their parents, instead of the other way around. Movies that show how God rewards faithfulness and submission, and most importantly, films that exalt the name of Jesus Christ as the Name above all names, and by whom we are saved.Over the last two days, I've heard lectures and lighting, sound design, starting and managing a small video production company, the proper way to do preproduction, an in-depth look at the production process, heard the sucess stories of other Christian films, such as Facing the Giants. It's been like drinking out of a fire-hose. Next is the Festival itself. Over the next three days, I'll be watching as many as I can of the forty short films and documentaries that are in the semi-finals. I hope that I will be challenged, moved, and entertained. Most of all, I hope my trailer wins the Jubilee Award.
Just kidding!
Seriously though, please pray that God will be able to use my trailer as a means to make some connections that will be beneficial in the future, and if nothing else, be means to make some new friends in the Christian Filmmakers community.
Good night, and God Bless,
Zack
Oct. 17, 2006 - SACFA- Day 1
Wow! What an amazing day! It was so awesome being among so many fellow Christian filmmakers with the same vision of becoming the industry that replaces Hollywood as the primary source of entertainment. I saw many faces I had met last year, and lots of new ones.As usual, Doug Philips did most of the talking, but I admit that his talk (at least, the one he gave during his alotted time) was very inspiring, and really did a good job of reminding us why we're doing this, which is to bring glory and honor to God, and to hopefully bring people to a relationship with Jesus Christ. Now, if only he wouldn't take up the other speakers' time so much...
Isaac Botkin spoke on the very practical topic of ways Christians can make an income doing video production, and David Rasmussen gave a presentation on his experiences shooting video on Mt. Everest and K2. Geoff Botkin quizzed us on what things we were most intersted in learning, (technical, theological, technique), where we got our gear (rental, own, or borrow), and even whether we used Macs or PCs.
PCs won, of course.
Well, I have to get ready for today's talks. Panavision will be giving a run-down on using 35mm film cameras. I'm definitely looking forward to that!
In Christ,
Zack
PS. Check out www.therebelution.com for live reports on the Academy and Festival.
Oct. 14, 2006 - Coming up...
Well, my dad and I will be flying out to San Antonio tomorrow! The Film Academy starts on Monday. I'm really looking forward to it.
I'll be posting daily reports of what happens during the Academy and Festival, so check back soon.
In Christ,
Zack
Oct. 9, 2006 - On the Set of "Heroes"
My dad and I had the opportunity today to visit the set of the new TV series "Heroes". It was quite an experience. We got to look over the director's (Greg Beeman) shoulder as he worked with the actors and crew,(which was the coolest part, IMO.) we got to see the reeeeeally sweet Panavision cameras in action,
and saw how a professional Hollywood set is run. (Plus, we even got a copy of the day's sides!)
I can't tell you what we saw, since we were treading a fine line just being there,
but the episode we saw being shot will air in about six weeks (for those of you who have TV). I can't recommend the show, since I haven't seen it. From what I've heard of the plot, it's basically about people who find themselves endowed with superpowers via evolution, kind of like X-men
(again, haven't seen, but heard.) So I leave it up to you to decide.
In Christ,
Zack
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