This weekend is a special one for all my family who live in Asia as it's the Mid-Autumn Festival or Mooncake Festival. In Mandarin, they call it Zhong Qiu Jie. This festival is celebrated in many Asian countries such as China, Taiwan, and Vietnam. During this time, the moon is usually the brightest and roundest! This festival started many many many years ago in China. It was a day where people expressed (showed) their gratitude (appreciation), worshiped the moon, gathered (grouped together) family and friends together, and celebrated harvest.

Since I'm not there and can't celebrate with my family, it doesn't mean I can't enjoy some Mooncake! This is the common (usual, frequent) pastry eaten during this time. Mooncakes are shaped like a "moon." They are round in shape and usually have filling inside such as red bean and egg yolk. It's common to give family and friends mooncakes during this time. The looks of these can vary (change in some way) and nowadays, you can see all kinds of fillings and shapes. People start to get more creative and competitive (do something better than others)!

As you may know, starting from last month, The English Student has been featuring a new easy recipe every month. The point of this is to encourage you to practice English vocabulary while doing something fun! This month I am making a no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookie. I love anything that's simple, so the recipe definitely appealed to me. You can always find the recipe of the month on the right-hand side of the Homepage). I made it today and it took me only about 20 minutes and was delicious! You can see my cookies below. If you're a chocolate or peanut butter lover, it's a must try! You don't even have to bake it!

This recipe, which is on the bottom of this page, has seven ingredients, but if you're like me, you probably already have milk, sugar, butter, and peanut butter at  home. So I only had to purchase a few items from the store. One of the most important ingredient here is the chocolate. The recipe asks for SEMI-SWEET chocolate. SEMI is a prefix placed before a word to mean "partly but not completely". Semisweet chocolate has more chocolate percentage than Milk Chocolate but less than Dark Chocolate. So it's partly sweet and chocolaty but not completely! That's the meaning of SEMI.

Some other important verbs used in this recipe are:

Combine- to put and mix different things together
Boil- to heat something until it starts bubbling and steaming
Stir- to mix something together round and round with a spoon or stick
Add- to join one thing together with another thing
Remove- to take away
Drop- let something fall
Place- put something somewhere

You can learn and practice so much English here. Try it out by yourself, with a friend or with your family and let me know how your cookie turns out!

No Bake Chocolate Oatmeal Cookies from Back to the Cutting Board
Prep time: 30 min | Cook time: 1 hour | Total time: 1 hour 30 min

Ingredients

• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 3 cups quick oats

Process

1. In a large saucepan over medium heat, combine sugar, butter, chocolate chips and milk and bring to boil. Cook for a minute.
2. Remove from heat and add the vanilla, peanut butter and oats, one at a time, stirring well after each addition. The oats should be the last thing you add.
3. Quickly drop by spoonfuls onto waxed paper and let set (1-3 hours)
   

Halloween is coming up in a few days. Are you ready for it?

As you might already know, Halloween is a day when kids and some adults like to dress up in costumes and ask for candy. This is known as "trick or treating." If it's a custom in your culture, then you must prepare candies or treats at home for those "trick or treaters" who will come knocking on your door! If you have no "treats" then they'll play a "trick" on you! So don't forget or else you'll be shocked and maybe a little embarrassed when you open the front door!

Also for those of you who will be trick or treating, don't forget to brush your teeth before going to bed!