Mmmmmmm Bread

So I'm making a dill batter bread. As usual, I don't want to follow directions/didn't have everything/didn't want to buy everything. In other words, I tweaked my recipe a bit both because I am lazy and because I thought I could do better.  Mine is just rising right now, but it already smells fabulous.

Things you will need:

• 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour (it will be split into 1 cup for initial use, and you'll add the 3/4 cup at the end)
• 1 package dry active yeast
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup cottage cheese
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon dill
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 1/4 cup food-processed sunflower seeds

Things you will do:

• Grease a round 9-inch baking pan.
• Stir 1 cup flour and the yeast together in a large bowl.
• In a medium saucepan heat and stir everything from the water to the salt together until it's warm and the butter is almost completely melted.
• Add the cottage cheese mixture to the flour mixture.
• Beat on low for 30 seconds.
• Beat on high for 3 minutes.
• Stir in remaining flour and sunflower seeds with a wooden spoon.
• Spoon the batter into the baking pan and spread it to the edges.
• Cover it and let it rise for about an hour.
• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
• Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden.
• Immediately remove from pan.
• Serve warm.

As always, eat and be happy. Food makes me happy.

Honey or Brown Sugar

So the folks in the graphics department at work discovered that I keep a drawer full of cookies. I'm going to have to start keeping a larger stockpile on hand. I'm thinking more variety too.

I usually take requests from my office mate. We've had regular chocolate chip cookies, oatmeal walnut dark chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and sour cream chocolate drop cookies. Most recently, he put in a request for oatmeal raisin cookies, so I'm planning oatmeal raisin cookies and oatmeal craisin cookies (you know, with dried cranberries) because I don't like raisins when they've been cooked.

Of course, he's on vacation this week, so I've actually been dragging my feet about making cookies even though it's really hard for me to make it through the day without a mid-morning and an afternoon cookie.

Then the graphics department was complaining that they needed sugar, and one of the graphics guys who knows about my drawer informed them of the cache of cookies. Unfortunately, I didn't have any cookies for them. The drawer has been empty for days.

I decided, however, that cookies might be the way to bridge the department gap. We don't have a huge chasm dividing us, but there is a small divide. In the spirit of community cookie sharing, I took a cookie request from the person I know best in graphics. She apparently LOVES peanut butter cookies. The all caps is necessary because that's how she emailed me her cookie request.

So I'm making her peanut butter cookies, and I learned a new trick from my peanut butter cookie recipe as part of the process. You can replace brown sugar with 1/2 as much honey. The dough turns out gooier, but if you pop it in the fridge for a bit, you can remedy any difficulty created in dough handling.

Let me tell you...this batter is yummy. I don't imagine this will do anything to prevent how hard peanut butter cookies turn, and I hope it doesn't make that issue worse. Regardless, at present, the flavor is heavenly. I don't know that I would exchange brown sugar for honey in all my cookie recipes, but for peanut butter cookies, it's delectable--which is kind of the goal.

Sour Cream-Chocolate Drop Cookies

Um...these cookies turned out like little brownie bites, so I thought I would share.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 6 tablespoons dark chocolate cocoa
• 2 tablespoons shortening
• 1 packet instant chocolate pudding
• 1 8oz carton sour cream
• 2 cups all-purpose flour

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Beat butter with electric mixer.
3. Add brown sugar, baking soda, and salt.
4. Beat in egg, vanilla, cocoa, shortening, and chocolate pudding.
5. Beat in sour cream.
6. Beat in flour.
7. Drop rounded teaspoons onto cookie sheet and flatten a little.
8. Bake ten minutes.
9. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cook.
10. Eat and be happy.

I am going to go eat some right now.

Hobby Adventure!!!

I like to define myself by my hobbies rather than what I do for a living (because what I do for a living isn't that interesting or meaningful to the world), but I think my hobbies are a bit too broad in scope.

I crochet. Well that's nice. What do I crochet? Originally, only rectangular things and only one stitch. This meant lots of scarfs and blankets. I branched out to hats using a cheater method called the "nifty knitter." This past summer/fall I learned a new stitch and began making hats on my own, and not just any hats but animals hats. Of course, animal hats aren't really that high in demand unless you know a lot of little kids. No, what I want to do now is protest crochet following in the spirit of these awesome protest knitters.

Also, I used to be primarily a baker, then I branched out into cooking, and I have lost the touch with some of my baking. It's time to reclaim the world of baking and perhaps emphasize savory things because I don't like sweets that much. Though my first desire is to bake something like what I ate for breakfast, which was sweet. It came from a local mexican bakery and looked like one of those McDonald's apple pie pastries in shape and had the same little breather gaps. However, it wasn't hard and crusty like the tiny apple pies. It was just about the flakiest pastry I have eaten and had a cream cheese filling. Taste-wise, it was like a cheese danish, but less sticky and more flakey. Absolutely amazing. I want to make those first.

Then I will focus more on useful pastries--things I can take for lunch. Little quiches, pot pies, a homemade hot pocket things, stromboli, etc. I better start getting better about stopping by the Y after work.

Blog Intentions

Yes, I know my blogs of late have been of a personal nature. A month of living out of a suitcase has killed all creativity. Coffee shops aren't all that helpful--I tried very hard to work on a short story last week, but my brain would have no part in it.

Due to limited access to Netflix, I just cannot crochet. When I get all moved into the new apartment in a couple weeks, I will begin the crochet madness again with the aid of beloved mindless original Star Trek.

Also to come is a lot more cooking and baking, sponsored by having my own kitchen and groceries. I will be better about providing recipes. Expendable income should result in returning to a lifestyle of organic cooking, although there will still be potstickers from a bag. They are a definite vice of mine, even if the smell slightly resembles stinky feet.

I might have to share some progress on the fitness front as well. My job comes with a workout facility, so I will be working out more. I will, of course, continue to use cheesy 90s Denise Austin workout videos that I purchased from the dollar store five-and-a-half years ago. They work. I'm also considering joining a yoga studio so that I can add a social element to getting fit. I am honestly too cheap to join a gym, especially since I would actually have to get in my car and drive to one. That defeats the purpose of living downtown.

I'd like to reserve my car for grocery trips only, although I'm holding out hope for some sort of downtown local grocer, in which case my car will almost never get used. It's a great car, but I've put over 5,000 miles on it in the last month-and-a-half. It's time for it to get some down time.

Also to come to my blog are photos not taken with my cell phone. I have two cameras that have been given to me. If I can acquire cords and successfully get them hooked up to my computer, I should be good to go. (All free cameras come without cords.)

On the Road

I've been a bit busy, traveling around the state of Colorado. On my drive through the mountains last Friday, I got to see this mountain turn orange in the sunset.

Then I visited my mom and my twin sister, and we carved a pumpkin. We designed it to be an evil zombie mouse. It has cats walking into its mouth. Molly (my sister) and I had fun designing it. The cats are hard to see in this photo (you can't see the 2nd cat at all).

Now I'm in Denver working. All the travel has worn me out, so I made a pie on Monday to help out with my stress. The crust was super flakey.

Today, I had a decently relaxing day. It was snowing pretty bad, and I am in unfamiliar territory, so I stayed at my sister's all day and VPNed into work. The snow was heavy enough to make the trees droop towards the ground quite a bit.

Moments of stress still influenced the day though. My boss is stressed out. Things are getting rougher and rougher for her. Fortunately, I think we finally found a replacement for me (after several top applicants turned down the job). I'm interviewing him tomorrow because he's here in Denver and not in GJ.

Because of his family, he'll have to work out of the Denver office, which means my boss will be a bit isolated in GJ. I hope he acts as an advocate for her in the Denver office to eliminate some of the tension she is currently experiencing. After hearing about the phone conversation she had with him today, I think we're pretty intent on hiring him. We'll see for sure after the interview.

Worrying about my boss has me stressed out too. If I don't find a job right away, I may act in a volunteer capacity to help train my replacement and perhaps chip away at some of the low priority maintenance tasks.

With all this stress, I need more crochet time. Last night I made cover for a mug Kerrie has that gets too hot. Another sock monkey. Everybody loves those.

I've also started on the eyeballs for Kerrie's frog hat. Hopefully she can wear it for Halloween then.

Saturday I will drive to Manhattan, KS to visit friends. Then Monday, I have an interview scheduled in Wichita. After that I have to make the very long drive back to GJ, but it will be nice to return home, especially because I miss my cat. She's staying with my mom right now, and I will collect her on my way home.

I Have Fun, Too!

I've noticed that none of my posts have been about anything fun lately. No crochet projects, no baking adventures, no weird TV watching, so here is a fun update.

I'm using this weird loopy green mohair yarn to make my sister's frog hat. It causes the hat to be a bit lumpy like the frog has warts, which is perfect and is not impacting the cuteness factor negatively. I purchased the yarn at the Salvation Army for 50 cents a skein six or seven years ago. It's just been waiting in a box for the perfect project. This is the perfect project.

I made another sock monkey coffee cup sleeve for my boss. She did a few rows for herself because I was trying to teach her, so it was a good collaborative effort.

I'm watching Star Trek, the original, on Netflix. Yesterday I watched the episode "Arena," which is based on a short story we read in the science fiction class I took last summer. It is soooo cool how Star Trek revised the story to suit the changing worldview. I also like seeing how progressive Star Trek was for its time. Tis awesome.

Last, but not least, I didn't do an ounce of baking this weekend, so tonight I'm making zucchini bread for my brother-in-law, Beej. Tomorrow I will make peach galettes for everyone else.

Baking Day Bravery

Last weekend, I didn't do any of the crazy baking that I planned to do. I just crocheted like mad.

Today, I just did all the dishes so that I can make another mess baking some stuff with the giant bowl of grated zucchini I have (and handful of frozen overripe bananas). It took me like a half hour to grate the zucchini I had. It was 2 feet long and probably had a 4 inch diameter.

I know I want to make zucchini bread with some chocolate chips in them. It's one of my childhood favorites. I did like the zucchini cornbread I made last time, but it won't go well with chocholate, and I'm trying to make some healthier snacks to satisfy my sweet tooth.

Then, while I was Googling zucchini bread recipes (because internet reviews always reveal the best-of-the-best) I saw an add for a blueberry muffin recipe, and I thought "those look amazing, too bad I don't have blueberries." My secondary thought was I will go buy blueberries and make those scrumptious looking muffins and then let Chris know because he likes blueberry stuff. I'm cruel like that (he lives too far away to share).

Thinking further, I realized if I text Chris an intentionally tormenting message about amazing blueberry muffins, he will just tell me they should have been scones.  That got me thinking that 1) I should try to make a chocolate zucchini scone, and 2) I wanted to make chocolate banana scones anyway.

So when I head out shopping later, I will stop by the grocery store to pick up cream for making scones. I think I need more sugar for all this baking anyway.

Like all my strange shopping ventures, I will also be looking for a brown cardigan, returning an air filter that wasn't right and getting the right one, and getting more color-changing yarn to make a scarf to go with the sock monkey hat because I forgot that part. I actually have to go to 5 different stores to accomplish this. :(  Best get started.

I will post on the success of the zucchini scones and perhaps provide a recipe or two later.

Day of Yum!

Today I went a bit crazy in the kitchen. Both sinks are full of pots and pans, the stop top is bearing the burden of the ones that won't fit in the sink, but it was successful.

I prepped the base for my coffee heath bar ice cream. I'll pick up ice after work tomorrow and finish it up. I did taste the base, and it's heavenly!

Then I made the zucchini cornbread. Amazing! It does have a very buttery flavor, so you could cut the butter a bit. I did add parsley as some reviewers suggested. Yum, yum, yum.

Last, but not least, I made a Chargrilled Yellow Bell Pepper Soup. It's a chilled soup, so I can't indulge untile tomorrow on this treat either, but the bit I licked off the spatula was very tasty. My taste test was also suggestive that this would be good warm too. It actually tasted a bit like a soup I had at Harry's once.

Since there's no link to the soup, here's what I did.

1. Halved and de-seeded 3 yellow bell peppers.
2. Broiled them until the oustide was blacked.
3. Wrapped the peppers in a damp cool cloth and let them cool.
4. Pelled off their skins.
5. Then I finely chopped the following:
• the 3 bell peppers
• 1 very small potato
• 1 very small onion
• 1 smaller carrot
6. In a medium/large saucepan, I heated 3 tablespoons olive oil on medium heat.
7. Then I tossed in a teaspoon of minced garlic and my chopped onion and cooked for 5 minutes.
8. Threw in the peppers, carrots, and potato, some salt & pepper, and cooked for 5 minutes.
9. Poured in 4 cups of vegetable stock and brought to a boil.
10. Lowered the temp and let it all simmer for 10 minutes.
11. Pureed it in my happy blender.
12. Strained it into a large bowl, and placed in a nice cool space in from fridge to chill.

It needs a mimimum of 2 hours to chill, so I haven't eaten it yet. When I do eat it, I will put Gremolata on top (mix of 3 tablespoons finely chopped parsley, 1 lemon's worth of zest, and 1 garlic clove diced up).

This soup will go very well with my zucchini bread.

Tomorrow, I will endeavor to conquer red velvet cake. I did buy all the ingredients for it today.

Writing, Baking, Pawning Books

It's going to be a busy Saturday. At least, that's the plan, but I never accomplish half of what I want to on Saturday. Sunday seems to be much more productive for me. It's probably because I am a procrastinator to my core.

Today starts with a bit of sad news. I think my parakeet Holmes is sick. He was balled up and shaky, sitting in his furry little blue house this morning. He never sits in the house -- I think he can tell it was the favored spot of his predecessor. He didn't acknowledge me when I sing-songed his name, and his response when I lightly tapped his cage was not his usual enraged panic. He's generally startled and irritated all at once when I catch him off guard. He just sort of meandered around to face me this morning.  I'm hoping it's that the apartment is ungodly cold this morning. I'm in a sweater and wrapped in a blanket. I've also noticed this apartment is alarmingly moist for living in near-desert climate. That worries me for my Australian native bird--the moisture.  If he doesn't perk up later, we'll head to the vet.

Then before finishing this post, I got distracted with Youtube videos from new discoveries Danny Tieger and Julia Nunes. Julia is really talented. I love the pairing of her voice with ukulele. See First Impressions for a sampling. Danny's voice is not as great, but his lyrics, his daring, and his presentation completely make up for it and make him unique. See The Gollum Song and My Universe Revolves Around You for his clever wit. I'm also a big fan of Ode to Pollster.

Now that I've finished being sucked around Youtube by the vortex of curiosity. I'm going to go to the store to get things for baking a red velvet cake and zucchini cornbread. The cake is a practice run for my sister's bridal shower. The zucchini bread is for daily snacking of which I commonly partake.

Then, I need to focus on writing a short story for the new blog I have intended to start for weeks. When I finish that, I will read Dune. I've never experienced this sci-fi classic from Frank Herbert before, and it took me a bit to get engaged, but I love it. I don't think I have Netflixed all week because of Dune.

I also wanted to take some books to the used bookstore to get them out of my living room, but I don't think I left enough time today.

Happy Easter! Sausage Souffle

So, I'm making a breakfast sausage souffle for Easter brunch. It's one of my favorite things that my mom makes. It's a heart attack waiting to happen, but I only get it once or twice a year, so no harm done.

I've reduced everything because it's just my roommate and I, and I thought I would share a version for the poor lonely souls like us who are far from family for Easter. So here's what you'll need:

What the Recipe Calls For:	What I Used:
8 slices of soft bread diced 1 cups shredded cheddar cheese 1 1/2 lbs breakfast links sausage cooked then sliced 4 eggs 2 3/4 cups milk 3/4 tsp dry mustard 1 cup mushroom soup 9x13 inch glass baking dish	5 slices of French bread torn up 1 1/4 cups shredded cheddar cheese 1 lb ground breakfast sausage (Jimmy Dean Maple flavored) 3 eggs 1 1/4 cups milk 1/2 tsp dry mustard 3/4 cup mushroom soup 8x8 inch glass baking dish

Here's what you do:

1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
2. Grease your baking dish.
3. Cook sausage.
4. Tear/dice bread.
5. Beat eggs in a bowl.
6. Mix milk, mustard, and mushroom soup in with eggs.
7. Evenly layer the bread bits on the bottom of the baking dish.
8. Sprinkle cheese over the bread.
9. Evenly layer the sausage over the cheese.
10. Spoon the egg mixture over the bread, cheese, and sausage.
11. Bake for 1.5 hours.

Then you eat it. It's tasty. Happy Easter!

So Far Behind...So I'm Cooking

It's spring break. I haven't gotten enough done. I'm so far behind I was up on-and-off all night with anxiety. I decided to get up at the crack of dawn and work on my writing project.

I was awake at 5ish, thinking about what to write, feeling very motivated, but I didn't get out of bed.

It's now about noon-ish. What have I accomplished? I've played scrabble online, checked facebook, twitter, posted on my blog, read a recipe for oyster stew, made crepes and bacon for breakfast, and I have peanut butter banana bread in the oven. I haven't even opened the file for my writing project or cracked a book. I am doomed.

Monday, I have an annotated bibliography due. I have read everything for Indian children's lit, though.

Wednesday, I have a proposal due for my tech writing project (which means I need to have most of the work done on the actual project). I also need to do the reading for tech writing and Indian children's lit.

I also still haven't graded correspondence portfolios...even though I've graded all the stuff that has been handed in after those. Blergh. They are soooooooooo boring.

The Baking Gods Have Spoken: Cheesy-Potato Scones

I love savory scones. Two of the local coffee shops make the greatest scones with cheese and sausage or bacon, and they are maybe my favorite food ever! I have wanted to learn to make my own, but every scone recipe I have is very British (crusty scones that require coffee or tea just to swallow), and these bakeries do a very Americanized fluffy, biscuit-like scone.

With a little help from Epicurious.com and my own ingenuity, I developed a scone that I love with the random stuff that I had around the house! I'm going to share a mentally adjusted recipe because when I'm playing around with recipes, I often don't read as well as I should, and I made some mistakes that probably could have ruined my scones, and I don't want to include those in the recipe (I don't expect to get this lucky with attempt two if I repeat those mistakes). The recipe will have lots of options because I believe in fudging if you don't have what's necessary. Bake with what you have.

Prep: Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

I use 400 because my oven seems to draw it's heat straight from hell. It gets excessively hot in there. Grease a cookie sheet.

Step 1: Sift/whisk together 2-and-3/4 cups self-rising flour, 1 tablespoon sugar, and 2 teaspoons baking powder.

Step 2: Throw in 1 heaping cup of frozen hashbrown potatoes (the shredded kind), 2 cups of coursely shredded cheese of your choice.

I recommend a more potent cheese like cheddar. All I had was colby jack and pepperjack. I did the colby because my roommate doesn't like spicy, but I think a more flavorful cheese would be better. Havarti dill might be good too. Mmmmm!

Step 3: Throw in a few tablespoons of this or that. Whatever you like. I added garlic salt (if you don't add garlic salt, make sure you do add a tsp of salt).

I also added some sage and some onion flakes because I didn't have any real onion. Epicurious calls for chives. Dill would add a nice touch if you have it. Crisply cooked bacon or any breakfast sausage is good. If you like sweeter scones, add some honey. I also highly recommend a tablespoon of dry mustard or just throw a couple spoonfuls of whatever mustard you have in the fridge. I used some dijon mustard we have and never use.

Step 3.1: Stir.

Step 4: In a separate bowl, beat together one egg with 3/4 cup whatever milk you have and  1 tablespoons vegetable oil or butter.

Epicurious calls for whole milk, but a reviewer said they used skim, and it was fine. I used some of the skim sour milk I have for making waffles, which also seemed fine. I used butter instead of veg oil because most baked goods end up flakier with butter. I needed to get the fat back that I lost using skim milk, too. I don't believe in being too low calorie. That's what yoga and kickboxing are for--eating whatever I want.

Step 5: Gradually add your liquids from Step 4 to your flour mixture. If it seems dry, throw in some more milk a tablespoon at a time. I did.

Step 6: Knead your dough a tiny bit so that it sticks together--not too much, you don't want to overwork it and make it tough.

Step 7: Roll out your dough/press it into whatever shape with your hands so that it's about 1-and-a-1/2 inches high. Then cut it into whatever shape you want.

I make two balls, flatten them a bit with my hands, and then cut wedges out of the round. If you have giant cookie cutters, you could make scone blobs that vaguely resemble cookie shapes.

Step 8: Put scones on cookie sheet with at least a half inch between them. Bake your scones for about 15 minutes.

Step 9: Pull your scones out of the oven, let them cool a bit, then pig out.

Here's the Epicurious recipe that aided me, along with the very useful user reviews, which guided some of my own baking choices.