Meltdown!

Ok so some of you are starting to scratch your heads. Some of you are giving me the stink eye or the brush off. I know, I know... I promised to stay up to date with the blog more often, and I truly wanted to do this. This time circumstances beyond my control kept me from writing. My computer suffered a total meltdown. I picked up a nasty virus somewhere, and it did some major damage to the computer. It required a total reformat of my hard drive and reinstall of everything. It also could not have happened at a worse time for my IT department. The husband had recently switched jobs and was working on a new start-up that needed to get code up and running in a timely fashion. Not being one to stand in the way of things like this, I patiently, well not always patiently, waited for the hubby's schedule to free up enough to get things running. While I had skeleton service for a while, specific things like my photo editing software and the Klick-N-Kut were not on and reconfigured for me until very recently. A lot has happened between late April and now late June. The new pictures are from.... Easter..... I know it seems kinda funny to post them, but they were so pretty that I felt the need to post them all the same even if they are out of season.

This year was the first year we had our new lamb cake mold. More on that in a later posting. It was neat to have one of these cakes during the holiday again, and now that we have the molds, it is even more interesting to know how they work. No you do not glue anything together with frosting, and yes that lamb was baked as one piece. It was a white cake interior with boiled seven minute frosting and coconut for the fur. When Easter comes around again, I will post up the recipe for those of you with molds and no guidance. I also thought this would be in a way timely to remind people that are hitting the tag sale/ garage sale/ yard sale circuit to keep your eyes open for things like this. It is hard to think about things like lamb cake molds for a spring holiday when Independence Day is right around the corner, but there are good deals to be had now on things like this. Storing them away after a steal of a price is much more satisfying than paying more around the actual holiday due to not realizing possibilities earlier.

Well now that the "situation" is explained, there is a lot that I have on my mind to talk about. I mean, I had a few months to accumulate pictures and thoughts. Needless to say there will be more postings up on canning, including a new feature on reporting my thoughts on last year's results in order to modify and inform my canning plans for this year. I hope you find those reviews helpful. I am also taking up embroidery in some other forms and hope to have some new projects to show off as well as the quilt that I have finally started cutting out. The time for talk on these projects is over; I am ready for action! Speaking of which, the library has just contacted me about a book I wanted to read and review for the blog, so I suppose I should put myself into action and walk over to pick it up. I am happy to be back and hope to win you all over to reading here again. Look for updates here as well as on my Twitter stream. Enjoy today, and I cannot wait to write something up for tomorrow!

Bagel Maddness

In this past years of trying to eat healthier and get in shape, I have taken to really reading labels on food again. I used to do this a lot in college, mostly because I had to for many of my classes. It was something that was always interesting to me but not a dire thing that I lived by. It was not until I took a food and nutrition class that things like additives and preservatives became a concern for me, and I made some small changes. Margarine and butter like spreads were banned from the house. I tried to make some efforts to cut back on corn syrups and other additives, but then life took over. I was a busy working person and had less and less time to look at things, and the husband was right in the same boat with me, too busy to notice. Once I left the working world for my new calling as a homemaker, label reading came back into vogue for me.

We began to eat healthier foods, and most of our food began as pure elements into the finished product rather than prepared fair that was matched together in a menu. I was, however, still packing on the weight in a way that I did not particularly relish. One of the biggest culprits I found, breakfast. I love breakfast... it is my favorite meal of the day. I started to notice, however, that I was eating large breakfasts every day regardless of how hungry I was. One of the biggest issues in the big breakfast and portion size was the bagel. I love bagels, I could eat them just about every day, and sometimes I even substitute them in for dinner and lunch. It was looking at this staple of our house that I found a calorie culprit. I am not a big fan of eating only one half of a bagel, and that was the serving size on the package. Then I looked at the total calories when eating both sides. Yikes! Too many for a meal, and that was not including the cream cheese or peanut butter on top, or the yogurt or fruit on the side! I needed to find smaller bagels.

This search for smaller bagels resulted in finding only those tiny bite sized ones that people would use to make bagel pizza bites. This also, surprisingly only came in plain most times as well. I did finally find one type made for a local discount grocery chain that were small enough with few enough calories to qualify. I was, however, disappointed in their construction. No real chewy skin, few raisins to speak of, and the cinnamon flavor was severely lacking. I decided to go down the path of homemade. This, unlike my attempts at replacing English muffins, went smashingly. I turned to my trusty Reinhart's Artisan Bread Everyday book for advice. He had a wonderfully easy recipe for bagels. I thought this had to be too good to be true. I spend about 20 minutes tops at the mixer, let things rest, shape and then into the fridge for two days to ferment. This is by far the hardest thing about the recipe, remembering to start these with enough time to have a new batch before you run out of them. From there it is a trip to the boiling water concoction and into the oven. So easy, and so worth it to make bagels from scratch. I still have to work on my shaping skills, but they come out wonderfully.

A few notes on things I have learned from this. Make a double batch of the dough. It really is worth your time and effort to make two sets as the boiling liquid uses barley malt syrup, the only expensive item in the recipe. I like to get the most bang for my buck, so making a double batch means only making one batch of poaching liquid and less waste as the liquid is discarded after boiling the bagels. I also find that I eat them so fast that a double batch makes me have to work on this remembering two days in advance business. I also let my bagels cool completely, place them into a plastic bag, and then freeze them. This keeps them in good condition longest. Remember that with out stabilizers and preservatives, mold can creep into these breads faster. I hope that this recipe review is helpful. I find myself turning to his book more and more for things. Hopefully I can work on my English muffin technique more soon to come up with some notes on how that quest is going. I think I may have the right recipe, just not the right technique yet. Practice makes perfect, and eating my mistakes is at least not that painful.

New Shoots

I find that spring always gives me a renewed need to start new things. I have been wanting to get into quilting for some time, and at this point I think I will actually start that soon. I have a few more pressing projects to attend to first, but that will happen this year before summer arrives. One thing that I am refusing to give up is working with plants and dirt. I love having a house full of living things, whether they be people or plants. For most of the time, I have to settle for plants. Being a homemaker in a modern world yields few others in my position to be in the home during a week day rather than just weekends. To fill my need for living things, I have decided to fill our new place again with plants.

One of the hardest things for me in the move was having to leave behind my outdoor gardening space on the balcony. We looked for a new place that would have the same accommodation for me but it was not to be. In some ways I am glad for this. I find it interesting in a way to work with plants in a way that they are not necessarily intended to grow. It is a personal challenge I guess. This started with my container gardens out on the patio in not so great light. Some things worked and others failed miserably. It really was not about being able to feed ourselves, but rather to see what I could make happen under non-ideal conditions. This new garden is under the same umbrella. I saved the Meyer lemon, rosemary, and chives from the outdoor garden. All of the other things I have started over. The first picture is my newest attempt at cucumbers. I found a packet of seeds specifically for container gardens rather than the vine style i have tried and failed with in the past. They seem to be enjoying themselves thus far, and I hope to get just one edible cucumber off of the three that I have tried. There is always hope right? The trellis from the jasmine is being used this time to support peas. I am not sure if the trellis will work well for them as the space between each contact point are kind of far from each other. It seemed like a fun thing to give a try to and see what happens. All of the peas have germinated, which is better than I can say for the patio. Hopefully we can get some peas off of the plants being indoors just like I did when they were outdoors. The plants did not bear enough for a meal by any stretch of the imagination, but they were good tossed on a salad or supplementing some from the farmer's market.

I am also trying some greens. The spinach was doing well on the porch before we had to leave, so I am hoping it can do something here inside as well. They have really taken off after germinating, and they are even bigger today than this picture I took yesterday. The front planter has another new try at something, baby butter lettuce. There was another potted plant style seed I found for baby heads of butter lettuce. I thought, hey why not try that as well, so I bought a packet and cannot wait to see what happens. The final thing I planted into dirt that has sprouted is a new herb garden. I did not take pictures as the shoots are even more tiny than the greens pictured here. Hopefully this takes off as I love being able to clip fresh herbs from my own planters right when I need them. What about the Aerogarden? It is still going. I tore everything out of it when we moved and took some time off from this one. About a month ago, though, I wen to a hydroponics store and bought some medium cups from them to try in it. What a difference the right material makes. I am currently giving my thyme a head start and it looks great. The sponges I have tried to use in the past end up becoming sludge and moss factories. This medium has stayed shapely and supportive for the plant. I cannot wait to start the other herbs and some cherry tomatoes today. While all of these experiments are fun, I am still keeping my fingers crossed that I get into the community gardens that I have signed up for. Till then, I will plant what I can around here and wait for the Alpine strawberries to germinate. For today, more bread baking experiments of the English muffin variety and planting of herbs before heading off to tutor and dance classes. I hope this spring brings new shoots of interest to you and that you find new enjoyment in the every day.

Thousand Island - Homemade Dressings

Recently I realized that we had gone slightly overboard in the salad dressing department. We had an entire shelf on the door of our fridge filled with half finished dressings, some way out of date. It got me to thinking, I really like variety and choice in my dressings, but with only two of us in the house it is hard to finish them up quickly. Enter into this picture, Thousand Island dressing. I really like Thousand Island dressing, once in a while. It can be great on a seafood salad and is a necessary component in Reuben sandwiches. When Dan wanted to have Reubens this week, I realized that we had no dressing for them. The last time we bought Thousand Island, we used less than a quarter of the bottle, and it sat and sat in the fridge until it went bad and had to be thrown out. I decided this time that I did not want to waste money and food by buying a bottle that would never get finished. I decided to embark on my new food adventure of making my own dressings.

Thousand Island is a really interesting dressing when you make it yourself. You never really think about what is in dressing that you get from the bottle, but this one got me to thinking about it. I looked over several recipes from The Joy of Cooking to my trusty Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. I have made the occasional vinaigrette or specialty dressing for a specific salad, but this was new territory. I have to say that this dressing is very interesting as it seems to throw in every condiment including the kitchen sink. It starts with a mayo or salad dressing (read as the trade marked Miracle Whip) and then adds to it chili sauce. From there you heap in Worcestershire sauce and horseradish and add in olives and finely chopped onions and green and red pepper. Then, for good measure, add in a hard cooked egg and you have Thousand Island. I cut the recipe in half, and it still seemed like too much for us to have. I think for this particular dressing I need to only make a fourth of the full amount. This first dressing was mostly a success. I have to say that it turned out a little too sweet when using the salad dressing rather than mayonnaise. While I am not making my own mayonnaise yet, I do have to say I think this is the end of the store bought salad dressing era. I am going to buy some glass bottles to store it in and make small batches so none goes to waste. It is an exciting new area to expand into for homemade, and I am looking forward to it. Some will have to stay as store bought as we really like them a lot, but others I am ready to experiment with and learn to make. Here's to new avenues of homemade!

Jogging Again and .... Loving it?!

Last year around this time I started trying to become a runner. I loathed running in all forms, and that may come as a shock to some as I was a soccer player for 12 years. In those 12 years, though, I played goalkeeper.... little running involved there. Also, when I would go to the doctor and have my blood pressure taken, I was always asked if I ran marathons due to my low resting heart rate and blood pressure. I usually felt kind of embarrassed and joked that I only run when chased, but as the weight started to build as my life become more and more sedentary by leaving behind my careers, I realized it was time to change all that. So, last year I started trying to jog. It was a really hard thing to start, and there were several missteps along the way to actually committing last year. I kept with the couch to 5K plan for the most part. I never got to doing the full 5K, but I was up to running two miles a day for three days a week. Running was still a chore for me though.

Then I read this psychological study about people who did not like eating chocolate. I really love chocolate, so this seems like a really odd thing to me, but I guess they found a bunch of people who hated chocolate. These people were to eat the chocolate and tell themselves they loved chocolate and were a chocolate lover in fact. At the end of the study, the people responded to questionnaires that they actually loved chocolate. Some even indicated that they could not go a day with out eating chocolate. I decided to apply this to my running. I called myself a runner. When people asked if I ran, I said of course and that I really love it. Over time, I think this has worked to me as well to some extent.... I love chocolate... I mean running!

So things were going well, and then the move and the holidays hit as well as the rain coming for the winter here. This made the running stop. Oddly, during the time when I could not run, I actually missed it. I wanted to get back to running. I am not sure if it is because I was becoming successful at jogging or if the psychology of "I am a runner" worked, but something was working. Finally I went for a walk or two last week to try to find a good jogging route, but there was a problem, my old jogging shoes had worn out and were giving me huge blisters when walking. This weekend, I went out and got new jogging shoes. No excuses this morning, I got out my new shoes and headed off. I was able to complete the two miles with way less walking than I thought. I was really proud, especially when I thought back to my start last year and how hard it was for me to even complete a half mile of jogging with lots of walking, it was nice to jog a half mile no sweat even after a five month break. I am already feeling sore though, but through the soreness I am also feeling way more awake and ready to do things today. I hope the energy boosts keep up as I start back into jogging. Day one this year down, day two on Wednesday... I am ready for you!

English Muffin Experiments

The quest to find an English muffin recipe that I like as well as the store bought variety continues. I have tried several recipes, and this one ended up with the same results: not enough nooks and crannies for my liking. Through these experiments, I have come to find that there seem to be two schools of English muffins. The first is the Thomas' or Bay's school of thought, more like a crumpet and less like a roll. The dough on the outside is definitely all roll with some good chew and a little crust; the inside reveals a velvety softness that is held aloft by huge air pockets. Fork split is the only option as knife cutting mars the pockets left by the leavening. The other type is decidedly more bread like and no where near a crumpet. This has its merits too, but it is not what I am look to replicate. I would love to replace the expensive store bought ones for a cheaper but just as tasty and craggy delicate product.

This time I tried the recipe from Reinheart's The Bread Baker's Apprentice. This recipe was one that is completed in one day, but it made a bread style dough. From the outset I was afraid that this one would end up like the old Fleshman's recipe I had tried. These muffins that are more dough based are more like a lightened up dinner roll style dough. There is kneading and shaping involved. I kept thinking that perhaps somehow these could end up with the airy middles, but that was not to be. They cooked up really tall and the browning I achieved on this set is probably the best I have ever reached. These also take some time in the oven after the initial skillet cooking. They had great flavor and were very soft and pleasant, but not what I was looking for in terms of school one of English muffins. I did make sure to fork split them just in case I was wrong, but alas, no really big nooks or crannies to be found. The crumb was nice and the muffin was rather light, but it was not the recipe I was looking to keep.

If you do fall into the more substantial English muffin school of thought, these were very easy to make with little hands on time. Their flavor was good, and we enjoyed using them with eggs Benedict as well as with some homemade jam and marmalade. I am looking at a new recipe that I think may finally be the winner. This one is more of a batter like dough that needs to be spooned into crumpet rings on the griddle and the muffins do not go into the oven at all. The pictures look promising, and other home bakers who have blogged about their use of the recipe have pictures that look exactly like what I am questing to achieve. As soon as we get more bread flour and finish off the last of these muffins, I will dive in and let you know my results.

Is There Anybody Out There?

So I am sure a few of you have been wondering where I went, and I am sure for many of you, since I fell off your blog roll, have forgotten about things here entirely. It has been a very busy and tumultuous four months. I know that I usually disappear for the month of December and return in January with my holiday in review postings of the gifts I had made that year. I had hoped to do that again this year, but well life kind of got in the way. It has a way of doing that as we all know too well. However, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel, and end to the rush, a pot of gold under the rainbow? Nah, but it was a beautiful one out of the window of our apartment.

I am pretty sure I mentioned somewhere in the blog that we had to move. Our apartment in Oakland that we rented was bought by a new owner, and they wanted to live there. Sine we had no long term lease with the builder, we had to move. It was hectic trying to find a new apartment during the fall holidays. I was spending all my time working on gifts and apartment hunting. I am not sure if any of you have had to find a new place around the holidays, but if you have you know that it is not a pleasant experience. Most people move in the spring, so there were minimal places available to view. The ones that were available were not ones that would fit us very well. Then, a seemingly good thing happened. One building across the street from ours had an opening for February 1st. It was a great loft space, and we jumped at the chance to stay in our neighborhood. We contacted the new landowners and they graciously offered us an extension on our 60 terminate notice. All seemed to be heading in the right direction.

Then things got substantially more interesting. The TSA changed their security procedures, and Dan and I began to feel uncomfortable about flying. We decided to opt out of our plane tickets back to the Midwest and drive home instead of flying. It was an interesting time as the storms along I 80 were rather bad and very snowy. A three day drive turned quickly into a long four day trek. We had fun along the way and listened to a lot of holiday music as the blue Subaru and the two of us glided along the two lane interstates that had become one slow line of trucks and cars driving down the middle of the roadway. I had grand plans of getting the sewing done on my projects in the car as well as filling out our holiday cards. All lofty goals, none of which were completed. Some people had to receive store gifts this year and no cards were sent. It was a bit too nerve racking to sew when the roads were so slick.

The holidays went by quickly, and it was so great to see all my family all together in one place. It was especially nice to see the kids open their handmade gifts. They are finally at a fun age where presents are extremely exciting. After an all too short time at home, we packed up and headed out for the trek home, this time through the southern I 40 route in an attempt to avoid the snow. This winter it seemed impossible to beat it as we were held up for a four day drive again when the snow closed the roads through New Mexico and Arizona. We were never unlucky enough to have to sleep in the car, managing to literally wish on a falling star and get a hotel room late one night when the roads were closed. We wanted to spend some time in Las Vegas, and we did.... Las Vegas New Mexico. No casinos or floor shows, but a pretty nice hotel with a great staff that cut us a deal on the room due to the snow storm stranding us.

Overall, the road trip and holiday was a true Dan and Amy style adventure. The only setback, we had lost our apartment that we were going to rent. The person we were renting from was going to be transferred to work in Australia, but that fell through, and so did our apartment for the next year. We scrambled quickly to get our second choice place, and boy am I glad it worked out this way. We had to move from the old neighborhood, but the new one is much better for us in a lot of ways. There are grocery stores and fabric stores in walking distance from the house. There is a shuttle system to take us from our door to the BART, so I can do things on my own later into the evening without needing a ride from the station to our house anymore. There are lots of restaurants also with in walking distance and several community gardens that I am now on a waiting list for entry.

From there it has been the usual packing and moving... oh and unpacking that is still going on, yes since February. Having a completely different style of place from the last two has made this move more trying in the packing and unpacking department. We are now in a tri-level condo instead of a single floor and mostly open floor plan. This means lots of going up and down stairs, and unpacking is rather tiring. There were also setbacks with the movers being unable to bring our bed upstairs and some other minor issues with the washer and tub that our simply wonderful landlord worked out immediately. I have to say I really like him! Some of the hardest things of moving were leaving behind old routines to make new ones, downsizing my sewing space into a more cozy one, and losing the balcony for gardening. We kept the Meyer lemon tree, and I am working on killing the scale it has gotten infected with now that I am indoors with it all day. I did not give up gardening entirely. I have the Aerogarden started again, this time giving the thyme a month or now almost two head start before I plant anything else. The African violet seems happy enough since it is blooming again, and the chives are as nuts as usual. The rosemary is a bit harder to win over. I fed it today in the hopes of winning it over to the new place.

I have also planted some new containers indoors. Peas will now be on the old trellis system that held the jasmine. I have a special set of container cucumbers that I am trying out as well as some container strawberries that I am trying to grow from seed. Crazy? You bet! I also threw out the herbs I have had since we got here and am starting that all new as well. I added borage and tarragon to my usual sage, oregano, and marjoram. As soon as I get some more dirt and catch pans, I will also plant the parsley and cilantro pots. I am trying to grow some new container hybrids of bibb lettuce as well. We will see how that goes partnered with a container of spinach. I am not expecting much as the lighting conditions are not the best, but hey it is about the fun on experimentation right now. Figuring out how far I can push things so that when I have perfect conditions I feel extremely accomplished.

Bread baking experiments are still going on as well as several other cooking obsessions. I will share more on those items soon. For now there is a very late birthday present that needs to be made. Prepping for a dance show made that happen again, and I am sure there is a little girl that would really like her gift. More on that soon as well. It feels good to get back to writing, and I hope it feels just as good for you to catch up with me through your reading. Thanks for coming back, and I am glad to have you as readers. More homemaking hi-jinks and more frequent writing for consistent editions of the blog. I promise...