Miscellany of a Cheshire Cat

I’m making a feeble attempt to post more than just Monster Cat. Which means you get pictures of light up flamingos and ramblings about silliness.

Friday I visited the chiropractor. After some serious adjustment to my neck, I think we’ve resolved my headache problems. My hip problems have at least another 6 weeks to wait, but he did do some manipulation that appears to have helped a lot. I also got a home blood pressure cuff. My blood pressure is pleasantly low at home (like 100/70) so it really is the traffic and the parking garage at the hospital that are driving up my pressure before I see my doctor. I’ll take my little machine tomorrow to compare it to the in-office reading. Should be entertaining. And reassuring. Low blood pressure means fewer tests… or at least a lower risk of various interventions. So hurray for 2 major annoyances being mitigated!

Why, yes, I do feel taller now that my neck isn’t so jammed that it took 2 really good cracks to get back into shape.

Saturday, I did NOT buy the flamingo pictured here. Note the lovely scarf! And the Halloween decor on the wall behind it. That’s right, the real horror is that xmas crap is available so early they haven’t taken down the Halloween stuff yet. Soon the seasonal backdrop for xmas crap will be stars, stripes and fireworks.

Of course, I have already “decorated” for Halloween… which is to say that my terracotta jack-o-lanterns are hanging out around the house. There are apples in the kitchen which will soon be pies and sauce. Last night, there was hot and spicy sausage pasta sauce. Tonight there will be the attempting of pre-made turkey and beef pot pies. Even though it’s 80° F (27° C) outside, I can effectively pretend that it’s Autumn.

And… I’m learning just how horrible the stink bug infestation is in the new area. I just vacuumed up a ton of them (and emptied the canister outside into a bag, sealed the bag and tossed it in the outside trash) and I already feel like my efforts are in vain.

After months of resisting every King Arthur Flour catalog and sale, I broke down and made an order recently. Free shipping is a compelling deal with King Arthur! I finally got a complete and matched set of measuring cups. While I don’t mind using the hand-me-down tupperware ones my mother gave me when I moved out, they haven’t been a complete set in ages. Misplacing the 3/4 cup measure was really the last straw. And when doing wild baking days, you need more than just 1 measuring cup of any given size. I ordered a bunch of special ingredients as well as buttermilk powder which I can’t believe no one told me about sooner. So perfect! No more putting something off because there’s no buttermilk in the house and no more wasting most of a quart of buttermilk because the recipe only took a cup. Hurray!

My sourdough starter survived the move, so I made sure I had the special ingredients for Sourdough Pretzels. They came out very tasty! They’re not the most beautiful pretzels on the planet, but I will definitely be making them again and perfecting the shape. Pretzel salt was totally worth getting for this recipe. The large grain salt was the icing on the pretzel, so to speak.

Today there were also yeast waffles, another King Arthur recipe. They came out crispier than the previous recipe I’d been using in conjunction with this waffle iron in this house. My working theory is that there’s a drastic difference in the power the waffle iron was getting in the old house versus the new house and as such the old recipe, with its higher oil content, was crisping up nicely on the lower powered outlet. The better wiring at the new house resulted in the iron being too hot to cook and crisp the waffle without burning them. The yeast in the new recipe gives the waffle a heartier flavor, which is definitely yummy but I still may look for another recipe. Oh no! Not waffle experimentation!

Yesterday, I threw together a pumpkin muffin mix from KAF. Also super-tasty but they’d benefit from toasted pecans. The good news is that I certainly have laid in enough breakfasty things for the week.

baking, cooking, king arthur flour, muffins, pretzels, sourdough, waffles

Here’s a flower from the new garden because it’s been so gray (except yesterday) and now it’s going to be gray for another interminable period. At the old garden, the roses are exploding and the irises I planted last Fall are white. (Bulbs are fun because I always forget what I planted.)

There are 2 ovens in the new kitchen and this is the most exciting thing on the planet to me.

Last weekend, on a whim, Siobhan and I made toll house cookies as well as peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. We actually couldn’t keep up with the ovens, not that we were trying all that hard, but having 2 ovens makes 2 batches of cookies a very quick project! The peanut butter cookies were a tasty hybrid of traditional peanut butter cookies and toll house cookies but definitely needed more peanut butter.

Wednesday, I had bananas so I made some banana nut muffins. Also very tasty but in need of more nuts. Next time I make them I’ll probably double the volume of nuts. Again, 2 ovens rock.

Thursday night I made apple-cheddar-chicken sausage wrapped in crescent rolls. Very yummy, especially with Bruni’s home-made mustard.

Today there’s Amish maple bacon, which is not as tasty as I’d hoped. The sourdough starter is restarting on the counter after some significant neglect – bread Tuesday is probably a good plan. In the meantime I’m considering making different bread, since the waffles were waylaid by lack of syrup and lack of recipe as my cookbooks are still mostly packed.

Of course, really, I should just unpack the cookbooks and go from there…

baking, cooking, kitchen

I had a fabulous birthday yesterday! I baked sourdough bread and brownies, bought lots of Girl Scout cookies and hosted fondue happiness for some awesome friends. On top of that, there are now so many balloons in the house that I’m rather giddy. I love balloons! The mini-cats are wary of the balloons. I think Abby is designing zeppelins while Tasha is trying to figure out how to climb them. So far, no balloon has come to a premature end at the hands… er… paws and claws of the mini-cats, but that may change soon.

This morning I had heavy cream in my coffee, a perk of hosting fondue and having leftover cream from the chocolate course. We had lots of other leftovers too but I’m getting a better eye for how much food we need the more we do this. Shucks, we’ll just have to do more so I can perfect the portion planning.

Since January was such a whirlwind, I’m starting my new year with my birthday. I have a few plans for this year, though they’re more goals than resolutions. Resolutions are so easy to fail at and have a bad reputation for being unachievable anyway. Goals are much more reasonable and you get a sense of accomplishment even if you don’t make the full goal. At least, that’s how I look at it.

• Use the 100 stamps I bought, preferably for personal correspondence.
• Cook something out of each of my cookbooks with an eye towards streamlining the collection.
• Get ComicPress up and running finally.
• Sew up some of the fabric lurking in the fabric closet.
• Write more.

By the by, if you’d like to help me with my first goal, you should make sure I have your mailing address.

baking, birthday, cats, cooking, goals

Many packages of holiday alchemy have been mailed and delivered. A few more await delivery. Goodies are packed to go to NH and Maine as well. 22+ pounds of butter gave their lives for this year’s baking. 18 batches of caramel corn came out of the kitchen. (Keeping in mind that each batch bakes for an hour, I think I’m done with caramel corn for a while.) The coffee machine, who has been dubbed Massimo, was my constant partner in baking and the Fop helped too. The cats were not so much with the helping.

The best part is that all this baking gets me out of wrapping gifts – the Fop gets to manage the paper, tape and such. This works well because I suck at wrapping and he claims to suck at baking. (Though I’ll have you all know that the Russian teacakes he scooped did NOT burst into flames or otherwise end the world.)

In tree news, I found 2 ornaments on the floor this morning. The cats showed incredible restraint for many days. I’m actually impressed. I also achieved the right magical relative height for the tree-watering thingie to work its siphoning magic. Which is great until the 2 liter soda bottle that supplies the water is about 2/3s empty and the cats knock it over. I’m pretty sure it’s one of the mini-cats knocking it over, probably Abby…

The remaining to-do list for between now and leaving for New England Thursday morning:
- Laundry (UGH!)
- Spice rub experiment
- Wrap gifts I can’t let the Fop wrap
- More laundry (double ugh!)
- Pack
- Sleeeeeeeeeeeeep
- Ponder writing holiday cards

I’m procrastinating cleaning my desk. Is anyone surprised?

baking, cats, holiday alchemy, random, to do, trees

Whee!
Butter meter: 8+ pounds used. Sugar meter: 15+ pounds used (which is a little frightening, honestly, because I might need more). Flour meter: Almost 15 pounds used.

I’ve finished making buttercrunch, teacakes, and gingersnaps. The dough for the cardamom sugar cookies is ready to be rolled out. I’m going to pick up a chocolate-melter for the peanut butter balls, it’ll make the process much easier. Or at least less prone to failure. I haven’t significantly burned myself yet… but speaking of dangerous, sugary messes…

PSA: The recipe for Never Fail Fudge on the back of Marshmallow Fluff container has CHANGED.

The horror! For some reason I find this vaguely offensive and irresponsible on the part of the Fluff-makers, if only because I made my shopping list based on the old recipe and bought the wrong size cans of milk. The new recipe uses 10 oz of evaporated milk instead of 12 oz, and uses 16 oz of Fluff (the whole container) instead of 12 oz. Everything else is the same. I made one batch with the new recipe. I used the wrong pot and sugar boiled over everywhere. (I actually had to switch pans mid-boil.) I think I’ll do a comparison experiment between the new and old recipes because… why not?

I had these semi-high hopes of getting an extra couple of hours this afternoon to get some additional baking done, but that was not to be. Work is kicking my butt. Why does this time of year always ramp up so ridiculously? It seems projects and planning always are super active in December. Ah well. Next week will be less chaotic – maybe I’ll steal a half-day off one sometime in there. Right now I have a headache from dealing with too many sales guys today. When it goes away, I’ll run a couple errands and maybe pick up some soup and salad for dinner.

Then… baking.

baking, marshmallow fluff, never fail fudge, random, work

Butter meter: 12 pounds purchased. 5 pounds used, month to date. (2 pounds or so were in the fridge already.)

Obvious Holiday Alchemy Tip of the Day: When your butter is rock hard but needs to be “softened” according to the recipe, 15-20 seconds in the microwave at 50% power (that’s the part I finally figured out, you may mock me now) will do it. And now that I’ve written it down, maybe I’ll remember.

Evidence that the Fop is very Dutch: when I put only 8 pounds of butter in the cart at BJs, he said, “Ok, that’s enough butter for my Dutch cookies.[1] What do you need?” I ended up with 20 pounds each of flour, white sugar and brown sugar, 12 pounds of confectioner’s sugar and pounds and pounds of nuts. I forgot to figure out what I need for peanut butter, but I can get that at the grocery store when I get the last few things BJs didn’t have.

I started holiday fun last night by trying a new recipe for buttercrunch – sugar, butter, vanilla and nuts, a buttery brittle. The recipe seems to rock so I made 2 more batches tonight. (6 oz butter each batch for 18 oz butter used)

I also made dough for 8 batches of Russian teacakes tonight. They are my favorite holiday cookie and I have no interest in coming up short. Last year I only made 6 batches, you see, and I felt cheated when there weren’t tons of them left for me. (8 oz butter each for 64 oz of butter used)

Also, I was clever last year and tracked how much I baked of which cookies and what the yield was. Unfortunately, I did NOT track how many batches of caramel corn I made last year.[2] It’s times like these that I really wish I had 2 ovens. I could easily do 2 batches of caramel corn at once if I had 2 ovens! Twice the ovens, twice the tastiness!

[1] It should be noted that by, “my Dutch cookies” the Fop actually means, “the Dutch cookies you will bake for me.”
[2] I don’t even remember how many days I made popcorn for… which also worries me rather significantly.

baking, cooking, holiday alchemy

A good turn-around week, to some extent.

Great meeting Monday.

Big work document got shoved out the door. Of course, I’m still behind on everything else at work.

Laundry is on-going. The cow mouse pictured here is, in fact, fresh from the dryer. My laundry sorting of “Darks, lights, whites, reds, cat toys” apparently missed this guy.

I’m almost caught up with my online writing course. I’m really enjoying it and getting more out of it than I expected. Hurray!

Chicken fajita quesadillas (with home-grown green peppers and remarkably spicy jalapenos!) for dinner. Green peppers will be on the list of plants to grow again next year.

One pie is out of the oven, another is in the oven. A pumpkin pie will help the Fop survive the weekend allllll alone.

I’m leaving for the weekend tomorrow afternoon! I haven’t packed yet. But I have pie.

I’m gearing up for Nanowrimo… next month, 50,000 words!

cooking, gardening, nanowrimo, random, writing

The seedlings and some bean seeds are in the raised beds in the 90 degree heat. Once again, I think the plants are too crowded, but every other time I’ve thought that they’ve been fine. New this year: sweet peppers, beans and jalapenos. Basil and 2 types of cayenne are back again this year.

To get enough space I had to pull some of the mint that had taken over one of the beds. Despite the heat, my brain said, “Hey, there must be something I can do with a knee-high pile of mint.” Since I was already Too Hot, I decided to make some mint sugar syrups on the stove. One experimental mint syrup and one experimental ginger-mint syrup are cooling on the counter right now. I hope they’re relatively tasty. And while my brain was on sugar syrup, I started browsing my liquors book and notes. I might have to do some spiced liquor experiments soon too.

I need to do something about the other bits of garden around the yard… I broke a trowel trying to dig a spot to transplant some of the mint. More topsoil. More hot, dirty work. Maybe it’ll cool off… but I’m not holding my breath because this is already the second month with multiple 90+ degree days this year.

Still on the list today: 1) Go through the fabric closet. 2) Grocery shopping.
Given it’s a holiday, I think the latter won’t be happening until tomorrow.

gardening, heat, mint, random, syrups, weather

“We should go back to sleep, Tasha, nothing’s really happening.”
“True, but somewhere someone needs our adorableness, Abby!”

I’m having one of those days when Incompetence lurks around every corner waiting for an opportunity to pounce on me. Little things and big things… small and large frustrations all snowballing into me being rather angry and frustrated with the world. Things that shouldn’t be a problem, things that aren’t rocket science, things that are really just simple as pie or simpler: Incompetence says “FU!”

Little things… Such as buying bananas. I put them in the cart. I put them on the belt at the register. I got home and couldn’t find them. I looked all through my car. I checked the receipt. Apparently the Produce Gnomes stole them before they could be rung up. So at least I didn’t buy the bananas I failed to bring home. Of course, I really want a banana now. Merf.

Luckily, there’s a Monster Cat and there are kittens. Currently all three are mostly asleep in my office. Oops, Tasha woke up and is wandering over. She must know I’m writing about her. Abby is, however, blissfully unconscious. She’s the heavier sleeper. They are getting bigger – probably 6-7 pounds each at this point – but they’re still not as big as Mr. Paw. Mr. Paw is probably weighing in at about 18 pounds these days.

(Taking a moment to save this draft before Incompetence decides to visit me here. Ah, there. Better.)

How were your holidays? I had snow for Yule and Christmas, which made me happy. I was in Maine with family and saw friends too! Not my usual road trip about the countryside but still a fun trip. Santa loves me and so does my family and I love them all back. I got some lovely, thoughtful, fun and useful gifts. I had a lot of fun baking this year too. I took better notes so I can be better organized next year.

So it’s the day before the last day of 2009. I don’t usually care much about the changing of the year… after all calendars are just an arbitrary system imposed on the universe by us humans and really represent nothing more than a way to count things and the New Year is just a psych-out trying to trick you into thinking that you can start again. But this year? Yeah, 2009, I’m pretty much done with you. I’ve learned a lot and won’t make some of the same mistakes again. I had some fun and some not-so-fun. There are accomplishments I can add to the Big List and there are some failures as well that I won’t soon forget. (I will listen to my friends’ advice… especially when they independently agree with each other.)

But again, luckily, there are cats. New kitten pictures start here on Flickr. Tasha snores so cutely. And then farts. Thanks, Tash.

2009, bengals, cats, holidays, incompetence, kittens, tennyson