Busy, Busy Bee!

Oh, have I been productive. Hold onto your hats - this one's a long one.

The day started early. After a lovely wedding yesterday (which *B* performed!), I was SO tired. I woke up fairly early considering. In some freak burst of energy, I decided to shovel our deck. *B* came out and decided to help me. We got the entire deck done and rearranged! We ran errands all over town. When we came home later in the day, everything was dried off from the little bits of snow we had left.

During the course of our errands, *B* picked me up flour, sugar, and rice for our brand new gamma buckets. I, of course, had already washed and dried them out, so they were ready to go. We even picked up some brown sugar, powdered sugar, and a rotisserie chicken at a good price.

Once we came home, we set about cleaning out the bedroom - closet and all. I'm so proud! It took us the entire movie Hot Fuzz, but we got our laundry put away and the room cleaned. At this point, we were super hungry. So we had a lovely dinner of rotisserie chicken, yams, and spinach (yum!).

This is when things got good.

I was all excited to pick the chicken carcass and try my hand at making stock. This is my first ever attempt, and I think it turned out well.

I covered the carcass and remaining skin in cold water.

To that, I added a handful of parsley (we only had dried) and celery seed because we had no actual celery.

I then rough cut three carrots and threw them in.

I added some bay leaves.

And I added a few sprigs of time.

I let it boil, then dropped it down to a simmer.

After two hours (10 pm), it looked like this.


After hour hours (12 am), it reduced down to this.

I strained everything out and put the stock in the fridge. By tomorrow, the fat should have solidified on top, so I can just skim it out and freeze the rest. It smells so good!

While I was letting the stock simmer, I tried my hand at Italian bread. Never before in my life have I made non-sweet bread so tasty! This recipe from AllRecipes.com is just perfect:

Ingredients

• 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/8 cups warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds
• 1 tablespoon cornmeal

Directions

1. Add all ingredients except egg, 1 tablespoon water, sesame seeds, and cornmeal into your bread machine in the order suggested by the manufacturer. Select the dough cycle.
2. Divide dough into 2 parts and form into loaves. Sprinkle cornmeal on greased baking sheet. Place loaves on pan seam side down. Brush top of loaves with water. Let rise til double, about 50 minutes.
3. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
4. Brush loaves with egg wash. Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Make 4 cuts about 1/4 inch deep across top of log. Place a pan of hot water in bottom of oven. Bake bread for 25 to 30 minutes or until golden. To make a nice crusty bread, bake bread in the afternoon and pop into oven again for 5 minutes before meal. Makes a very crusty bread! You would be surprised how much better it is if you heat it that last 5 minutes.
   

This is what you get when you finish. Isn't it yummy looking??



The only two "adjustments" that I made were omitting the sesame seeds and forgetting the pan of water.

I got kind of antsy while the bread was rising and the stock was simmering, so I made a chocolate pie. Mind you, this was at about 11:30 pm. But oh was it good! Who knew that chocolate pudding on graham cracker crust was the recipe for heaven?

While I was cooking the pudding in the microwave, *B* and I put together a shelf that we got from Ikea a few weeks back. It was originally supposed to go in the front entryway, but it turns out it was too big and we lost the receipt. So we repurposed it and decided we could use it in the laundry room.

As the stock was finishing up, I updated my pantry list on Google docs. I created a spreadsheet on there with items by shelf number, items by type, and items we need to get. I'm amazed at how much my pantry has grown from the two random boxes we packed up in September to move in. While I originally made a two week menu in order to determine what we needed to store, I realize I have greatly deviated from that. I think that I will now work backward - look at what we have and come up with recipes to match.

And with that, it's 1 am, and I'm beat.

Night y'all.

Hello, Gorgeous

Hello, gorgeous.

I've been waiting so long for someone like you.

Wanna come home with me?

Oh, you do? Well, come on in.

You can live in my pantry and keep my long-term storage safe and dry.

I love you, gamma buckets!

Oh Me, Oh My

Thanks to my wonderful *B*, I got some help tackling my list. Tonight, we had my taxes done. Because of our new house, we get $9000 back. It is SO helpful to have this money. Almost all of it goes back to our parents, who funded our closing costs. Unfortunately, I was not aware of how much it costs to have taxes done professionally. We will be VERY limited in our spending until next pay check.

While I should feel great about crossing four things off my list (including the one whopper), I can't help but worry. Apparently, I missed a meeting at work. I did not read the weekly schedule. I also missed a prayer service for the first time in my two years. I had a student come in at 8 am to take a test, and I had forgotten to change the numbers on her test. While I frantically changed numbers, I missed the 7:45 start of the service. The meeting was apparently announced there, too. So today, fourth period, I checked my email just before the start of class. An email from the principal read, "I missed you at our meeting yesterday. What is the story?" When I responded that I didn't know about it, I got this: "It was on the weekly calendar and I announced it at the Prayer Service. Please see me."

This principal is really scary to me. I have been freaking out ever since I got the emails. I tried to see him this afternoon, but he was with a student. I'm so afraid of getting fired. I'm not a very good club moderator (which this meeting was about). I'd be fine forfeiting the club. But I finally feel like I belong in my job. Beyond that, *B* applied for a job there this afternoon. I don't want my failings to affect his employment chances. While he didn't mention that he is my fiance in the application, I know it would be found out quickly.

On to more happy thoughts:
My lavender has started to grow!

I'm hoping my parsley and cilantro won't be far behind. Considering we're having mid-40s to mid-50s in the forecast this week, I might actually be able to see grass in my back yard soon!

Simple Pleasure Thursday

My simple pleasure for the day is enjoying a slow, mindful morning. This was the view from across the breakfast table this morning:


If only my pictures could capture what I see. The flash just kills it, but the light is too faint without it.

I ate my oatmeal and drank my orange juice purposefully and enjoyed the view of my backyard. The birds are chirping at their best today. It's going to be a good day.

The Can't Sleep Blues

I have been jittery all night and I don't quite know why. Could it be because I ate an inordinate amount of cinnamon rolls tonight? Possibly. All the things I haven't done yet though I have to? Quite probably. A list of my things to be done:

1. Do taxes (in my control and very important)
2. Call bridal shop (in my control)
3. Finish grading student work (in my control)
4. Plan next lesson for all my classes (in my control)
5. Clean the kitchen/dining room (in my control)
6. Make some new clothes (sort of in my control)
7. Reorganize calendar (in my control)
8. Shovel the deck (sort of in my control)
9. Till the garden (not in my control)
10. Plant seeds/plants (not in my control)

But let us not blame the delicious cinnamon rolls and the to-do lists for the moment and focus on something...blissful. As you all are well aware, the snow around here has been ridiculous. While areas where I work are starting to green up again, I live in a valley. The snow isn't going anywhere. I can't really get out into my garden (or even dream of seeing my spring flowers) until that snow melts. Until then, my wishful thinking for the night:

I'm wishing for a mid-spring evening when we can eat outside at our iron table. The sky is blue with a dusting of pink. My daffodils have sprouted out of control and punctuate the beds in the yard. We're having grilled chicken with squished squash and grilled asparagus with a tall glass of iced tea. For dessert, a mixed berry cobbler - homemade of course. I'm wearing my homemade lime green spring dress with a white sweater and (for the first time!) flip-flops. The train whistles low and long in the distance. We turn the radio on quietly as the sky edges into darker and darker shades of pink. As the sun sets for the night, we, too, prepare for sleep.

The Game Game

I have a hard time eating "unconventional" meats. My soon-to-be father-in-law is an avid hunter and often snags a few deer a year. *B*, being raised with this kind of food, has no problem eating deer meat. I, however, just can't do it. I was relatively okay with it the first few times I had it. One time, *B*'s mom made deer shoulder in the crock pot. You could see the joint and figure out how it originally fit into the animal. I lost it. *B* has tried to make deerburger helper (which I figured out and picked out the meat) to help me ease into it. Another time, he made deer just for him, but the smell of it made me sick when I got home later that night. Does anyone have any ideas or tips on how to get over the cultural/irrational fear of non-traditional meats? I'd love to be able to eat deer, rabbit, goat, or even just lamb (I'll eat it, but it's hard to stomach unless in Indian food).

A Forgotten Recipe and A Random Tip

Last night, I decided to use up some cake mix that was 3 months off of expiring, so I made two types of cupcakes: Diet Coke Cakes for me (and *B* if he wanted some) and regular cupcakes (for *B* and work). I present a study in cakes:

Standard cake making supplies when using a box mix

Smooth batter with few lumps

Evenly filled cups

Beautifully baked cupcakes!

The only ingredients you need for diet coke (pepsi) cake

Lumpy batter comes from not overbeating the mix. If you overbeat, they will not rise.

Again, lumpy batter. A normal cake mix makes 24 cupcakes. This makes 18.

A little lumpy, but definitely cupcake-like.

When iced, no one can see the difference!

When you eat the diet coke cake though, it is not quite as moist and it has much bigger air bubbles. While these are iced with homemade butter cream icing (yum!), you can ice the cakes with cool whip to make it even lighter. Believe it or not, I took both types to work, and the diet coke cupcakes disappeared while the regular cupcakes were still there when I left. Everyone was raving about them! It is more than a happy substitute for those like me who are watching their waistline.

Speaking of watching waistlines, I decided to start over today. Given that it's a) a Monday and b) March 1st, I knew I had to get serious. I went to the gym first thing this morning. I am feeling good!

And as promised, a random tip that I keep forgetting to post. Every now and then, I buy a different kind of shampoo. Either I want to try something new, or it was on sale, but I usually end up not loving it. What I've learned to do is either reuse old bottles or pick up empty travel size shampoo bottles and fill them with this still-good but less-than-amazing shampoo. I either use them as guest shampoos, gym shampoos, or 72-hour-kit supplies. As they say, waste not, want not.