Baking

Lots of people bake well. I have been told I also bake well. In fact, many people ask for my "secrets". They want a recipe or something. But I've found that my "secret" isn't an ingredient so much as a technique. Knowing how much to stir at what point; knowing when to take things out of the oven. I learned that stuff mostly from watching my mom and partly from practice. Most people nowadays didn't get that baking time with their mom or whoever cooked in the family. In some cases, the youngest relative that actually knows all that stuff is the grandparent and they may not still be around. This saddens me. I get so much joy from baking and sharing my baked goods with others. I want others to have the opportunity to get joy from baking. So, I think I'm going to blog about baking occasionally. I'll try to get pictures of how things are supposed to look and I'll be very detailed about techniques.

First, there are some resources I have found very helpful. I'll be referencing these so if you want to follow closely with the intent of replicating my baking, you might want to pay attention.

The Better Homes and Gardens Heritage Cookbook, (c)1975

If you only have one cookbook, it should be this one. Everything I have tried or that Mom has tried from this book has been good. Also, it gives a very interesting history of food and cooking in American life. You may find yourself reading this like a regular book.



Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook 12th Edition (c) 2002

I got this one for a wedding present. It has been just about as awesome as the Heritage Cookbook. It is chock full of handy charts and tables and the recipes are pretty good too. Some are even copied from the Heritage Cookbook.



If you want to know about the science behind food and cooking, watch Good Eats on the Food Network. Alton Brown is really entertaining and brilliant. He makes the dullest subjects fun and memorable. He's made (at least) 3 books. They are really interesting and helpful. They aren't recipe books, although they do contain some recipes. These are books you should read through and then reference back when you need a reminder on something.

I don't agree with everything he says but I also acknowledge that there's more than one way to make a good cookie. His method appeals to mass audiences. He uses food processors and stuff like that. I don't. I'm a purist. A bowl and wooden spoon are my tools. But, I have learned a lot from him and I have adopted many of his suggestions and practices and I know they have improved my cooking. I went from "these are good cookies" to "this is the best cookie I have ever eaten!". That's from watching Good Eats and reading these books.







The next time I blog about baking I'll make a list of the tools I use for baking most often. I may list my most frequently used ingredients. We'll see how long it takes to do the tools list. :-)

Stream of Consiousness

Howdy.

This has been a pretty lazy week at home. Mostly because work picked up after Tuesday and my back has been killing me. But this evening DH popped my back and I feel much better. It went "cracklkealkalkap!" and now I can lean backwards again! I literally was unable to bend back past straight before. I'm not even sure why it happened. I don't remember doing anything to cause my back to be "out". Perhaps I should research what actually happens to cause a back to be "out" and then maybe I can prevent it in the future. Like I need more things to do.


I need to organize my thoughts. This is probably going to be boring. Tonight I need to put the socks away and that's all. Tomorrow is Friday. Keith and Shawn are both off. Friday night is free. Between now and Monday I need to weed eat, plant the mums, call/email Tillanie, call Sprite, get whatever I decide to bring for the Sunday School Party, go to the party, make banana and pumpkin muffins for Sunday School, go to church, water the plants as needed, move the big Amaryllis to the garage, make notepads for Tonya, print the pictures for Wayne, see about planting some lettuce and peas, make the flyer for selling my baked goods, get food for lunches, make cookies for Keith's birthday, get further on the 2010 calender projects, work on the afghan, and I don't think this is all going to get done. Hmm.

Ummm... I can do the computer things tonight. But do I want to or do I want to watch TV? Maybe I can split the difference. Computer things include the picture, the notepads, the flyer, and the calenders.

Here's a random picture of some hailstones we got last summer.

Yesterday after work I pretty much planted my butt in front of the TV and didn't move until I went to bed. It rocked. I felt much better today.

Today at work we were really slow so the bindery department (all 4 of us) went to see how the new building is coming along. Work just bought this gigantic building a couple of blocks away. Somehow they managed to make it seem smaller... But it's still huge and it'll be a great improvement on our current situation. Right now when we're busy we'd like to bring in some help but we can't because we don't have a place to put them. There's just not enough space. Machines have to be rolled out of the way to use other machines and stuff like that. The only real thing I don't like is that there are no windows. AT ALL. It's like it was built by Jehovah's Witnesses or something. (you know, cause their churches don't have windows...) I would love some natural light but it isn't to be. I thought a could convince them to make a window, especially because thete isn't a door big enough to get our big paper cutter inside. I said they could knock a hole in the back wall for the cutter and then just have a 9 foot picture window there. They weren't quite as enthused about my idea as I was. They told me I could hang pictures of the outside on the walls. I can't make a plant grow with a picture of the sun. >:-(

Fall made it. It was late but it's here now. It's chicken & dumplings weather. Makes me want to hibernate. Makes me wish we had a fireplace or a wood stove. I'll settle for a giant warm cuddly puppy dog. :-)

It's 9:00 and I'm tired. I wish I could say that was abnormal but I'm an "early to bed, late to rise" kind of person.

Ok, so I've gotten the following things done:

Mow
Greenhouse door finished
Greenhouse set up and running
Plants spent the weekend outside and are back in
Tuvok taken to PetsMart and Dog Park
Plant temp preferences researched
Clean back porch
Make rolling plant carts

Things I didn't get to:

Weed Eat
Plant mums
Calculate cookie prices


All in all, I'd say I did pretty well. I even managed to watch some TV. Tonight D&H (best friends) are coming over for beans and cornbread with pumpkin chocolate chip muffins for dessert. I miss them being down the street but their new house is really nice.

Anyway, I'm tired! Here are some pictures.

These are the plant carts I made.


Here's Lillibut relaxing in her heated kitty bed with her fuzzy kitty blanket. Not spoiled AT ALL. Nope.


Here's Tuvok after the dog park.


I think the only stuff next week is at the end of it so I'm not even going to worry about it yet. I really wish weekends were three days long. I need two days to work on the house and one day to rest. Oh well.

This week has been crazy! But it's over now. Today I just need to weed eat, mow, plant some mums, take the dog to PetsMart and the dog park, put the metal protector on the greenhouse door, water the plants, and get DH to and from John School. He's teaching the legal ramifications of engaging prostitutes.


...Maybe I can do some of that stuff tomorrow.

Cinnamon was being cute this morning. I gave him a box with paper and hay and dried fruit in it. He is having a blast!





Come to think of it, I don't know if there's ever been a time that Cinnamon wasn't cute. Hmmm... Nope.

Oh, and since it's such a gorgeous day I need to put a bunch of my houseplants outside. But right now I'm drinking my tea and blogging. So there.


Other minor things for the weekend: finish researching acceptable plant temps for my collection and figure out how much it costs to make different kinds of cookies. I'm looking into selling baked goods this holiday season to make some extra money. I want a sentsy candle and I want to buy Christmas presents.

Cinnamon has worn himself out. Still cute!


Other things on my mind... *cue tumbleweed* well, I guess it's time to move some plants outside then!

There's something wrong when you have to take a pill to make it through your evening. That sounds worse than it really is. The pill in question is a B vitamin complex. It gives me a boost of energy to make it through all the stuff that I do in the evenings. Last night it was making peanut butter cookies and cleaning the kitchen and installing weatherstrip stuff on my greenhouse. Tonight it is the cleaners, Sam's, Home Depot, WalMart and washing the dog. Even though I'm healthy my job still wears me out. I stand all day and move heavy boxes and big handfulls of paper. I really like my job but when I'm done I'm plumb wore out! But then there's the house and the husband and the animals and the plants to take care of.

Tomorrow evening I'm making a chocolate chip cookie cake for a coworker who's getting married and Lawn Mower Cleaners for a party on Thursday night. Lawn Mower Cleaners are just tortillas rolled up with a cream cheese concoction inside. I wrote down the recipe of the unnamed tortilla rollup things underneath my list of things to do that day. I had to pick up the lawn mower from the shop and go to the cleaners. When I showed the recipe to my aunt she thought that was the name. So it became the name.

Ugh. I need to wash the dog before I run out of energy.

Plants

I've just finished watering my houseplants. That's recently become quite the ordeal. First, I started collecting Hoyas in earnest. I had been a casual collector until recently. I inherited a bunch of plants from a friend of mine a few weeks ago and then I got my grandmother's Hoya and her Sansevieria (Snake Plant). This has sparked a renewed interest in horticulture and all that. I've been on GardenWeb.com and have learned a TON and I discovered a really neat blog: Plants Are The Strangest People. He's got a list of other fun plant related blogs that I haven't checked out yet but I'm sure they're cool too. My lesson for this week was, "Soil matters". Lots of plants are particular about the kind of soil they like to live in and more often than not, it isn't sold in a bag. You have to mix it yourself. I used to think people who did this were crazy but now I'm not sure. Are they not actually crazy or have I become one of the crazies? Hmmm...