I decided my sister needed an apartment-warming gift since she is moving into her first apartment this fall. Obviously, I wanted it to be something small since she will most likely be moving after the fall semester is over and is taking as little as possible with her. I decided to get her my most favoritest kitchenest tool ever..est. I am not going to mention what it is since it's a secret, but those who know me may be able to guess. Anyway, while I was at the site I buy these things from I noticed they were having a sale. I couldn't resist checking it out. I know I don't have a job (yet, I hope that will change soon) after this Friday, but I saw the thing I have been in search of for months, a kitchen scale (ok, just to be pedantic it says "baker's scale").

I bought it, and I am ok with that. There have been so many times I skip over a recipe because the ingredients are listed by weight rather than volume. No more! I also want to be able to divide my sock yarn skeins so I can knit them two at a time because I feel so much more productive when I do it that way. It's a multi-tasker! It may become my new favoritest kitchenest tool ever.

I am a bit excited.

I wish I could blame the storm early this morning for my alarm not going off, but it wasn't to blame since my power didn't go out, as per usual. I swear I set the thing, but it didn't go off. I did wake up and listen to the crazy thunder, lightning, rain and wind. It was a nasty storm, which I of course enjoyed thoroughly while I was awake.

I moved up some more stuff this weekend. I hope we will be able to get the rest of our stuff in one trip, with a few exceptions. The issues with the trucks kind of threw off our plans for this move. I guess that's how it works.

My plan for dinner includes these little guys in a salad and strawberry cobbler/crisp/crumble depending on what I can scrounge up from the items I have left. I think I will have to make bread crumbs in my coffee grinder (after cleaning it, of course). I unthinkingly bought a large volume of strawberries because they were incredibly cheap and in good shape not thinking about how I alone could consume that many in a reasonable amount of time, hence the cobbler/crumble/crisp I will be making.

Well, it's the beginning of my last week of work. I am not quite sure what I think about that yet.

This moving to a different state has been a bit expensive. Luckily we have not had to add any hotel expenses (though, that would have been cheaper than paying two rents this month) since the gas for our trips north increased our credit card bill by almost $300 more than we usually spend. We also ate out more because we were out of town or just too busy/tired to grocery shop or cook. We put all our bills and other expenses on this card because we get a percentage back on whatever we spend. Everything is getting more expensive, and we are starting to feel it. I guess its good that only one of us will be coming back this weekend. Of course, I will be driving the vehicle that has a gas tank which holds about 8 more gallons and gets 50 miles less out of each tank of gas.

Groceries are more expensive, so I have tried to cut down on our expenses there as well. I started making granola for Josh because he eats so much of it. I should start making yogurt too since that is what he usually eats with his granola. I have also been purchasing more bone-in chicken because it is significantly cheaper and doesn't require much work if I want to remove the bone myself. I have made pizza instead of ordering it, but I am not so sure it is much cheaper than getting one from Papa Murphy's especially if you have a coupon. I plan to at least make some of our bread because I love baking bread, and I keep making cookie dough but not cookies. I figure I am saving on energy costs that way.

I also knit my own socks. Wait, I don't think that is saving me much money, but at least I am entertaining myself. Does saving $10 on two skeins of yarn for a sweater count? I decided I wanted to use nicer yarn for this sweater so I am slowly accumulating the yarn for it and hoping the dye lots are close enough that I can just alternate skeins. The yarn is the aran weight version of the yarn I used for the Poms. It's even the same color so I could have a matching sweater and sock set. Actually the socks may be going to my mom if she likes them and they fit her which means I would need to make another pair for myself. The sacrifices I make for my family...

My sister is in China for the next three weeks, and so far, it doesn't sound like she has lost any luggage or missed a connecting flight which is usually what happens to her when she travels. Let's hope this trend continues.

I was smarter today and wore socks with my shoes and brought a sweatshirt, but my hands and nose are still cold. I usually use Josh's shoulder as a nose warmer, but he wasn't willing to come to work with me today. Apparently he has to go to work, too. I could really use one of these in this place right now. Actually, I think it could be pretty useful in most places during the colder months. June in Iowa isn't supposed to be a cold month. I found an electric company in MN that lets you purchase blocks of wind generated energy each month for about 50 cents per 100kwh. I think it's totally worth it.

My good internet friend Melanie posted a link to Musicovery, which I am quite enjoying. At the rather chilly lab, I usually listen to Pandora, but this is a nice change and a different way to approach listening to music based on mood rather than it's musical qualities.

I have been knitting on the Poms and on my traveling socks (so far the heel flap of the 2nd is on it's third iteration), but nothing yet for Summer of Socks. I think I will need to bust out the baby sock patterns for this one.

I need some pizza ideas. I have another ball of this dough in the freezer (leave it in the freezer for a week, trust me, you won't be disappointed) and so far I have made taco pizza, white sauce with chicken, peppers and red onion, and something else, but I can't remember right now. Josh has been adamant about no red sauce, so I better steer clear of that no matter how much I want a cheese pizza right now.

Josh and I are going to start moving stuff this Saturday, which makes me kind of excited. We started packing up the kitchen and my bookshelf as well as two of our three computers, so a truckload is heading north with us. It will be nice to get the boxes out of our current place. While in the throes of packing I noticed some sticky brown syrup dripping down our plastic shelves in our storage room. This is the shelf that Josh stores all his beer making ingredients on. Somehow, a bottle of malt extract broke and slowly leaked all over the floor. Luckly, since it is mostly sugar, it was fairly easy to wash away, but I had to use my bench scraper to get the stuff off the floor. Why was I cleaning it up an not Josh?

I have really enjoyed our weather so far this spring and what has now turned into summer (June always seems like the start of summer no matter what the calendar says) other than the crazy amount of rain of course. We have barely had to turn the A/C on other than the random humid day. We did have to turn it one yesterday due to some humidity and a cake I made for a wedding for some of Josh's parent's friends.

The fondant is not as smooth as I would like, but I think I am learning. I had to turn the air on so the frosting holding the raspberries in place wouldn't slide all over the place. The couple's wedding reception was supposed to be at a restaurant that was damaged by the floods, so they are postponing it. I was supposed to make a 9x13 cake for that, but Josh's mom decided her friends needed a cake anyway since they had the wedding despite the reception issues.

Yesterday while his parents were at the wedding, Josh and I took care of Scooter.

He is a great little dog. He listens well, is not very good at playing fetch, doesn't bark at other dogs, and only shed a bit.

At Hy-Vee the other day they were giving out fabric bags for free, which I thought was quite nice. I think the bag is still working on it's colors, though.

I finally finished a sock! Initially, I stopped working on it because I wasn't sure I liked the fit, but I needed a sock to knit yesterday, on dpns for some reason, and I decided I did like it.



This the first of a pair of Pomatomous in Dream in Color Smooshy in Gothic Rose. Despite my previous doubts, I love this sock and must start on the second one after I finish this post.

I decided Josh and I needed some more fruit in our diet so I made a blueberry crisp.



I combined a couple recipes which worked pretty well.

For the fruit:

2 lbs frozen blueberries,feel free to use fresh but halve the amt of cornstarch)
2 tbl corn starch
1/2c sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Bake at 375F for 30 minutes or until the fruit gives off some juice.

For the topping:

1c old fashioned oats (I like them better than quick oats)
1/3c flour
2/3c brown sugar
pinch of salt
cinnamon, cloves, ginger or whatever you want
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 c) unsalted butter cut into small cubes
I also added some pecans

combine all ingredients and use your fingers to mush it all together until you get course crumbs.

When fruit has baked for at least 30 minutes, add topping and bake for another 40-50 minutes until top is golden and crispy unless you like it softer than bake it until then.

I also made this and put it into the refrigerator to grow overnight.

Any guesses what it is going to become for dinner tonight?

It was a really nice weekend. I experimented a bit on my oatmeal bar recipe with good results and made two fabulous appetizers which are new to my repertoire. I got to play with a yeast dough (always fun) then turned it into a tasty pizza with extra dough stashed in the freezer. Josh and I saw Kung Fu Panda, which was excellent. I bought an iPod Shuffle (because the price of an armband for my iPod Nano is almost as much), went on a run, and got some knitting and crocheting done.

I also stepped on a weird piece of plastic which ended up embedded in the ball of my left foot near my big toe about half an inch while I was trying to go out onto my balcony to take a picture of the nasty looking wall cloud. I then made a bloody mess on my kitchen floor while I yelled for Josh that I was getting blood all over the floor. At least I think it was plastic because Josh broke it and threw it away before I could examine it more closely. My foot feels bruised and tender and still oozes a bit. Lovely, I know. I am a bit worried about it getting infected since the piece of mystery plastic was on the floor and made it quite a ways into my foot (not that our floor is dirty it's just a floor). It kinda ruins my workout plans for the next few days due to it's location. I am surprised I have gotten any running in with my sore knee, chest cold with cough, pulled hamstring and now puncture wound to bottom of foot which prohibits even normal walking. I am trying to get into a running routine, but it's not going so well.

ETA: This sounds like a really neat way to power your home using solar panels.

Definitely make these if you aren't near a campfire.

My jeans are soaked! See that blob of orange and red in the middle of all that green? That's what I was in while waiting for the bus. Orange and red mean lots of rain.

The fact that the street outside my apartment was full of about 3" of water when a car drove by just helped me get wetter. Not that I needed it. Luckily I am wearing sandals designed for water sports, since walking through the raging river of our parking lot could be considered a water sport today. I went for a run this morning and the rain started while I was doing my stretching and sit-ups after my run. I actually would have enjoyed running in the rain until it became a torrential downpour that felt more like going through a car wash. I do love a good thunderstorm as long as I am not waiting for the bus in it. The sky still looks like it is about 9pm rather than 9am.


There has been progress on Ornette, though it has been slow. I love the pattern, but it makes my left wrist tired so I have to take a break every so often. I started Elijah using this yarn in turquoise this morning while watching the rain. He will be a gift for my former neighbor's baby. Since I couldn't decide on clothing for the kid, he or she is getting a toy and granny square blanket in Hawkeye colors since the dad is a big Hawks fan.

I made bars from this recipe (via Cookie Madness) last night with a few mods. I decreased the butter to one stick, added some apple sauce for more liquid and also a 1/4 cup of ground flax; since I didn't have raisins I used chocolate chips. I think Josh had three bars after dinner. He seems to like them. I will make them again, but I think with even less butter and more flax and apple sauce.

Look what the from and lady bug are doing on my iGoogle!

I rarely have trouble picking yarn to become a sock. Lately that has not been the case. First there was the Ornette troubles, minor as the were and quickly remedied. Now I am having trouble with Bellatrix and the Yarn Pirate Kalamata not working out. I can't decide what pattern to use with my new yarn from Lotus Yarns sock club, and I just can't decide what to start.

I finished my sample knitting on Monday, which was a simple knit. I want something along the same lines difficulty-wise so I can knit while on the bus or watching TV without having to worry about it much. Ornette isn't bad for TV knitting, but takes a bit more concentration than I can always spare, though I do love the pattern so far(I am almost to the heel!). I am kinda leaning towards some Sidewinders, but not a redo of the Hawkeye yarn (that could become Aquaphobia), which looking back now that I know more about fit, probably did fit me fine and weren't too tight as I thought.

Any suggestions?

I hate this feeling of indecision. At least I know what I want to bake this weekend. There is definitely something involving yeast, maybe this, and another cobbler, possibly cherry, depends on what Josh gets at the store.

Cherries!

Last week I bought three pounds of cherries for about $3. We munched on them during the week as dessert, but then I made the gigantic cupcakes and teeny cake and the cherries were ignored for a bit. Well, it was time they were eaten, but several were a bit past their prime. I knew I needed to use them, but I wanted something simple and quick to make. At first I was thinking this cake, but I was lacking ingredients. Then I thought of cobbler. It was not something I can remember eating often if at all. I assumed it was easy since it's just biscuits atop a fruity filling. The only thing was, I had to pit all the cherries, otherwise this would have been a quick and simple dish. As it was I and my counter were rather sticky with cherry juice by the end of pitting 4 cups of cherries, but it was worth it. We had already decided it was left-over night, so I had no other food to prep.

I used a recipe from America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, which I love by the way. It has you cook the fruit separately until they start to release their juices then place the biscuits on top. They provide a table with filling recipes for several different fruits. I had sweet cherries and the recipe was for sour, so I had to reduce the sugar, but other than that it worked perfectly.

Josh and I polished it off in two days. He almost bought more cherries for another, but I think I will go for sour cherries from the freezer section for the next batch or possibly strawberry rhubarb; though blueberries would be nice too.




ETA: I forgot to add my sock progress! I am almost back to where I started before I frogged because it was HUGE! Those dropped stitches add a lot of stretchiness.

L'Opera! : Daring Baker's May Challenge

I was happy to see this challenge was cake and a fancy one at that. I quite enjoy baking and decorating cakes though I had never heard of an opera cake.

Due to our crazy schedule this month and only having baking time on the weekends, I didn't get to this cake until Memorial Day. By that time, I was not much in the mood to make this cake anymore. I already knew I was going to be reducing the recipe by at least half when I went to the grocery store. I was even more glad of that when I saw the price of the ingredients require. Almond meal was over $11 for two pounds and the white chocolate bar(the only one I could find in the whole grocery store) was almost $4 for 3.5 ounces. If I had made this cake full size I would have spent over $20 just on those two ingredients, though I would have had some almond meal left. As it is, my little cake is worth about $10 and it's not even pretty. I skipped buying the almond meal and made my own, which may have not been the best idea.

My cake has a definitely gritty texture, due to the almonds. I followed the directions and allowed the sponge cake to cool on a piece of wax paper which didn't go so well since the side against the wax paper became quite soggy, which I thought might happen yet still did it. I used my own favorite buttercream flavored with lemon extract and also flavored the cake with lemon syrup and skipped the mousse as I am not a fan of mousse.

I didn't really understand how the cake was to be assembled since the directions didn't specifically say. I put butter cream on the top as suggested and once I added the glaze, it slid right off. I ended up scooping that all off and pouring glaze all over the cake since it was already stuck on the sides from sliding off.



I admit, my attempt at this cake was rather lacking in enthusiasm, but based on the cost on ingredients alone, I don't see myself making this cake again. The taste was nothing special, but that was also my fault since I didn't want to spend anymore money and tried to work with what I had on hand. Maybe a traditional chocolate version would be better. I am not a fan of white chocolate, but I will take dark chocolate any day. At least the little slice is kinda cute.



Be sure to check out the other DBer's attempts at opera cake on the blogroll, and if you feel up to attempting this recipe yourself you can find it here.

I just took the ecological footprint quiz on this site and am quite dismayed with myself. I like to think I have a low ecological footprint, but I don't. I thought I was even below average, but I am not. It's hard to figure out what else I can do. It's frustrating and eye opening, but also very discouraging. A lot of things I can't change, such as where the electricity that gets pumped into my apartment comes from and what appliances are in my apartment.

On to less depressing topics, I finished my super secret socks, though I still can't share them with you. I know you are all waiting anxiously for the reveal. Right? Since I finished a pair, I decided to start a new pair, which only makes sense. Actually working on another project would make more sense, but I will ignore logic in this case since I have wanted to make this pair for ages. Bellatrix (Ravelry)is a pattern designed by a lovely woman who recently passed away. She designed a bunch of free patterns, but due to copyright issues when her site was taken down, they haven't been available for several months. Her husband as generously taken the time to upload them all to Ravelry so we can once again use them.

Here's a picture of the ball of yarn I am using since the pictures I have taken of the start of this sock aren't interesting in the least.


The yarn in Yarn Pirate in Kalamata from the Booty Club and has short repeats of chocolate brown, a dark purple, light brown and a my favorite shade of green. I think it will be perfect for this pattern. By the way, after the first repeat, I was totally hooked. Hopefully Ornette won't get too lonely.

Attack of the Giant Chocolate with Vanilla Frosting Cupcakes!!!!


Made using this pan and this recipe cut in half. I can only eat half of one of these at a time.

We had some gorgeous weather yesterday. It was close to 70 and sunny. Josh and I took a walk across the river in an area I have always meant to explore. There is a dog park, but I could never figure out how people got to the dog park. Now I do and I also learned of a new housing development I didn't know existed. it's actually a bit creepy and seems almost like it should be in a movie. I think that's partly due to it's newness and lack of people at this time. It is eerily quiet and empty.

We watched the latest UFC on Saturday night. It was a great event with several good fights including the main event. We got some Pokey Stix, which I haven't had since I was a student. I think I am going to snack on some before I go teach at the GymNest tonight.

In other news, my sister and her boyfriend are now engaged. I of course knew before she did, which makes me inordinately happy. Congrats!

Let's see, I finished my Jaywalkers (Ravelry).
Yarn: Zitron Trekking colorway #155
Needles: 2.75mm Knit Picks dpns
Started: July 2007
Finished: April 18, 2008
Mods: Unintentional ones only. I did the toe on the second one differently because I decided I didn't need to read the directions. Barely noticeable, so not getting fixed.

I started two more small projects this weekend, well yesterday. Both are more for Josh than me. I started Sausage Dogs and Trogdor (more info on Trogdor). More toys, I know. I can't stop myself. I also made flat chocolate chip cookies because I decided to follow the recipe instead of what I thought and caramel chex mix.

I also got some new shoes! They were $10 and my size and have owls on them.

Yesterday was nice and warm if a bit windy. Actually the weather bar at the bottom of my browser window said "gales", which was fairly appropriate. I wore sandals and my toes didn't fall off, so it was a good day. It's still pretty nice today, though it is supposed to rain later.

Well, the weather was really just a segue into what I really wanted to talk about. Not that the weather really has anything to do with what I made for dinner yesterday other than the fact that I needed to open the windows to let the smoke out. I didn't burn anything, but it certainly got smoky. I actually roasted a whole chicken in my oven. I had never done that before, in the oven that is. I have done the beer can in the butt chicken before on the grill, which was incredibly tasty. I think the smoke was due to the butter I shoved under the skin, but I will have to try again with olive or vegetable oil (they have higher smoke points than butter) to test my theory.

The chicken was tasty, and the skin a nice golden brown. I tried the skin, but didn't like it. I am not sure what people find so appealing about chicken skin. I like cooking with it on because it adds flavor and keeps the chicken moist. I do wish I had made a pan sauce for a bit of extra flavor, but I was too lazy and had run out of counter space which isn't hard when you only have about 4 square feet to work on. i also made roasted cauliflower and orzo risotto with spinach. It was a nice meal that required little hands on time and I have chicken left over to shred for chicken tacos tonight!

I also made some cookie dough and shoved it in the freezer for cookie emergencies. I don't know how the cookies will taste but the dough was quite delightful. I used some cage-free eggs I found at our local grocery store that are only a few cents more than the store brand, so I am quite happy. I do look forward to the green eggs from the farmers' market though they are more expensive.

I would have posted pictures of all of this, but nothing was terribly photogenic and the light in my kitchen is crappy. I guess the chicken looked pretty good except for where I split the skin on the breast side while trying to shove butter in there. I think my technique needs work.

Since it was snowing last night I decided I needed to make desert. Ok, so that's not really the reason. I just wanted desert, but it had to be simple. My go-to simple sweet recipe used to be brownies, but I get messy when melting chocolate is involved. Actually I am generally a bit messy when baking.

Anyway... so brownies were my go-to treat, but now I think blondies have replaced them. They are marginally quicker to make and just as satisfying, unless I really need chocolate. I have tried a few recipes but they weren't quite what I wanted. The recipe I used most frequently always ended up a bit greasy due to the ratio of butter to everything else, a bit too thin and a little heavy since there was no leavening. I sorta combined a couple recipes with my own twist for this one so feel free to give it a try. I will try to get a picture of a bar when I get home, but make no promises if there is a lack of daylight. I underbaked mine a little. I was going for gooey, but I think I went a little too gooey.

I have published the recipe here for your blondie baking pleasure.

unrelated things

It snowed again yesterday. Not much snow. But it is April in Iowa and I believe the rest of the world so we shouldn't be having snow.

I am still sick and suffering from a lack of sleep due to waking myself up because I was coughing. Ick...

New bras are great. So glad I bought some.

I have decided to make tiramisu. I have never had it which that is a good enough reason for me.

I still have cake, which I will be throwing away.

The frogs didn't lay well so no extra work for me this weekend! Though, now I have to figure out something else to do today.

I am making a pocket elephant for a coworker.

Is it ok to eat lunch at 9:45am?

The Sock Madness has left me or maybe something else took over. It may involve a crochet hook and cute stuffed animals. I am blaming the evil cake crazed dreams I had Monday night. I was so tired yesterday from lack of sleep due to cakey dreams. I have no explanation for the dreams, but maybe a little explanation for my lack of sock progress. Not a huge fan of the pattern, though I did see one sock today that is changing my mind and may have me switching yarns to something more solid.

My throat is dry and scratchy and I have been coughing a bit. I really do not want to be sick again.

Oh and for those of you checking up on my running, my knee has been sore for the last two weeks so I am giving it a few days rest but plan to run again tomorrow and maybe Friday to make up for it. Oh, and I skipped the rest of Week 1 because I just wasn't feeling it. Week two was still not too hard, but I don't want to break too many rules in case that is what's causing the weird dreams. I made my last cake on the day of my last "run", so they could be related. I told Josh to take the rest of the cake to work today so I don't have to look at it.

His coworkers seem to like it much better than we do. They get more products of my baking than my own coworkers because buses are not conducive to transporting baked goods, especially layer cakes. I should bring in some blondies or something less fragile to make up for it. I have been meaning to develop my own blondie recipe.

March DB Challenge - Dorie's Perfect party Cake

When I saw this month's challenge was a cake I got rather excited. I love baking cakes; I don't need an occasion, though it usually helps. I am just glad Josh and I have friends and coworkers willing to eat my cakes. My family was never big on cakes. We much preferred brownies, which may explain why I prefer baking and decorating cakes to eating them.

I made this cake yesterday since all my plans to get this done on previous weekends failed miserably. Between forgetting to purchase one of the ingredients, weekend guests, car problems and other things it just didn't happen.

This cake required a cooked meringue butter cream, which was totally new to me. For the filling, I used blueberry spread made locally. I flavored the cake and butter cream with lemon, and used whole wheat pastry flour because I didn't realize that is what I had purchased. The cakes didn't rise as well as I had hoped, but still enough to allow me to split them in half for filling with blueberry goodness. I think I could use some new baking powder as evidenced by these cakes and last weekend's flat biscuits.



As for taste, the cake is lovely; so is the blueberry spread. I am definitely having peanut butter and jelly for lunch again. The butter cream is just not for me. Not a fan of frosting, with the exception of those containing cream cheese, I found the butter cream to fluffy and whipped cream like. I am not a fan of whipped cream mostly due to it's texture. I know, I am weird. I don't like ketchup either.



I have posted the recipe here if you want to try it, which I definitely suggest. Don't forget to check out the other, probably prettier variations, my fellow DBer's have made. I should really get a pretty plate for my cakes.

Baking did not go well yesterday. First were the flat, dense biscuits for breakfast. Next was the failure to procure one of the needed ingredients for a cake. Second was my food processor being to small for a different cake recipe.


Third was cake refusing to come out of the pan in one piece.


Josh kindly cleaned the remnants of the cake from the pan for me. He did a good job. I helped a little.

Small changes

I have been trying to make small changes that not only save money but are lest wasteful and less horrible for the environment. So far I have become a little fanatical about what gets recycled at our place, replaced our laundry detergent with some homemade phosphate-free detergent, replaced the kitchen cleaner with some homemade (and cheap!) cleaner, take public transportation to and from work, bring reusable bags to the grocery store and mall(when I remember) and now I am working on replacing paper towels with microfiber towels and other reusable towels after reading this article. Not only will it save money but it's less wasteful.

When Josh and I get our house we are going to try to make it as energy efficient as we can afford. Since Josh works at Lowe's (is there an apostrophe in Lowe's? I should know this), he is fairly informed about appliances and can get good deals sometimes. I am also going to look into fume-free paints. Can you tell I am a little excited about owning a home? We have been spending way more time talking about buying a house than planning a wedding.

I really wanted to finish the Zombies yesterday, well actually Monday, but realized quickly that was not going to happen. I have a couple more rows before the gusset is done, which will be a relief. I can get rid of the dpns I am using to hold the extra stitches!

Any ideas what I should have for dinner tonight? We kind of indulged during our long weekend so I am thinking something healthy, but I have some fingerling potatoes I really want to slice, roast and cover in parmesan. Mmmm.... I made beef stew and soda bread this weekend as well as pancakes and oatmeal scones, so we have had our share of hearty food. Salads would probably be a good choice. I guess the parmesan covered potatoes can wait.