musical monday: 'this is the fresh prince's new definition of summer madness'

"Will Smith- Summertime (High Quality)"

I know it's still going to be warm for a while, but I still feel like summer is slipping away. It's still a month until autumnal equinox and another two until the cold, right? Why doesn't it feel like it?

---------------

Also, just read this post on the shift in the seasons and I'm right there, too.

laff track and a possible weekend outing

I actually laughed out loud when I read the label on the third cake in this Cake Wrecks post.

------------

All right. I'm off. Cardo is reading The Deathly Hallows, so I cannot right now. Which reminds me, who wants a fabulous six-year-old for a good long weekend so Cardo and I can indulge in an HP movie marathon? (I said I'd finally watch all of the movies with Cardo because he will have read all of the books. And, I kind of want to see them all now.)

Pic is watching some good old Alvin and the Chipmunks episodes.

I...? I might be about to head off to rest as we had a looong and broilingly-hot day yesterday and not enough sleep last night before another long, but much better, day today. Tomorrow and Saturday will also be pretty full.

I am too worn out to even catch up on what's been going on in blogland. Ah, well. Summertime...and my brain is all melty.

------------

However, before I rush off: If anyone is interested, Capt'n Jack Spareribs is making appearances at local (Washoe County) libraries. We're very much looking forward to seeing this show.

{this moment}

Inspiration via: SouleMama

butterscotch brownies

everything's ready to go

Last month, we went on a bit of a butterscotch brownie kick. I wanted to make Catherine Newman's recipe, but I was making the brownies for others and I'm never sure if other people will enjoy fruit and/or nuts in their sweets. Also, I had been really wanting to use the butterscotch chips in the freezer. So, I nixed the cherries and pecans and threw in the chips, which eventually sunk to the bottom and formed a kind of base layer. Cardo totally dug them, although they were a bit too sweet for me to eat more than a few bites at a time. Next time, I'd like to do butterscotch chips in one pan and the cherries and nuts in another pan. I also have some cinnamon chips I might try. What else sounds good?

giant brownies!

{this moment}

Inspiration via: SouleMama

here in the middle of the dark

I should probably be sleeping. I've been called and called to come to bed already, but I'm weirdly resistant to that. (Seriously, tell me it's time to go to bed and that's just about a guarantee that I'll be up for at least three more hours.)

So, what am I doing? Almost listening to a tv show on Netflix. (I'm not really watching it and I only have it on to drown out thoughts that might fill my head and make it impossible for me to read. Yeah, yeah, I have issues.)

I'm also reading some more of Q is for Quarry in snatches while I wait for blog pages to load. Over here in blogland, I'm catching up on dooce. This post on Leta losing her second tooth cracks me up. Oh, the joys I have to look forward to once Pic starts losing her teeth.*

----------------

* We've recently had a Tooth Fairy conversation. Pic told me that some people don't believe in the Tooth Fairy. I told her the concept was the same as that of Santa Claus in that various people act as the Tooth Fairy/Santa Claus/whoever else for those receiving the benefits. Pic is adamant that there is, in fact, an actual Tooth Fairy. I left the conversation there. I love that she chooses to believe in the Tooth Fairy in the face of my "rational truth." (That so deserves the quotes, because, for Pic, the truth is that there is a fairy that lives somewhere else, maybe in another land she told me, who takes care of whisking away our unneeded teeth.)

what the what?!

I am lamenting that 30 Rock is not available on Netflix Instant. Also, I have to subscribe to Hulu Plus (whatever that is) to watch it there. Ah, well. I probably shouldn't be taking time out to watch that now anyhow. Give me a couple more months, though, and I'll burrow into the couch and probably watch the entire season in, um, a day.

I also just caught up on reading through angry chicken's archives and I loved every moment of it. I'm only sad that I'm caught up and now have to wait for current postings. I bookmarked about seventy gazillion posts to revisit in a couple of months. Pic and I will be mad crafters il quest estate. I love the blog beyond words.

Until then, I'll be getting by on required reading aplenty reading galore and not nearly enough sleep.

Oh, I almost forgot about Kinsey. (For shame, I know.) So, I do still have one good distraction. However, I'm currently reading Q is for Quarry, which leaves only four-and-a-half books before I'm caught up.

i give you my heart

Fittingly, I was inspired by Tara's Inspiration Monday to try an origami heart.

I made a mistake at step six because I didn't see how the picture was any different from the picture above and I interpreted the instructions incorrectly.


Ah, well, it still came out as a heart. And, my next attempt was spot on.

My first love note was for Pic and the second I made for Cardo. When I handed Pic's to her, she looked at it, started to unfold it and said, "Thanks. What the heck is it?"

Soon after, she wanted to make one for me and then one for Snuggles (the no-longer covert cat). My first instinct was to tell her, "No, make one for Papi instead; Snuggs can't read," but I refrained. And, Pic got to practice her spelling skills in writing Snuggles's note.

We've decided to make these, perhaps out of newspaper and paint, or maybe wrapping paper from the thrift store, for valentines next year.

compartmentalizing

We need to hire Gary Chang to design a library for us.


"A Tiny Apartment Transforms into 24 Rooms"*
Awesome!

Or, we might hire Dean Proffitt. (I can't find video of the closet with the revolving shoe rack. How can that be, Interweb?)

--------------

* I found this on Lovely Listing.

blog bliss

I often think it might be nice if the some of the bloggers I read stopped blogging. Not "nice" in that I don't thoroughly enjoy reading these blogs, but "nice" in that I'd have a bit more time to do other things (find new blogs?). However, when people do stop writing, I can't help but feel a bit sad.*

Anyhow, a blog I really enjoy recently seemed to come to an end. I kept checking back, just in case, but the blog seemed to have turned into something of a pit of spam. This morning, though? Blankie Chronicles is back in a new incarnation: A Life Like This One! Yea!

----------------

* I'm looking at you, Coach J, although I'm happy for you that you no longer need the outlet -- but I sincerely enjoy your writing.


----------------

Edited to add: Oh, no! It looks like Good Things Catered also no longer exists. I'm glad I saved so many of her recipes. I thought it might be coming as she was posting less and less. I'm sure I have plenty of other food blogs on my blog roll, but I'll miss Katie's posts. [12/7/10]

to live vicariously

I saw this posted on dooce. This video makes me a little nauseated, especially the part with the guy who does some kind of handstand before diving into the pool.


"PEOPLE ARE AWESOME."
Wow.

blog sprint: fire

One Minute Writer for today: Write about a memory you have related to a campfire. (If you don't have any such memories, write about any fire-related memory.)

Staying up to talk. Pouring water on the fire until it seems to be out. Smokey says, “Stir the ashes,” right? We stir the ashes and the fire springs back up. Laughing so hysterically that we’re on the verge of peeing our pants. Wondering how we aren’t making enough noise to wake everyone in the campgrounds. Where are the people who know what they’re doing with the fire, huh?

itty-bitty pops

Yesterday, I wanted to make food. Actually, I often want to make food, but feel to exhausted to do so. (Or, y'know, we haven't been shopping in a while and we're sadly lacking important ingredients). I wanted to make some kind of banana bread because we have three sad, sad bananas languishing on our dining room table. However, we're missing at least one ingredient from every recipe I have. I'm not such a huge fan of banana bread (or bananas in general), but I refuse to let those go completely to compost.

Anyhow, Pic and I did end up making tiny popsicles yesterday. I cannot find my popsicle molds, but we did have an empty ice cube tray and a huge box of popsicle sticks. We loosely based our method on Catherine Newman's from her mango fro-yo pops recipe (except...we didn't use vanilla, we used a different main fruit and I had no lemons or limes). So, basically, without measuring anything, I poured a bit of white grape juice into the blender and topped it with some raspberries, plain Greek yogurt and some agave nectar. I was too lazy to climb up on anything to get down the vanilla, but I'll add it next time. A couple of quick whirs in the blender and our base was ready for the ice cube tray. We let the popsicles set a while and then pushed the sticks in. Pick at a couple of popsicles yesterday and we each had one today. I think next time I'll use less yogurt. And, I have a melon on my counter that I bought specifically for making popsicles, so our next batch will be a different flavor. Super simple.

What, you don't put on your finery for popsicle consumption?

And, super simple is all I feel I have time for right now. I'm having a very difficult time with balance and rhythm right now. Based on the last month, I know, right now, that I want to do things differently next year. I hope I'll have the same resolve then. And, I hope I'll have found the confidence to do what I really want to do. Until then, I'm back to sleeping in three-hour shifts. Wasn't I just rejoicing over not having this schedule anymore? Ugh.

Right now, I'm needing to get back to other necessities. The rest of this week is going to feel interminable. I'll just have to keep on keeping on right? Because I don't have much choice otherwise. This weekend, I'll reassess and figure out a more workable schedule for myself and my family.

personal anthem

Who else used to watch Ally McBeal? Anyone?

There was a part in the show where the title character was in therapy and her therapist (Tracy Ullman...I think it was at this part of the show, which I haven't really watched in many years) tells her to choose a personal theme song or a personal anthem or something. Since then, all those years ago, I've been wondering what mine might be. I don't know a lot of music, so I feel lucky when I come across something that just seems so uplifting or fitting or fabulous.

I heard this song in a Humans Being podcast, in which Sarah Parent is interviewing Tara Wagner. I've been listening to this a lot, trying to internalize it.


"India Arie-I Choose" [The video is just a series of pictures. The song ends at about four minutes and then there's just the continuing slideshow. Just, y'know, fyi.]

I haven't decided that this is my personal theme song or anything, or even that I am choosing a theme song, but I do so like this one.

food offerings

Before we headed off for the vacation I might eventually get around to posting about, we went to a barbeque. I got it into my head that I needed to make a bunch of stuff to bring. I get like this. Either I want to make nothing at all or I want to make every recipe that's been persistently stuck in my head.

For that day, I tackled three recipes with varying degrees of success.



I made blueberry cornbread and a side of honey butter. The cornbread recipe is from one of the Moosewood cookbooks. (I'm never sure which Moosewood cookbook I've gotten a recipe from, because, alas, I own none of them -- I check them out from the library.) I loved the idea of this, but the middle was completely mushy. Il Fornaio and I were on the outs, it seems, at least regarding this dish. The baked parts were good, though. (For the honey butter, I just mixed honey and butter. I know this sounds like a total 'duh' thing, but I sometimes takes things too literally. For an entire summer, I was making honey mustard dressing that was just honey and mustard whisked together. Recently, I found out that people make that dressing with oil and vinegar and honey and mustard and probably some other stuff. Eh, mine worked for me.)

I also made the fabulous Catherine Newman's Gingery Napa Slaw. I'm not a mayonnaise fan, so I usually steer clear of cole slaw. But, guess what, this recipe has no mayonnaise. Perfect. Oddly, though, it still smells like more traditional cole slaw to me. This is such a quick recipe, and the dressing is good for two slaws. I used the rest of the dressing for a second head of cabbage while we were camping. (I just realized that I forgot the almonds on the camping trip. Oops. I think Cardo ate them all anyhow.) Please, please see Catherine's blog (linked through the recipe) for a much more appealing picture of this.

Finally, for dessert, I made the intensely chocolate brownies from my How to Cook Everything cookbook. I have since read that Bittman's sweet recipes aren't as successful as his savory ones, but I liked these. I have been moving farther and farther (further and further? none of those look like words to me right now) toward the darker end of the chocolate spectrum, so I prefer a strong chocolate flavor to a milky chocolate flavor. These were deeply, darkly chocolately. J pointed out that this was probably a good thing because one would be less inclined to eat the entire pan of brownies at once, but I would definitely not put it past me.

rustic buns

Because I have about twelve million recipes saved for trying out, I am hoping to make it through at least one new recipe a week here. It's a small goal, I know, but I'm better with small amounts of changes at a time.

A couple of weeks ago now, Catherine Newman posted a recipe for hamburger buns. I had turkey burgers on the menu the Friday before last, so the recipe was posted at a perfect time for me. I can't remember what we ended up eating for dinner that Friday night, but it wasn't turkey burgers (especially as I hadn't bought turkey yet, at that point). We finally made the hamburger buns on Wednesday. Pic and I got them started. It ended up being something of a seven-hour process, which sounds ridiculously daunting but most of that time involved completely ignoring the dough while we made bird feeders, played on the computer, walked to the store and went to the pool.

Pic with the dough. It puffed up wonderfully. (We let dough rise in my bedroom, where it's warm, hence carrying it around the condo.)

Cardo helped with the end of the process. I made him mark the divisions in the dough. (I always like to rely on him for this kind of thing as I have issues with space relations.) He handed me gobs of dough which I 'shaped' into bun shapes (hey, we formed the burgers, too, so everything was all nice and irregularly shaped). Pic kept my hands floured. We all participated in the painting on of milk and sprinkling on of sesame seeds. Then came the baking in my kitchen nemesis: Il Fornaio (the oven). Ah, well, make do, right? Cardo assured me that the buns cooked through, and he was right.

It took a couple more days to get around to the burgers. We had a very late-night dinner, but it was certainly tasty. Pic and I had walked to the store and I felt like making mashed potatoes, so I got some waxy yellow potatoes. Dinner: herb-and-citrus turkey burgers with mozzarella, spinach and avocado with a side of mashed potatoes. I should say I'm not sure how mashed potatoes are made. I cubed and boiled the potatoes. When they were soft, I added some milk, vegetable broth, salt and pepper and mashed it all up with a big fork. Worked for me.

I ate one of these for dinner and one for breakfast the next morning.

We'll definitely be making our own hamburger buns from here on out. And, once again, I profess my love for Catherine Newman's writing and recipes!

blog sprint: mental wanderings

Today's One Minute Writer: Write about one thing you'd prefer to be doing at this moment, instead of what you're doing now. Also write about one thing you're glad you're not doing at this moment.

Actually, there isn't something I'd rather be doing right now. It's quiet here. Ah, peace. I'm listening to an episode of Humans Being, and, after that, I'll be reading.

Were I not doing this, were I actually doing something I don't enjoy, I'd like to be (prepare to be shocked)...walking! Yes, it's dark and getting chilly. It's probably as windy as it was when Pic and I were out earlier. However, I really, really enjoy my walks.

What am I glad I'm not doing at this moment? Um, so many things. There are many, many things I don't like to do. Dusting (actually I never dust). Doing many of the jobs I've done in my life (I've only really loathed one, and it barely lasted, so I'd make do if I had to). Watching pointless television (I'm good at this when we actually have satellite...I've been a bit off TV, though, for a good while now, though). This really could be a seemingly infinite list and I've already used more than one minute.

Hope you're able to do something you enjoy today.

eating simply

I have had about, oh, zero desire to cook or bake in the last few days. I haven't really had much interest in food at all. I despise phases like this. I hope to come out of it soon. I'll have to thumb through my bookmarked cookbook pages and the many, many, many recipes I have saved on the computer. Inspiration...I'm here waiting.

In the meantime, I started today off pretty simply:


My smoothie this morning was spectacularly purple; my camera was not up to capturing the vibrant hue. Ah, well. Today's smoothie: banana, strawberries, cherries, blackberries, spinach, dark chocolate chips, ice.


This bread is the "You Could Call This Sandwich Bread" from Beauty That Moves*. It was so incredibly simple to put together. I love mixing together the foamy yeast mixture with the dry ingredients, kneading the ingredients together until they form a wonderfully smooth lump of dough.

I only had one oven problem with this: my oven cooks everything too quickly. I have an oven thermometer, but that doesn't help (in fact, it often reports the oven at about twenty-five degrees lower than the temperature the dial seems to be pointing at). Uh, this just came to me...perhaps it has something to do with our altitude. I have never once, in the ten-plus years I've lived here, had to adjust a recipe for altitude, but I might need to start. How exactly does that work again? For now, I'll just cook things at a lower temperature for a longer amount of time. (With this bread, the top was browning alarmingly rapidly well before the bread should have been ready.

Anyhow, the bread is tasty. As soon as I get another needle for my sewing machine (one day), I'll be making a bread bag. I hate to put my bread in a plastic zippered bag because it gets weirdly soft. I threw my piece in the oven, under the broiler, today, so it was nice and warm and crispy.

Does anyone else have any go-to, simple, everyday-type bread recipes to share? I think I'll have to find a bread cookbook at the library on my next visit. I'd like to have a few different regular recipes at hand. (I also make Amanda's WHO Bread, but, perhaps because of the cinnamon and oatmeal, I feel like it's not so much a sandwich bread...although it could be...hmm.**)

---------------------

* The linked post includes a recipe for homemade chocolate sauce!

** I don't own a bread machine (as if I have room for anything else), so I make the non-bread-machine version of this. There is also a bread-machine version, if you have the necessary equipment.

summer rolls (even though it's certainly *not* summer)

I've seen this idea on bread & honey and, more recently, on beauty that moves. I've also seen something similar at Cardo's favorite Vietnamese restaurant.*

A while back, I decided we'd be making these and so we finally have. Prepare to be dazzled by my awesome photography skills (or, skillz):



I know, I'm sorry about the picture. It's dark in the kitchen and I was ravenous. I only made two just in case I really didn't like them. I filled my wrappers with avocado, shredded carrot and rice stick noodles (which I had no idea how to prepare, but it worked out). I didn't make sauce, but I certainly should have. I thought soy sauce would suffice, but I somehow forgot just how salty soy sauce -- even our low-sodium soy sauce -- is. Next time...

These were very simple. Next time, I'm adding more avocado. Maybe some grilled chicken?

--------------------------

* I'm not a fan of this restaurant because the only chicken item on the menu is a curry dish. Not a fan. Also, the rolls there, similar to these, have shrimp in them. I cannot eat shrimp. And, I cannot look at the rolls. The sight of the shrimp bulging out of the translucent wrapper makes me gag.

lunch pail tales

I started reading Fed Up With Lunch: The School Lunch Project a while back. I can't remember how I came across it in the first place. (I like to remember how I've gotten to the blogs I read.) I've really enjoyed the guest posts, especially a recent one featuring Mendy Heaps.

Heaps is a teacher who took action regarding the unhealthy food offered and sold at her school. She started offering water in her classroom -- the water was available to students throughout the day. She started selling baggies of fruits and vegetables in her classroom. Eventually, there was enough demand from other students in her school that she started peddling her fare on the Fruit Cart that students took from classroom to classroom at the end of the day. After a bit, she was reprimanded and she quit her Fruit Cart enterprise. Back to the unhealthy, yet oh-so-tempting, snacks. Ugh.

We are soon entering the world of elementary school and elementary school food. Well, kind of. I'm pretty sure that I've shared here before that I brought lunch to school throughout my schooling. Actually, by the time I reached high school, I preferred to wait until after school to eat, but I did occasionally still bring lunch. Indie and I'd bring food and share. I fully intend to send Pic with a packed lunch every day. I have grand plans of us standing together at the counter, every night before a school day, packing our lunches together (although me packing a lunch is somewhat absurd). I've long been scouting out and saving school lunch ideas in preparation.

Some inspiration:

dalai mama dishes

'the lunch box post' from beauty that moves [just one example out of many from this blog]

what's for lunch at our house [I'm still way back in 2007 on this one]

Buon appetito!

--------------------

Currently watching; Julie & Julia