i dont know what to say about this.

i was leaving. in a hurry. flopped my stuff into the back seat. opened up the car door. stuck my right leg in so i could flop my butt in the driver's seat.  in one swinging motion i had flung open the car door, raised my leg and pivoted so that i could get in the car. but as the door opened wider and i got closer to the car, the sunlight poured in and illuminated something small(er-than-a-golfball-but-bigger-than-a-nickel) racing away from the area where my foot was targeting and up toward the steering wheel. my foot was still hovering in the air, about level with the seat, and i was about to lose my balance. i jumped back and gasped for air. i'm sure an "oh my god" came out somewhere in there. it was, really, the sudden motion of the nickel-golfball that startled me. really. it was. till i realized that there was a spider web the size of a dinner plate delicately placed in the space below the steering wheel where my legs would have gone. perfectly facing the opening of the door, so the sunshine illuminated every strand. and the nickel-golfball? a giant spider. NOT a daddy long-legs, either. (i know what you're thinking. exaggeration, you say. it was probably smaller than a fly, you say. F you, I say.)

as soon as it saw my foot hurdling towards its brand new home, it skittered up to the steering wheel, and just sat there, on the steering wheel, on the lower edge closest to the door. it was fat. tan. striped. maybe spotted. fat abdomen. short fat legs. obese, really. a porker. probably ate mcdonalds for dinner last night. and breakfast. and then me for lunch.

and just to show how facebook has ruined me, i stood there for a millisecond and told myself i should take a picture of this monster in my car. but alas, i was too busy gasping for air, flapping my jazz hands and cursing. i looked around to see if there was help. a couple walking across the street. they looked as friendly as my stowaway. "'scuse me sir could you come take care of this for me? and please dont knock me out and steal my car." 


i stumbled a little bit as i talked myself into putting my big-kid pants on and killing it with my sparkly purple flip flop. i still couldn't breathe and almost died when i took my hand off my heart, like it was holding it in place. so i manned up and flicked my shoe at it. i heard a pop like a zit, and it squirted a gob of spider goo at the steering console, and as luck would have it, my wheel was turned slightly to the right, so the goo gobbed up in the big gap that was waiting to catch it. and a leg or two was left on the wheel itself.

so what now? i am NOT driving with goo on my steering wheel. it will drip onto my leg and turn me into some spiderman-reject-crossed-with-sloth-from-the-goonies. so i did what anyone would do. i got my phone out of the backseat and sent a text message to my husband explaining i would be late for lunch because i had an epic battle with a 'giant fucking spider' in my car. i gasped a little more. jazz hands-ed a little more. and then finally walked to the other side of the car.

i opened the glove box, pulled out a napkin and walked back to the driver's side, having left the driver's door wide open. i contemplated the seriousness of the task at hand. i was going to touch giant spider goo with only a napkin protecting my bare skin from spiderman-reject-crossed-with-sloth-from-the-goonies cuties. i folded the napkin a couple of times, thanking all gods that it was one of those giant hefty restaurant napkins so that i could get a good stiff edge on the fold. then i bent down and scooped the goo out of the crack of the steering console, which was glistening so goo-ily in the sunlight. not wanting to cross-contaminate, i looked at the steering wheel to assess the damage there. since it was only a leg or two, i decided it was not worth it to wipe it off with the gooey napkin.

i had to dispose of the napkin, but trash day was not today, so i had no choice but to throw the goo on the ground and shout to the neighbors that may or may not have been watching that i was "sorry to litter but its giant spider goo!" and then promptly stomped on the napkin, cuz, y'know, mazel tov, and all that. then i destroyed the web with my shoe, more jazz hands and panting and cursing, and got in the car and drove to base with my fingertips on the top of the wheel.

hubbs, dear as he is, wiped up the whole steering wheel, floor, and door with a wipey when we got to subway. i am no longer leaving my windows cracked when i park. never again. F that. I'd rather sweat. I'm only thankful that i found and killed it before i even got in the car because i would have died on the freeway if it crawled up my leg while i was driving. its the small things that save the day.

grow tomatoes, grow!

our goats...

our goats...

(there, i flipped it for ya, tiff)

wish the dog wasn't so bright... its like basement cat and ceiling dog...

Bread v2.0

 Bread v2.0

i followed the same recipe as last time with just a couple of variations:

• instead of 5c bread flour, I used 3 cups whole wheat flour and 2 cups bread flour.
• instead of canola oil, i used extra virgin olive oil.

Upon first inspection of the dough that came out of the mixer, it was much less blobby than last time. it was quite firm, though a bit tacky. I rolled it out on a floured surface even though the instructions said to use an oiled surface. I kneaded it (that's such an awkward phrase "kneaded it" .. should be "knead' it" or "knud it" or "knade it". just sayin'...)  just a couple of minutes then let it set while I washed out the mixer bowl. I decided to wait to cut the dough in half and let it all rise together. I dried the bowl and sprayed in a fine layer of canola oil, plopped the ball of dough into the bowl and covered it with plastic wrap. 

Tiny little interjection here: There are few things I loathe using in this world; plastic wrap is one of them. Its just not user friendly.

The oven was on at 200 to warm up the kitchen. I set the covered bowl on top of the stove so it could stay warm to rise.  Forget little miss' idea to only let the dough rise 15 minutes, or whatever it was. I let this baby almost  triple in size, then punched it down and tossed it out on a cutting board to knead. I kneaded it for close to five minutes, and then kneaded in a few leaves I plucked from the rosemary plant in my kitchen window.

I sprayed the pizza pan I used last time and put the ball of perfect dough in the center. I was so completely happy with myself. I tried to cut an X in the top of the dough like shown in the recipe, but my knife isn't great, so it was more like ripping a gap in the center.

I spritzed it with water and turned up the oven to 350. baked for about ten minutes, pulled it out slightly and spritzed it with a bit more water, watching it crust and turn brown before my eyes. Bake another ten to fifteen minutes and attempt to repeat the last step. Only...

I realized I forgot to cut the loaf in half. Its as big as my head. A bread-head in my oven. I pulled it out. The tear in the top sort of blew open and the loaf was forcing itself to get wider. It was if Pac Man had an alien try to burst through his mouth and rip his head totally in half.

So I sprayed it again and tossed it back in the oven.

Another ten minutes and it is perfectly golden brown. Giant, but perfectly golden brown. Not remembering exactly how to tell when bread is done (in case its beautiful on the outside and gooey in the center) I stuck a thermometer in it. Isn't that usually how you tell when stuff is done? When the thermometer hit 177 degrees I figured that wasnt much help. I remembered another recipe saying that you should turn the loaf over in your hand and thump the bottom – if it sounds hollow it's done. Melons aren't the only edible drums.

Doubled garbed in oven mits, I flipped that baby over and thimped his belly. Hollow.

This is SO not what I had in mind when I decided to make this today, but my goodness it looks good. Waiting for it too cool a little bit before I eat it with butter. Mmmmmm....

So today's lesson is this: feel free to experiment a little bit, but follow really important steps like how many loaves of bread your recipe should make. If it tells you to cut it in half, by gawd, cut it in half!

Or else you'll get this: 

My First Bread Baking Experience

Okay, so maybe this is my second or third attempt, depending on how you define 'bread'. For Thanksgiving, I successfully made dinner rolls from scratch. For New Year's, I successfully made pizza dough from scratch. This, however, feels like a whole new arena.

I've spent more than two precious hours burning good baking daylight skimming through message boards, recipe websites and watching video after video of how-to's with tons of different recipes and methods. From ten-minute miracle French bread to rise-overnight-bake-it-a-dutch-oven complexities, I was starting to stress out. Wait... Can I take that four-ingredient recipe and bake in this way instead? Is it OK to substitute this for that? Why does this video point down and directly at his giant pot belly and end up with burnt tops? Why bother? Ugh!

So, I decided to pick the simplest looking one. Few ingredients. She uses the same mixer I have. It doesn't take 24 hours to rise. It makes two loaves. The video isn't great, but it shows exactly what I need to know, and there's a written recipe on her blog to review as well. Ok. I can DO this. (to see the recipe I tried to follow, click here.)

Preparation:

• Put together the mixer: check.
• Pull out ingredients: check.
• Get out all my stupid little prep bowls to look fancy and professional: check.

Step 1: Measure ingredients so I don't screw it up.

• Flour: 5.25 cups. check. Well, shit. There's too much flour to fit into my prep bowl, so lets skip those little bastards and go straight into the mixing bowl. Step 1 becomes Step 2: Add ingredients to mixer.
• Salt: 3 Tbsp. check.
• Sugar: Shit! I measured the salt instead of the sugar... ugh.
  • Scoop out as much salt as I can, taking a little flour with it. I should have stuck with the prep bowls!!
  • Insert proper amount of sugar, plus a little extra to try to make up for a ton of salt :(
• Yeast: well, I'm not using exactly the same kind of yeast as she is so I better mix it with water first... check.
• Oil: check.
• Water and yeast mixture: Check.

Step 2: Add ingredients to mixer.

Step 3: Mix 1 minute, check consistency. Ultimately mix five minutes.

• If its too dry, add a little water. She's in SoCal and admits to always using extra water, so should I! Check.
• Mix some more. Too wet. Add a little flour.
• Mix some more. Too wet. Scrape sides. Add a little flour.
• Mix some more. Too wet. Add a little flour. I swear I just added a smidge of water!
• Mix some more. Too wet. Add a little flour. Just let it mix for god's sake.

Step 4: Pull out nice ball of dough and knead a couple of times. Do not knead on flour.

• Scrape out ball of blob onto un-floured surface. Smash it around for a little bit. Wash blob off of hands. Get angry and pull out the flour.
• Sprinkle the blob with flour, coat my hands with flour, try to unstick said blob from surface and flour the bum. Roll it around and try to work in extra flour.
• Its still a f*king blob. A sticky, bastardy blob.

Step 5: Cut dough in half, shape two loaves and move to greased cookie sheet.

• How the hell am I supposed to cut a blob in half? Sharpen knife. Cut in half.
• Roll each half in more flour and try to shape. Move to individual cookie sheets.

Step 6: Cover and let rise 25 minutes: Check.

• Laugh at two blobs, they're multiplying!, and begin writing this blog entry to share with the world.

Step 7: Uncover, slice tops, spritz with water, and bake.

• Uncover: check. Take a picture. they didn't really rise. Half an inch maybe. This long one looks like a turd. Roll it in more flour and reshape it.
• Maybe if I let them sit another 20mnutes they'll rise more...

Step 7 plus 20 extra minutes: Well, they rose a little more. F it. I'm gonna bake it.

• The turd stuck to the towel, so now its a turd with a mohawk. 
  
  
• Try to slice them, but I guess my knife isn't great, even after I sharpened it. Gives the tops of the loaves character...
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Put into the oven with a bowl of water to create steam, rather than spritzing them with water and making more blobby blob.

Step 8: Bake 25 minutes. Cool. Slice. Eat. Enjoy.

• The turd exploded on one side. Not terribly. The mohawk resided. Guess it was a fauxhawk. Ba da bum....nice and golden on top – should actually be a decent bread.
• the boule was more par baked than golden, so I took it out and flicked a bunch of water on the top and put it back in for 7 more minutes. Looks pretty good!
• Neither were as tall or risey as I expected, but not bad for my first try with a blob incident.

The taste test: A little salty (d'oh!), dense and chewy with a little crunch in the crust. But on the whole, not a bad bread! Go me!

Plus butter: Yum!

Please believe me when I say that the blob folly had nothing to do with the recipe or the method. It was completely user error. I fully intend to try this recipe again and again with variations to see what I can come up with. I am also going to explore La Fuji Mama's blog a little more and see what other wonderful recipes I can mess up ;)

Next time... with rosemary and olive oil!!

brain is buzzing

i just bought this book "one-yard wonders" by rebecca yaker and patricia hoskins. its 101 sewing projects that use just one yard of fabric. you can take a look at some of the projects on amazon. i am so excited i cant stand it. i've already put together $100 wish list on the website of my local fabric bazaar. and oh yes, tiffany, we are going to SAS.

i'm going to learn how to sew. then i'm going to take over the world.

....i know. i KNOW. its just one more craft addiction that i don't really have the time or space for. but i'm gonna do it anyway. 

grouch.

the dog barfed on the living room rug. then ate it. the cat peed on the bathroom rug. three times. i think he's getting a UTI again. and is chewing all of his hair off. again. so i spend too much time digging in my closet and begin to run late for school. when i get there, i see parking-ticket-guy issuing tickets already. so i find a space far away from normal, walk to the daily-permit machine, and it wont take my money. so i walk back to my car and drive all the way to the front of campus and park in the visitor section so i can get change and try to buy a permit. the lady tells me there's a change machine behind the building (wtf isnt it next to the permit machine?!). so i walk over. get change for the only $5 bill in my wallet - hooray! $5 in quarters! i walk back to the permit machine, pay my $3 in quarters to get my dinky little parking permit for the day, and walk back to my, get in it, and drive all the way around to the first parking lot i was in. fortunately, now i can find a space closer to where i need to be and park in it. i make a point of placing the permit in the center of my windsheild where it cant be covered by the military stickers or other nonsense. i go to class. i walk all the way back to my car. there's a parking ticket. three inches away from the parking permit. WTF?! i peel it off. read it, thinking this cant be real, is that guy an I-D-ten-T or what? well, yes, he is, because he put my license as a CA plate. so anyway, i get in my car and drive all the way back to the lady in the little police building next to the visitor's lot. she tells me she cant help me, i have to go to the campus police office in the center of campus. well F, i have another class to go to. so i get back in my car, drive back all the way around campus and park, fortunately, right outside my next class. still 45 minutes to burn, so i walk to the campus police office. she cant do anything if i still have a class to go to because she wants to keep my parking permit to void the ticket. so i walk all the way back to my car, half expecting there to be another ticket in the window (there wasn't, thank goodness for him) and sit for a minute. hot and angry, i want a soda. my water is hot, i'm hot, i'm starting to feel a sinus infection coming on, my head hurts, i need a soda. so i grab $1.25 in my new shiny quarters and head to the cafeteria. never been in there before, lets see what they have to offer. no soda's under $1.40, foundtain drink is cheapest at $1.20, but without my ID (which i left int he car) they charge sales tax and i wouldn't have enough. so i wander to a soda machine. no cans. all bottles. no prices. the smallest bag of cheetos was a $1.25 so i figured the soda would be worse. when did they get so expensive? water was even more pricey in the cafe and i decided i couldnt afford to look at juice! so walked back to my car. grumbled, and decided to ditch my next class and take my grumpy ass home and go back to bed.
i get home. i let the dog out. i wash the cat. and i make a sandwich. that was it, for a few hours i lay on the couch burning up and ignoring the tv. i tried to read a textbook but i couldnt digest anything.
thanks poor schools for cutting back on your janitorial services and keeping your classroom dirty and germ-infested. i've been in class one week and am already sick. every semester here, EVERY ONE, i get sick right at the beginning and it throws me off for a while, i get behind in class and have to work hard to catch up. stupid public schools. stupid california. grumble grumble grumble...

that kind of day

so i'm sitting at the dining table on the computer. the windows are all open because there's no a/c. its a quiet sunday, just the occasional car or airplane, no music, no tv, nuthin. alluvasudden there's a loud scratching at the dining room window, that makes both myself and the dog jump. grainne stands up and peers out the window, and i'm staring trying to figure out what it was. the tree branch scraping the window? no... its a bougainvillea, no branches. the screen is flapping around, looks like it came loose on the bottom. need to call the landlord to see if she'll have someone come out and fix that one and the one in the kitch - SCCCCRRRRRAAAAAAATCH! MEOW! MEOW! and little azreal head pops into the window from the outside.

apparently his dumb ass fell out of the window, which is what knocked the screen loose, just like in the kitchen, and he was trying to climb up the wall to get back in the window. i had to go outside, around the house, and coax him in the front door

no more family guy before bed.

i dreamed last night that a friend found azreal and a kitten in the hands of some bastard little kid who was 'making sandwiches' out of them by pressing them onto hot skillets on the stove, and burned their skin on both their backs and bellies. we had to clean them up and peel crispy black skin off them and try to help them heal. and i also dreamed that rebecca and i were in taco bell, and before our order came up, when it was all sprawled on the counter, a group of people came in behind us and threw their little kid onto the counter to 'go find us some service' and he smooshed my cheeesy gordita crunch. so i pulled the kid off the counter and started a fight with the giant fat bald man who started the whole thing, then when large fights ensued i took the kid and ran. wtf is wrong with me?

Summer Fruit Galette

If you're anything like me, you get really excited to see fresh fruit overflowing in the grocery stores. I buy and buy and buy and then only eat and e.... so much of it begins to turn before I can eat it all. Well, this summer I found a super delicious way to use up fruit that may just be a bit too ripe to bite in to - a homemade fruit galette!

This is the easy version, using all ready-to-use-at-purchase ingredients:

1 Trader Joe's frozen pie crust (because its already rolled flat and perfectly round, and because I'm rolling pin-retarded)
1 egg white
A peach or two, and a handful of blackberries
A handful of shortbread cookies
A couple spoonfuls of sugar
A sprinkle of cinnamon

Since this pie crust is frozen, just let it sit until it reaches room temperature, or a little cooler. You'll want it to be pliable.

Slice your fruits. I used a peach and a handful of blackberries. You can use any combination you can imagine - apples and blueberries, blueberries and pears, strawberries, raspberries, cherries... anything goes!









Crumble a few shortbread cookies into a small bowl. The only shortbread cookies I could find have bits of fruit filling in them, so I just crumbled around the center and nibbled on the filling as I went along.

I lined a cookie sheet with foil, but if you have a baking stone that would work great too. Lay out your pie crust, and sprinkle the cookie crumbles in the center to within 2 inches of the outer edge. Lay out your fruit in any pattern that you fancy. Sprinkle with a spoonful of sugar and drizzle with honey. You can substitute brown sugar if you like. (Here, I used organic turbinado sugar from Trader Joe's.)

Fold up the edges to wrap around the fruit. You'll have to crease the pie crust to get it to fold up tightly, and can pinch the ends a bit if you need to.













Brush the outside with your egg white, and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

Bake at 350 until edges are golden brown. You'll find that the fruit filling will produce a lot of juice, and I found it best to let it cool completely before serving to let the filling set. You can heat it up again briefly before serving if you prefer it warm. With ice cream :)