Something I learned today

Today I learned that you must puncture the foil seal on a tube of caulking for it to really work, instead of using brute force which didn't work! in the end, the caulking gun and tube worked like they were supposed to, but in the meantime i spent about 10 minutes attempting to wash off the silicon based caulk with water and soap that had burst out the back from my use of force. if you have ever had the pleasure of having your hands and arms covered in a film of silicon based caulking, you know my soap and water efforts were futile. i eventually figured out that i just needed to dry rub it off with an old t-shirt that i had laying around. the tub looks great tho! and my hands are clean

Slow to Post...

Howdy y'all...

I have been absent for a little while. I have been busy finding a house to move to with my sister. We have found a great house, been approved and we are signing the lease today. I will be moving in the next two weeks and will be a bit busy with that so posting may suffer. I have completed two recipes however have not had a chance to create the posts. They will be coming! No fear!

Orange Cup Cakes 1/10/10

On the cover of the cookbook that I am cooking my way through (see Cooking The Book) there is a beautiful photo of a cupcake in a blue stripped cupcake paper with a gorgeous dollop of orange icing with a silver nonpareil. This is a marvelous looking cupcake. This recipe is not identified on the front cover, in the index, the back cover, the publisher’s notes, nor in any place in the book that I can find and I have looked. I decided that this cupcake was more than likely the Orange Cup Cakes on page 40, however with a different icing than the recipe offers. I decided to give it a go nonetheless. I honestly didn’t want to venture out to get silver nonpareils so I chose to decorate the cup cake with sprinkles that I already had.

First up, the ingredients: Unsalted butter, sugar, flour, eggs, vanilla, orange juice, and orange zest.  We will combine 2/3 cup sugar, 4 ounces softened unsalted butter, 1 1/2 self raising flour, 2 eggs, 2 teaspoons vanilla, and 1/2 cup orange juice, 

Looks pretty huh?

Mix together on low for 2 minutes, until blended. Increase speed for another 2 minutes until smooth.

Add in 3 tablespoons orange zest.

Mix together. Using a spoon or measuring cup, I prefer a 1/3 cup measuring cup, fill the lined cup cake tin.

Fill the cups evenly. If you run out of mix before having filled all the cake, fill the empty cup with water, this helps prevent the pan from overheating and overcooking the nearby cup cakes. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden.  For the icing, I looked through the book and found a recipe for another icing that I felt was similar to the one on the cover. For this icing, you simmer water in a saucepan, in a heatproof bowl you combine 2 tablespoons butter and one cup powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons water. Mix the sugar, butter, and water with a whisk over the heat until smooth. Using a spoon, place a dollop of the icing after it has cooled off for a minute onto the cup cake. Immediately decorate the icing with a sprinkle or decoration of your choice.

In the future, I think if making this icing again, instead of using water, I would use juice instead of water. I felt the icing didn’t have any enough flavor and instead was just sweet. I would most assuredly make this recipe again, the cup cakes themselves are delicious and light with a wonderful orange flavor. Next time I will make the orange butter cream icing recipe that goes with the cup cake recipe.

Orange Cup Cakes

4 ounces unsalted butter, softened

2/3 cup sugar

1 1/2 self raising flour, if you don’t have self raising flour, you can add 2 teaspoons of baking powder per cup of all purpose flour.

1/2 cup orange juice

2 teaspoons vanilla

2 eggs

3 tablespoons orange zest

Icing

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons butter

2 tablespoons water/juice

color as desired with food coloring

What I'm Listening to These Days..

Like everyone else in America right now I am listening to Ke$ha's Tik Tok: Great party song, it hits all the right spots in my ears and makes me want to groove. Her new album was just released and I may have more on that later, but there are some fun songs on there, but she really needs to learn how to perform live if she wants to go beyond a one hit wonder. This year's Lady Gaga, I think not.



David Guetta continues to create lovely body movement enducing tracks. Guetta featuring Kid Cudi with Memories brings me onto the dance floor everytime.



Coming off his new album out this Spring, Morgan Page has produced yet another gorgeous dance track "Fight For You." Unknown outside the top 40 dance world, you really should check him out if you have any inclination for being on a dancefloor.



Tiesto is up next with featured artist Sneaky Sound System. "I Will Be Here" is a dancefloor classic in the making from one of the best DJ's of the last decade.



Esmee Denters, that lovely Dutchy youtube find serves up her first single off her debut album. Signed to Justin Timberlake's label, she presents us with a very decent "Outta Here." While not exploring new worlds in dance music, this is still a great debut.

Pretzels 1/9/2010

In the first of what will be many recipes, I have made Pretzels. I began by gathering the ingredients. We have flour, eggs, sugar, butter, yeast, milk, and salt both flake and rock. We start by proofing the yeast, that ever loveable living but dormant friend of ours that provides for the creation of lift and air; it does so by converting the sugars into carbon dioxide and ethanol. We put our ¼ teaspoon of sugar and one teaspoon of yeast into a bowl. One yeast packet contains 2 ¼ teaspoons of yeast. We pour into 5 fluid ounces of warm milk into the bowl of sugar and yeast. We stir it, and let it sit aside for ten minutes. The yeast will develop over this time and produce small bubbles on the surface; it will foam up and should increase in volume. This is all very good, if it doesn’t happen this is bad. It means your yeast is dead and you must start again with new yeast and sugar and warm milk.

We put the flour and salt into a large bowl, stir together. We create a well in the middle. We pour in the milk, yeast, sugar mixture and 1 ounce of melted butter. We mix it together, it combines and lumps up. It won’t be smooth at this point; we must turn it onto a floured surface and knead it for ten minutes. Adding flour to reduce the stickiness and it will smooth out.After the dough is kneaded place the dough into an oiled bowl and oil the top of the dough. Cover and set aside for an hour or until doubled in size.At this point, dough is giving off a wonderful smell, if you have not ever made bread yourself, take this moment to savor this smell. It is one of the most beautiful smells created in the kitchen. It reminds me of many times when I was younger and I would help my Mom in the kitchen making rolls. This is a lovely moment in the process.

We now must punch down the bread to release some of the gases in the dough and knead the dough again. I cut up the dough after kneading it into small pieces and placed back into the oiled bowl and cover them up while working with each piece.

We take each piece and roll them out, they will shrink back on you when rolling, but you are stronger and your force will prevail. Roll them out to about 14” to 16” inches. Shape the rolled dough into a pretzel. Create a circle. Cross the ends over each other. Twist the ends over each other. Either my hands are HUGE, or this particular pretzel is pretty darn small.

Lay the completed pretzels on a lined baking sheet. Cover, and set aside for 20-30 minutes to let rise again. Brush the pretzels with beaten egg white. Sprinkle coarse salt.Spray with water and bake in a preheated 375⁰ oven for 12-15 minutes. Delicious and golden brown, covered in salt. Soft and light and fluffy inside with a slightly crusty outside, eaten alone or with mustard or cheese sauce they make a delightful snack.

They are best if you store them in a paper bag and not a plastic bag, I would recommend that you eat them sooner rather than later (they are just a better product if you don’t leave them around too long) I wouldn’t recommend this as a make a day a head for a party snack, they simply are better the day they are made.

Recipe:

1 teaspoon dried yeast

1/4 teaspoon sugar

5 fluid ounces warm milk

1 1/2 cups white flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 ounce butter, melted

1 egg yolk, beaten

coarse sea salt

Cooking the Book

I am embarking on a new adventure as of today. I am going to be cooking my way through a cookbook I recently received from my sister. There is a story behind this book for me. Last January my sister gifted this exact book to a friend of her's that I had just met. I fell in love with this book on first glance, beautifully photographed, simply written, wonderful recipes. I exclaimed my love for this book to my sister. She informed me that she had a copy for me but that I would have to wait until Christmas 09 to receive the book. Christmas 09 came, and the book is now in mine!

First published in 2000, The Essential Baking Cookbook, hails from Australia. Hence it includes discussions of ingredients that are not common in the US, available, but not always available at my local Safeway. Caster sugar, vanilla sugar, creme fraiche, copha, frangipane, treacle, etc. I will find them however in my adventure. There is an extensive discussion at the beginning of the book that explains what each of these are and a variety of other ingredients and terms that the recipes call for. For instance I did not know that one should not use confectioners' sugar for making royal icing. Apparently in confectioners' sugar there is a small amount of starch added to prevent lumping. The starch does not provide for the correct mixing of royal icing, sure it works pretty well, but it could be better. What is needed is icing sugar, I hoping that this is what is in my cupboard labeled powdered sugar. We will find out.

At 302 pages the book covers teatime, cakes, biscuits, slices, sweet pies and pastries, savoury pies and pastries, bread, and celebration cakes. Teatime includes scones, muffins, friands, cupcakes, buns, and traditional tea cakes, and sweets in general. Cakes covers well - cakes. Chocolate, ginger, carrot, pound, angel food, fruit, nut, and roll cakes. Biscuits are what we call cookies. Slices are what we stateside call bar cookies. We then enter the crazy world of sweet pies and pastries, tarts, puff, choux, eclairs, and baklava. Savoury pies and pastries are up next. Beef, chicken, vegetables, eggs and cheese rule in this world. Bread is the next baking staple served up. From sour to rye and rolls, the basics are all covered and then some. Celebration cakes finish us up in the book. These are the difficult, impossibly beautiful, layered, decorated, delicious and most daunting of recipes in the book. This chapter scares me. From the Rose Petal Cake, which is covered in candied rose petals, to the towering craziness that is a Croquembouche.

I will not be obsessive about completing every recipe in the book, unlike Julie Powell of Julie and Julia fame. There are simply some things I won't eat. Fish! Yuck! I have never cooked, or liked fish. Try as you might to convince me otherwise, I won't do it. I have tried eating fish in my life. Someone will say "oh but this doesn't taste like fish at all" but I disagree as I spit it out.

One of my favorite sections of the book is that with each chapter comes a "what went wrong" page. It shows pictures of correctly finished recipes and pictures of the various things that can go wrong with the recipes. Too much flour, yeast was dead, baking soda was old, the oven was too hot, the oven wasn't hot enough, the fruit isn't evenly distributed throughout the cake, etc. It gives you an explanation and a fix for each of these problems. This section I see as the most valuable the book has to offer. It tells me, the novice baker, the mistake I've made and how to avoid them in the future.

My goal is to complete one to two recipes a week. If I am feeling particularly punchy I might get to three recipes every once in a while. My co-workers and friends will be my guinea pigs. I will test the results with them. There is no possible way that I could eat as much as will be produced. I will attempt to do a Pioneer Woman Cooks style post for each recipe. If you don't know who she is, check out her blog at http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/ If nothing else there will be commentary on the process and pictures of the final product, hopefully the steps in between will also be captured in digital. I plan on skipping around through the book, starting with what I believe to be the easier recipes. Should be a lovely adventure.

New Music - Kelis - Acapella

Kelis has a new song out. Acapella. I love its rhythm, the pulsing beat and her vocals are beautiful. It's a banging track that I love to listen to to get me ready for the night. No video for the song yet. Yet another wonderful track produced by David Guetta.

Kelis came onto the US music scene with a vengence in the much remembered "Milkshake" in 2003, but had her debut album out in 1999. Kelis was much more successful in Europe than the US before "Milkshake." She had a mild hit with "Bossy" off her next album and subsequently began to have record company issues. She has since signed with the Will.I.am group at Interscope. Her new album "Flesh Tones" should be out in early 2010. If the first single is any idication, I am going to be in love with this album.

Progress Report 1-6-10

So far so good.

I have thus far been mildly successful in perusing my new year goals. I haven't accomplished everything thus far. We are only about a week into the new year and thus some of the non daily tasks are going to be spaced out further. With daily tasks I have been able to accomplish most everything on a regular pace. I am quiet happy with my success and myself for meeting these goals. I will be taking these things slowly, letting each day come one by one. If I don't meet it today, I have tomorrow. I won't get down on myself too much for not meeting the goal for the day or week. I have time, the changes will be slow.

Summary:

Successes:

• No Soda
• Making Lunch
• Blogging
• Walking

Not yet met:

• Yoga
• Waking up a 6:30
  

New Year

It's a new year, and for all intents and purposes a new decade. 2010 people. It's been over ten years since everyone freaked out about y2k and nothing happened. Its been ten years since I was in high school. I've lived in three different cities, nine different houses/apartments, and just one state. I've graduated high school and college and am now in the workforce and paying taxes. I've yo-yo'd in weight. I've been depressed. I've been in love. I have come into my own as an outgoing, out, proud, happy, engaging, smart, dedicated, and loving person. I have dealt with my own homophobia, sexism, racism and classism (the work is ongoing and won't stop.) I've grown as a person. I've learned that it is better to smile and nod, to not stir the pot, learned how to impress strangers, and that I can scare people. I've learned how to pick my battles. I look forward to the next year and the new decade.

I move forward with goals that I would like to achieve in the next year and the new decade. I call them goals and not resolutions. These are things I would like to achieve, but it won't be the end of the world if I don't. Resolutions feel negative to me. "I resolve that I will not.. blah blah blah" It automatically puts you into a "this has to be achieved or I am a failure as a living breathing human being" state of mind. A goal is ongoing. If I don't achieve it for today; there is tomorrow. If I am not able to get it accomplished this week; there is next week.

I have tried to make my new year goals smaller ideas that move me into a direction that will make me happier and healthier. Instead of "loose weight" doing things that I think will help achieve that goal in small steps. Instead of "feel better about work" it's two small goals that I think will help me in that area of my life. My new decade goals are larger life affirming and healthy goals that I would like to see through to completion by the start of 2020.

New Year Goals:

• Blog an hour, 5 days a week. I fell off the bandwagon, I loved being on the bandwagon.
• Wake up at 630 and do a half hour to hour of yoga before work. Flexibility and balance. Yay!
  
• Walk 30 minutes 4 days a week. Reduce chance of diabetes, raises good cholesterol, helps circulation, being more active and not such a couch potato.
  
• Personal Finance Plan. I am in debt, I don't want to be there. I don't really know what I spend my money on, I forget and lose track of that. I'd like to keep better track of that and manage my money better.
  
• Better Paying Job/2nd job. I need to make more money. Pretty simple as that.
  
• No Soda. I drink way too much of the stuff, too much sugar and calories in those things. It's too easy to consume. I would like to stop that.
  
• Flexitarian diet, less than 5 servings of meat a week. I did the vegetarian thing for a year a while back, I felt great about myself, I lost weight, my skin was better, but I missed meat. Maybe I can do something in the middle ground.
  
• Food Journal. I think keeping track of what I am eating, and how it is making me feel will keep me more regular, help me assess what I might need to stop eating, and assess what I need to bring into my diet.
  
• Make lunch three days a week. Cheaper, active eating and vegetarian options made easier.
  
• Limit going out for meals to one a week. Saves money.
  
• Portion Control. I feel that when I sit down to eat, I don't actively pay attention to how much food is on the plate and how much of it I consume. Thinking about the food and eating it slower makes for happier and healthier meals.
  
• Purchase Planning of Wants and Needs. Oh gosh impulse buying is out of hand. I want money to be in my bank account, I don't want to be living paycheck to paycheck. My goal is to lessen my impulse purchasing and assess my needs and wants. Create a list of these things in my life, to have more on the want list than the need list. In much the same way I want to think about the food I eat, I want to think more about the things I buy.
  
• Work before Play, accomplish work task goals for the day before blogging, Facebook, and Google reader. Accomplishing daily work tasks and goals before getting onto the internet for my regular blogging, facebooking, and RSS reading.
  

New Decade Goals:

• Out of Debt. I am currently in debt about $35,000 (it's a guess, I don't know the actual number) School has me in debt about $29,000 of that. My wages are currently being garnished at 15% which will at my current wage get me out of school debt within 9 years. I have about $6,000 of credit card debt. Money long past spent in my late teens and early 20's, mostly on things I no longer have. I want this burden and black mark on my life to be lifted. One of my new year goals is to create a personal finance plan. In this plan I will have it set to get me out of debt before the end of the decade.
• Own Dream Car. My dream car is a Jeep Wrangler. Most of the details beyond that are up in the air. I love the sporty look and the option of it being a "convertible."
  
• Weigh less than 200lbs. I don't even know how much I currently weigh, I don't even know if less than 200 is possible for me, I do however know that I weigh too much and want to weigh less and I think the closer to 200 the better.
  
• Fully paying my own way through life. Earning enough money and spending money in a wiser way to not rely on my parents for my daily, monthly, yearly money needs. I hope this is accomplished sooner rather than later.