Making foody things

Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I made chicken stock. From the few tastes I took, it came out rather good, but we'll see when I eventually use it in something. I followed Michael Ruhlman's Ratio for everyday stock. I love this book. It's got seriously interesting things in it - like how to make sausages from scratch and chicken stock and the best pancakes I've made (Alton Brown's pancake recipe is still one of my favourites, but this one is slightly easier for a Saturday morning).
So, a bit of a background on me and chicken stock. Every time we make roast chicken (which is about 4 times ever) I say to myself: I really should have a go at making stock from the bones rather than just throwing them out. So I'd shove the remains of the bird in the fridge, and look at it every time I'd open the fridge over the next few days, and say to myself, "Really should make stock." But it never happened, because I was never really motivated. And I'd end up throwing it out after a while. So yesterday, I finally psyched myself up for a whole day of keeping an eye on a pot of bones and water, and it turned out great. I did it in the slow cooker, because I know for a fact that I can't keep any of my pots on the hob at below a simmer.

And I'm making two breads today. A naan for Liam and a carrot / butternut squash / pecan loaf for me for later if I get peckish or tomorrow's lunch. And hopefully it'll still be good when Mammy and Daddy come to visit on Friday (I'm doubtful about that). As I write this, I have corn starch all over my right side. It fell out of the press and spilled all over me :/ And it doesn't clean up easily.

Ooh, and I made a salad dressing the other day. It involved carrots and ginger and vinegar and oil in the blender and turned out lovely.

So that's that. A quick round-up of other news: I am slowly finding homes for all our stuff in this house. I want to relearn to drive here in Ireland, but when it comes to actually going out driving I don't want to. I only have my learner permit for a year, so I can't really dawdle with it. I'm running the intro 5e D&D game. And I'm really enjoying trouncing Uruks in Shadow of Mordor.

Christmas and New Year

Despite not having any interesting plans, Christmas turned out really well. We bought turkey legs on the spur of the moment while shopping for Christmas dinner on Monday, and got some spuds and vegs to go with them. I brined them and dried them Christmas morning and put them on that afternoon. Boiled the spuds for mash and did the vegs in salt water (yummy). I made some stuffing for Liam. But the part of the meal I was most proud of was the gravy. Somehow, onions fried then dusted with potato starch and stirred up with chicken stock and herbs with a touch of pan scrapings from the turkey turned into an amazing just-thick-enough brown gravy with a perfect gravy shine. And I made it from scratch with no recipe and just a little research.

Liam got me an ant farm. They're all beside me now, wandering around their tunnels, hanging out. It's a cool present - one of those things you always want, but would never buy for yourself. I got him Back to the Future Lego, which gave us the idea to watch the movies. One and two, anyway. We didn't make it to three. Along with them them, we got through How to Train your Dragon and The World's End. I enjoyed all of them. Yea. It was a very relaxing day. Quiet, but nice.

New Years wasn't quite as good. We watched Aliens, and paused it in the middle for the countdown. And while I enjoyed the movie, I'd had this sense of apathy the whole rest of the day that pulled the whole thing down. So while the last day of 2013 wasn't great, the first day (evening) of 2014 more than made up for it. Again, it was nothing special, but we got some mulled wine and played games, and I got past the bit that was annoying me in Terraria and am mad back into the game again.

I feel I should mention something about Terraria. In the first two weeks I had it, I played about 100 hours. I have no idea how this happened. Well, actually - I know exactly how it happened. It's because it's less a game and more a building program, only fun and pretty with game elements thrown in. I built a tree-house and a dragonfly airship and an apartment complex for the characters who joined me. And then I decided to build a beach house, and the commute between the tree-house and beach-house was about 5 minutes (real time) and I had to keep going back and forth to re-supply. So yea. I can see where the time went. And all this back-and-forth made me want a teleporter, but the get the teleporter I needed a certain character which would only arrive in my apartment-village if I defeated a certain bad guy, which could only be defeated in a certain game-mode (Hardmode - which could mean the destruction of everything I'd built so far) so I created a new world and made it Hardmode and had to get stuff to survive and then other stuff to fight the bad guy.... and yea. I just took a very, very long and windey time and I got annoyed at all the hoops I had to jump through just to get a teleporter. BUT. Last night I did it. I defeated The Destroyer (quite easily once I had the right gear), and the Steampunker moved in and I bought teleporters off her. And I'm a happy bunny once again. Except I think I left the lid off my lava generator, and I'm afraid I'll come back to overflowing lava (not good).

Right so. I think that's everything. We'll be home in three weeks. Can't wait.

Fire

We managed to set the big oven on fire last night. I'll leave all wonderful details up to your imagination, but I will disappoint you by saying it was about the size of two candle flames. I found it all rather amusing, actually. Little flame burning away in the bottom of the cooker, happily suffocating itself.

That's all I really wanted to say.

Northern Adventure

I felt like something to eat the other evening, and usually I'd have a bowl of krispies. But we'd run out and I didn't feel like going to the shop to get more. So instead I made rice pudding from scratch. It turned out exactly like rice pudding from a can even down to the lack of a certain flavour that I can't quite put my finger on. I always feel like it's just not good enough. Or maybe there's some flavour in the pudding itself that I want to tone down or something. Anyway, it satisfied my desire for krispies.

A small group of us went to Flagstaff last weekend. While the others went to the Grand Canyon on Saturday, we headed south to Sedona and Jerome. Sedona is the same amazing as always. I think I could live there and the red rocks would never get old. Storm clouds were building on every part of the horizon as we wandered around, so we didn't dally.

Onwards to Jerome and while wandering Main St, I felt an awful sense of familiarity. I'd seen this before, and I knew exactly where. Google streetview. When we first moved to Arizona I'd looked up Jerome because that's where Maynard James Keenan (of Tool) set up his wine shop. But I'd completely forgotten that and when I saw this street again, I was like: we have to find Caduceus Cellars. We did find it and stopped in to sample wine made by a rock star. It was pretty good. It didn't taste "winey" if that makes any sense. There wasn't that horrible bitter taste that any wine I've ever had before has had. Some did, but we ended up buying two bottles that didn't. The rain came in then, so we grabbed a quick lunch and headed back to Flagstaff. We fit Lowell Observatory in that evening with the rest of the group, and weren't up for much else but food and bed afterwards.

Sunday, we strolled down to Flagstaff Extreme (and when I say strolled I mean we drove the few miles but didn't do it with any kind of urgency). It's an adventure course up in the trees and we had great fun balancing across logs and swinging from zip lines. Not fun was the rope swing. I was clinging on so hard I hurt my back and even with that I barely made it to the other side before my grip gave out entirely. My fingers were still sore an hour later. We were just under half way through the course when thunder rolled in and spoiled our fun. But they gave us a full refund, which is pretty amazing considering that thunder rolls in every afternoon this time of year.

The others headed to Meteor Crater, but we've also been there before, so we just headed home. I love Flagstaff, though. It's such a cool town, with an amazing vibe. And the people who live there are so cool. Chandler is so dull and homogenized in comparison. But at least we've been getting away most weekends recently, which is great.

Homemade Chocolate

I made chocolate today. I was food shopping this morning and randomly bought cocoa. I'd run out ages ago and it's nice to have around for making random hot chocolate when the mood strikes me. So when I got home I put the tin on the counter and was inspired to make something with it right away. "What can you make I cocoa," I asked the tin. Google answered; coconut chocolate. Equal parts coconut oil and cocoa, and enough honey (or other sweetener) to take the extreme bitterness out of it (which in my case was 2/3 the amount of the other two). It's really yummy. And mostly good for you. If I could handle the bitterness on its own I'd totally leave out the honey, but alas, my poor tongue is too sensitive to bitter tastes.

So that's in an icecube tray in the fridge and I take a tiny bite of one square every now and then.

Gravy makes such a difference

Dinner last night was amazing. I made bangers and mash and it was better than any I've had in a restaurant. They always try too hard, and add extra things into the mash or make their gravy overpowering. Mine was a perfect blend of buttery mash, salty-spicy sausages and sweet onion gravy. Delicious. I did do the restaurant thing of making a little mound of spuds and standing the sausages around it and pouring the gravy over the top. Nom nom nom.

I also made pumpkin pie yesterday. I was totally excited putting it into the oven, because the raw filling and raw base tasted amazing. What I didn't realise is that pie is not a straightforward thing to bake. So the edge of the crust got burned (badly enough to mean that it doesn't taste nice, but not so bad that you can't eat around it) and the filling didn't cook up properly. It was still quite liquid-y coming out. That didn't stop me nibbling at it while it was still warm, and I was less than enthusiastic about the taste. Somewhere along the way the sweet, rich flavours of the raw things had gone missing. So I put it in the fridge, but didn't forget about it. I had a small slice for breakfast (because even flavourless pie is better than dull cereal) and was pleasantly surprised. I think the flavours must have come back as it all rested together. And possibly pumpkin pie is better cold. So yea. I'm looking forward to eating the rest of it for breakfast over the weekend and next week, and desert and probably lunch, too. A whole pie is a lot to get through by yourself. I would invite friends over to help, but I don't think it's good enough. I don't want people thinking I'm a bad cook (because I'm not).

Did I mention we're off to see deftones in November? I'm so excited. I can't wait to go. I've wanted to see them since 1st year of college. And now it's happening.

I don't think I have any other news.

I'm such a lazy person

I don't know if I've mentioned on here how much I hate doing the dishes. I really do. There is no worse thing to do, in my opinion. Messing around with dirty water, getting it all over you and the kitchen. Scrubbing (I don't actually mind this part), rinsing, drying. I skip the last part. If there's something worse than washing the dishes, it's drying the dishes. The towel is wet after one pot and for the rest of the endeavour you're not really accomplishing much except putting towel bits all over your nice clean dishes. So I lie a towel on the counter and let the dishes drip onto that until the air dries them. Air doesn't mind drying dishes.
Anyway - I had to do the dishes today (our AirConditioning is still broken and I couldn't have the man see the ginormous pile of pots and other non-dishwasher things that had stacked up. and they had gotten a small bit smelly.) and it took me ages. The whole counter - about 1.5m x 1m - is filled with them drying. So that's done now anyway. I tell myself I'll try to do them as they occur from now on, but I know I won't. The weekend will come and I won't feel like doing it and then it'll be Monday and there'll be too many to face so I'll leave it til Tuesday, when there's even more and it's not until I have no pots and no pans left (and I have many) that they'll get done. Sigh.

I made French onion soup today for lunch. It was good. Not quite as good as that which you'd get a restaurant, but I didn't have 2 hours to let the flavours really develop - because I was hungry. The onions were slightly too crunchy and the broth wasn't quite flavourful enough. But it was good for lunch.

I can't think of anything else.

Air Conditioned

We got our air conditioning fixed today. It started dripping a bit and, being very pro-active, we got it seen to before it got any worse. So it turned out that the level of freon in the system had diminished (ooh, there's a nice word) and ice was forming on the unit, and it melting was what was dripping. Anyway, the maintenance guy topped up the freon (his words were, "I charged your unit." No you didn't. It needed its gas topped up. You don't charge gas. Americans are annoyingly loose with words and grammar. Ooh, another thing that seriously annoys me (because we've been watching a lot of Olympics) is when presenters say, "He medalled in swimming." No he didn't. He got a medal.) So anyway. It seems to be working much better now.

It does trouble me that the freon had vanished out of the system, though. Clearly we have a leak somewhere. And that's CFC simply pouring out into the atmosphere. It worries me. I think the guy just refilled it, rather than actually searching all the pipes and valves for a leak.

I can't think of anything else to say. Things are much the same as ever here. Ooh, I did make risotto for dinner today. It was yummy, but unfortunately I'm not so partial to al dente rice, so I ate it wishing for the rice to be a little softer. According to the internet it takes 40 minutes to get it really soft. 40 minutes of stirring is not my idea of fun for dinner.

Right. Bye so. I'm off to buy some blue thread to alter a pair of shorts which are too big.

Short Update

In the last week I've:
made berry frozen yoghurt (tastes amazing, needs about 15 minutes to melt a bit when it comes out of the freezer for good texture)
washed my hair with baking soda (going well so far, no greasy or dry hair)
fainted (whacked my knee on the table, pretty certain the dog had free reign to lick my face)
made griddle bread (just like Mammy used to make when we were younger - at least that's what my flawed memory tells me)
gotten loads of writing done (am 2/3 the way through the final, final edits - at least before a publisher gets at it)

Now. I get a star for productivity.

Digestive Biscuit Experiment I

Aside: I found a cicada outside the apartment and I brought him in and put him in a ventilated jar with the stem of a hunk of broccoli. I think he's half dead, but he moves every so often. I hope he finds the broccoli and gets strong again. Either that or he's moulting and I'm about to have something massive on my hands. He already has wings, though, so I don't think he's moulting.

We went to a baseball game on Sunday (Arizona Diamondbacks vs LA Dodgers). It was really fun. It went on for about 3 hours but the time flew. I now understand a lot more about baseball and the lady beside me commented about how I was getting better at cheering at the right times - rather than just because everyone else was cheering.

Anyway. I got it in my head last week that I wanted digestives (McVities ones). But instead of just going two miles to the shop (Tesco have a food shop here - Fresh and Easy - which sells English stuff), I decided I wanted to bake my own. So I looked up the ingredients on a pack of digestives and off I went. Of course, in my case this means making out spreadsheets and looking up ratios and doing random calculations. Then I had to figure out how to bake them. Anyway. The first experiment was a failure. The only resemblance to digestives is that they are sweet and wheaty. I mean, they taste nice - I've been munching away on them all morning - but they are not what I wanted. So, for posterity, here's the recipe, and what I would do differently.



134g ap flour
44g wheat flour
39g sugar
scant 1/8 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
3/8 tsp salt
1/2 tbsp dry buttermilk

40g canola oil
1/2 tbsp water
10g (scant 1/2 tbsp) golden syrup

First off, not nearly enough liquid. I had to add 3 or 4 tablespoons of water extra to the mix. The texture is too soild and the taste is not wheaty enough. So different flour - possibly cake flour, and definitely a coarse ground whole wheat (which I couldn't find in the shop). The sweetness seems about right. I think the next experiment needs more oil, possibly, and a marginally hotter oven (though the bottoms of the biscuits will get burned). Also people say to use white sugar for more crunch. Possibly more salt? You can sometimes taste the salt in digestives. Melted butter instead of oil, but the ingredients definitely list vegetable oil and not butter, so that's out. It's also possible I put in too much leavening.



Anyway. I'll get to that another day. I want to make dog biscuits for River too. so I'll do them on the same day.

I don't think I have any other news.

San Diego

We've been to San Diego before, for Comic Con, but never got a chance to see anywhere outside the Gaslamp Quarter. So last week we decided to go - booked a hotel (motel?) on Tuesday and drove to it on Friday. I did my first stint of long driving on the interstate. It was really fun. I was way more excited than lordkilljoy who's all "I've done this a million times." Anyway - I didn't crash, which is good. I'm very indecisive, though. I'd come up behind a car going a little slower than me and be all "should I overtake them?" Eventually I got sick of it and just slowed down so that all the cars were going faster than me. Except for some and then they'd speed up when I'd go to overtake and it was all very annoying. I even overtook a truck on a normal road (ie, no divide to keep cars on their own side of things). You have to go well out of your way to find one of them around here - a normal road, not a truck.

So we got in and went for dinner in Little Italy (which was just up the hill). Dinner was amazing. I've never been disappointed going out in San Diego. All the restaurants we've been to (this trip and the last) have been top class. We strolled around a bit, me dithering between wanting to live in San Diego because it's beautiful and the weather is perfect and not wanting to live there because it's a bit intimidating at night.

Saturday we went around the USS Midway (an aircraft carrier museum) which was incredible. Huge and full of metal and cool things and stuff you could touch. I spent the whole trip dreaming about being an engineer driving the ship, an enlisted naval person, an officer and a fighter pilot. I don't know if I've ever mentioned that I wanted (along with twenty billion other things (every time we passed a train on the road I'd express my desire to be a train diver)) to be a fighter pilot... I could say when I was younger, but I still daydream about it. Living on a ship, getting catapulted into the air and flying around. I don't think I could deal with the actual killing people part, though. So, we spent 4 hours wandering around and listening to the audio tour - it was a really cool morning.

That afternoon we went to the zoo, which we spent another 4 hours wandering around. It's amazing how you fit stuff in when you only have a short amount of time. The zoo was lovely, though. I'm so impressionable. Every time we go to a zoo, or park or something I wander around going: I want my garden to look like this. And as we sat in the aviary watching the birds flit around, was was like: I could totally build an aviary in my back garden. I don't even have a garden :/ Ah, imagination - I suppose I can have everything I want through you.

So anyway, the zoo was cool. There's a cable car that goes from one end to the other and takes you up above everything for a pretty unique view of the animals. And there were loads of acrobatics and shows on the evening we went (not sure if this is what it's like all the time). That night we went out again, for another amazing meal. Even though we were both exhausted, we still enjoyed it.

And on Sunday morning we went off to the beach for an hour or so. It was packed. We drove up to La Jolla and spent ages looking for parking. The beach was beautiful, though. White sand, blue-green sea, half metre waves. I tried to resist and only dip my feet in, but I couldn't. The water was warm (compared to Irish sea water) and the waves were inviting and with only a little encouragement from lordkilljoy I'd changed into my swimming things and was jumping around in the surf. It was brilliant.

And then we drove home - again I didn't crash. Go me!

I made crackers today. They are delicious - not dry at all. I've eaten about 10 (probably more) since they came out of the oven. And they're so crackery. They snap when you bite into them. And they are lovely with cheese. I'd say they are very successful. I used my new pasta maker to roll out the dough thin enough. Only I'm not very good at it yet, so some of my crackers are more thin and snappy than others.

I think that's it. I'm still playing Skyrim. I've clocked up a rather frightening number of hours at this stage. Still not as many as Oblivion, though and no where near as much as Morrowind or Daggerfall.

I crocheted a doily-coaster for the glass of water that sits on my desk. I was getting a bit fed up of having a water ring where it sits, so I did something about it. Now that I'm done with that I'm making a cute crochet robot.

I definitely think that's that.

P.S. Hey, Lj, what's going on with line breaks not auto-formatting?

nomnible

Banana bread is cooked and cooled and it is so delicious. I think it is the best banana bread I've ever had. It's so moist and delicate. Not at all dense, like most banana breads. There are banana-y pieces and chocolaty pieces and it is oh-so-difficult to have just one slice (but at 250 calories per slice (decent slice - about an inch), that's about all I should eat). I can post the recipe if anyone's interested.

I was just out walking River (in the 36° heat) and thought to myself, "I'd be quite happy if this weather went on forever." We'll see how I feel in five months' time.
I'm still getting up at half five to walk her. I think I've discovered that going back to bed straight after the walk (and sleeping until 9ish) works best for me. Napping in the middle of the day doesn't work because, apart from River barking, I sleep very lightly and wake up every few minutes.

We went to see Men in Black 3 last night. I really enjoyed it. Will Smith is his usual funny self, and the capers and character interaction are fun and harmless.

Did I mention lordkilljoy and I are playing Diablo 3? We're almost finished, just the last act to go. It's fun. I'm playing a wizard and I don't think I'll ever get bored of shooting a massive disintegration ray out of my hands.

beee-na-na

I think I just found the secret to good banana bread (possibly - it's not out of the oven yet, but the batter tastes yummy out). People say to use ripe bananas, but they never quite describe just how ripe they should be.
I've discovered that the best kind of ripe* is when the outside of the banana feels squishy, and the inside has sort of melted a little bit, and there may possibly be the start of some fermentation going on (bananas never tasted of rum before). You don't even need to mash them before throwing them into the batter, they sort of fall apart all by themselves.
I shall update again in an hour when this is cooked.

*I have a suspicion that this kind of ripe only happens at about 30°C (the ambient temperature of our apartment).

I may have thrown some chocolate chips in there too :)

Spinach Curry

I need to write down last night's curry before I forget about it. It was amazing and I made it by modifying a recipe - hence the needing to write down.

Serves 3 (or 2 very hungry)

Ingredients:

1 package firm or extra firm tofu, well pressed and sliced into 1 inch cubes
olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
3 tbsp garam masala (I used Shan Tikka spice, but garam masala is close enough)
1 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp minced ginger
2 tbsp water
1/3 cup greek yogurt
6oz baby spinach leaves
1 large tomato, chopped

Preparation:

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil. Add the spices (this amount makes it very spicy, use less if you like less spice) and water, mix together, then add the yoghurt. Mix together.

Add the spinach, and cover until wilted (about a minute). Stir to coat in the yogurt sauce. Remove from heat and let cool a bit while you move on to the next step.

In a separate large skillet or a wok, sautee tofu and onion in one tablespoon of olive oil until tofu is lightly crisp and onions are sweet.

Once spinach has cooled a little, process the spinach mixture in a food processor or blender until almost creamy.

Add the spinach to the skillet with the tofu and onions. Add the tomato and cook, stirring, until the tofu is well mixed with the spinach.

Serve with rice, naan, or whatever (I'll bet this would be amazing with chopped boiled potatoes).

Rye Pita?

I managed to make some kind of rye pita bread today. I've been experimenting with this yeast-free pizza base recipe over the last few days - making it into flatbread and cooking it like a pancake. Today I had the random idea to swap out the semolina and all purpose flours for cornmeal and rye flour. I also left out the baking powder. It mixed up well. I tried kneading it, but I don't know if rye has any gluten to work with the kneading. So I squashed it into a flat circle between 2 sheets of wax-paper and 2 chopping boards. It came out super flat, and super circly. Onto a pan it went and the pan went onto a super-hot cooker and the bread cooked away, until I turned it over, when suddenly it popped. It magically turned into pita bread - which I wasn't expecting at all. In surprise and delight I took it off the pan, tried a bit (acceptable but the dough needs some extra flavour), and proceeded to stuff it with cheese. Nom nom nom (this sentence translates to "I ate it, and it was good"). Now I just need to figure out something I can add to the dough to make it really yummy.

Food Entry and other things

I haven't done one of these in a while.

We made pizza last night. We each kneaded our own little bit of dough and put on our own toppings. It was wonderful. Mine had a ricotta / garlic powder / parsley sauce, caramelised red onions (when I say caramelised I really mean fried with oil, spices and salt), baby spinach leaves, smoked salmon, feta and parmesan cheese. Unfortunately all my flavours were strong and none really came to the fore (but I think the onions were winning). lordkilljoy had a standard pepperoni pizza (with extra red chile).



Lunch today is going to be amazing (if the rice will ever cook). I got random ingredients (stuff about to go off in the fridge) and threw them together into a one-pot meal thing. It's composed of brown rice, half a red onion, most of a red bell pepper, half a can of stewed tomatoes, salt and minced chipotle chiles in adobo sauce. Oh, and a squeeze of lemon juice. Nom nom nom. Even though I haven't eaten it yet, the bit of sauce I tried was delicious. I'm starving. Come on, cook. It's been an hour and the rice still isn't done.

I'm trying to get a bit fit for the 40km cycle me and penelope_stone are going on. Yesterday I cycled 5 (miles or kilometres) on the cycling machine in the gym, and today I did an easy 5 and a hard 5. I was happy to be done the hard 5, but by the time I got home I was fine again. So I think the machine is in km, because after 5 miles I'd be way more tired. And... on the road, it takes me 5 minutes to go 1 km. And I was on the machine for 15 minutes, and I was working a bit harder than I do when going to the shop... So I guess I have to work up to 45. I don't think I'll be able to add on 5kms every day. Or maybe, with breaks in between. Or maybe do half easy and half hard.

bread x ∞

I may have mentioned this before but... I love bread. Bread is the best thing ever. You can have it with butter, or toast it. You can rip it into pieces and nom each bit individually, or you can stuff a whole slice into your mouth. You can dip it into soup, or sop gravy up with it. You can build with bread (seriously, the Chinese used rice flour as mortar).

I made some lovely bread today. Even better than last weeks scones... which were good, but not perfect. I found out that if you put a lot of baking powder into bread that it can give it a strange taste. 3 teaspoons of power to 1 cup of flour is too much baking powder for my poor sensitive taste buds. Apparently, there are 2 kinds of baking powders and one has this taste for some people, but the other never does. I'll have to change the brand I have.

I'm going for a driving lesson on Tuesday. Ahhh. I'm going to try to act all confident so that I can just do the test at the end of this lesson (and pass it, of course) so that I don't have to go for my second lesson. I'm such a social goof. Maybe I'll really love the lesson and want to do the second one.

Anyway. I don't have much other news.

hot weather

It's starting to get hot here. The apartment was at 29 degrees last night (that's partly because I'd been baking too), and today cycling to the shop I felt that another few degrees and it will be too hot for cycling. Don't know what I'll do for food then :( The climate is so mild here, that the leaves on the trees don't fall off - they are pushed off by the new growth in spring. It's really weird to see all the leaves falling now. And if you are curious, like I was: Phoenix is the second hottest city in the world. Yuma, AZ is the hottest, and somewhere in Egypt is the third hottest. And I live here. Crazy.

I don't have a whole lot of other news. I made chicken cordon bleu last night. It was amazing. The breadcrumbs were so perfect. I had some issues with the cheese - it wasn't gooey enough. It didn't melt out of the chicken when you cut into it. So if I make them again I will look for some other way to do the filling (last night was just grated swiss cheese (which I don't think I like the taste of)).

Here's a photo, because I was so proud:

Pancake Day

On nom nom. I just made the most delicious pancakes ever (okay, maybe not ever - that honour may go to the pancakes I made for lunch last week). I used Alton Brown's recipe, but cut down to size (I ended up with enough for 4 pancakes). Anyway. I've never had a recipe before where I enjoyed eating pancake with nothing on it. I find them flavourless and boring. But this mix. Oh wow. It was like a delicious, fluffy, soft, warm bread. (That sentence may be subject to hyperbole, but not by much.) I ate them with nothing on them. Not even the charms of nutella worked. I did put a bit of grated parmesan cheese on the last one and it made it even yummier.

So... last week's lunch pancakes - also delicious. I didn't have any bread (still haven't made any) and I didn't have anything for lunch. There was some pancake mix in the pantry (we have a pantry :) ) but I didn't feel like boring pancakes. I also had some fresh basil and a half a can of tomatoes in the fridge, so I threw them into the processor and mixed them into pancake batter. I cooked them - putting some cheese on top and they were so delicious. I totally didn't even remember than pancake day was coming up next week when I made them. But anyway - two delicious pancake meals. Nom nom.

What else - we got a basil plant. Woo. Can't wait for it to get big enough so that I can take leaves off it without harming it.

I cast off the string top I was knitting and started an easier one. I would have stuck with the first, but I measured it and it was coming out 4 inches too big, and the pattern didn't work so well with the colouredy wool. So the one I'm working on now is plainer, easier to knit and looks lovely.

Was noch? We went out on Friday to a mardi gras themed dinner. It was quite a good night. I wore 5inch wedges and my feet weren't so sore at the end of the night (but I was sitting for a load of it) and I didn't trip over. Yeay.

Ooh - River's doing really well with the whole not barking when I tell her to be quiet. She actually listens to my command. Woo. She's still doing paw like mad, and she's mostly grasping roll over. She still has no comprehension that down means lie down, but I think that could be that we also say down when we want her to stop jumping on us.

Finally - I'm back playing Skyrim again. It's such a fun game. Steam opened their workshop (where they collect mods) so I've been having fun trying out different mods. I must download the creation kit and have a go messing with my own mod.

Bread is Delicious

I have a honey-wheat loaf doing in the oven and it smells absolutely delicious. I really need to get myself another loaf pan, so that I can make two loaves at a time. It doesn't really seem justified - all the effort for one loaf (which depending on how scrumptious it is might not even last a day). I love this baking malarkey. It's amazing being able to eat your bread you've made yourself, that you know exactly what went into.

I now have 10 rows done on my string top. I'm a regular speed-knitter I am [sarcasm]. It's going to take months and months to finish at this rate. Though lordkilljoy's going on a wwe stint tonight, so I might get a lot done if I sit on the couch with him (rather than sitting at my desk playing games).

The wwe stint is therapy from a terrible, terrible end of week. Yesterday (was it only yesterday?) he lost the car keys. When they didn't turn up by noon today, he called a tow-truck to come pick up the car. Half way back to the rental place, the keys showed up. So typical, you really just have to shake your head and shrug. That's life, isn't it? Anyway, we have another car now, so it's all good.

I don't think I have a whole lot of other news.