Writers itch

A lot has changed since I last wrote anything for my humble little blog. Oh, I've made plenty of entries in my mind. You would be amazed at my wit and my cleverly turned phrases that never quite made it out of my brain and onto this blog, or paper or even Facebook. I've lived a whole slough of life experiences that will go unchronicled. And I think I'm fine with that. Because the point of life, after all, is to live it and not just to chronicle it all for someone else. I'm sure I'll rant about that at a later date.
Anyway, after many moves, a pet's passing, a new dog, a baby, a job quitting for me and a new job in a new state for my husband.. almost everything in my life has changed. I spent most of that time just riding the current. But now that I finally feel established again and like the world has stopped spinning (in a good way, not in an apocalyptic way), I've been feeling that itch to write again. We'll see how long it lasts.

Ok, fine

Alright, I guess it has been long enough for me to have kept you all guessing. I just started a new private blog for this little baking club that we started at my school and it has made me fall in love again with blogging.
Just in time for Thanksgiving, too! So here is what I am thankful for this year:

1> My little Kitty, who had a very close scrape with death this year and is still on 4 different medicines. Actually, make that 5, if you count the vitamins!

2> My new apartment! It's huge and bright, has a washer and dryer, and is in just the coolest place ever. Come visit asap.

3> A BREAK!!!! It's been a long time coming.

4> A great boss. I decided to change pretty much everything about the way I teach this year. One of my boss's mottos is: If it isn't broken, break it. So I did. And it's been a great success so far.

5> My parents. Almost every time I talk with them they remind me that they pray for me every day. There aren't many people in the world with that kind of prayer support and I feel blessed beyond measure.

6> My husband, who entertains me and encourages me, challenges me and loves me.

Bed and Breakfast

Something that I have wanted to do for the longest time is run a bed and breakfast. Ok, I'd like to OWN the bed and breakfast and also run it. I know I probably have a very glorified idea of what would be involved in this particular business venture, but I honestly think I would enjoy it a lot. I would love answering the phone and booking the rooms, putting clean bedding on the beds, checking people in and out, coming up with new and exciting breakfast recipes, shopping for little spa baskets and special soaps for the bathrooms. Shoot, even the laundry sounds fun.

I have only stayed in one bed and breakfast in my life. It was a little place in Shipshewana, Indiana: Amish country. The part we stayed in was a converted barn and they had pretty little quilts on all the beds. I fell in love.

I love the idea because it's so much smaller and more personal than a hotel. You'd get to meet so many people and hear so many interesting life stories. And I would have some super well-behaved dogs like Kitty is becoming (fingers crossed!) that would lie around the place and everyone would love.

So again, rich benefactors, if you would like to invest in a bed and breakfast, I'm your girl to run it.. at least until I make enough money to buy my own place! Here is a little something to get you started: http://www.bamboogroupsa.com/?section=detail&code=AH001

Moving stuff around

Ok, so this is going to be a weird one. My husband was telling me about this department in his company that is in charge of moving stuff around. Here's the idea- his company is always moving, closing, opening and merging smaller branches of offices all over the city and suburbs. So there is an entire department that solely exists to keep track of all of their furniture- desks, chairs, lamps, etc- move them to and from their warehouse, make sure that everything gets to the right place at the right time and make sure that each office has what it needs. They have crews of guys that do the actual, physical moving of the office equipment.

Even weirder, this job sounds fascinating to me. I love minutiae. (sp?) I love making sure I have enough of everything and thinking ahead, prioritizing, planning. Which is hilarious, because I am the most disorganized person ever. But as I thought about it some more, I realized that it would really only be fun for maybe a month. And then I would start having these nagging questions in the back of my mind- Does what I do matter? Am I contributing anything remotely valuable to the world?

I already have these questions about teaching school, which is supposed to be the most fulfilling job in the world. So I don't think I would come up with any more fulfilling feelings from making sure that there are enough desks in the Main Street office.

Acquisitions editor

Well it's a good thing that I postponed my post about being an editor because I have narrowed down my editorial aspirations. I don't just want to be an editor, I want to be an acquisitions editor. I want to be an editor because all I ever want to do is read books. Imagine reading for a living! The reason I want to work in acquisitions is because you get to read all the new manuscripts and decide which ones to publish. If I do say so myself, I think I have pretty decent taste in books. At this point in my life, I also think it would be fun to work with words, and maybe a few people. One of the things that is wearing on me about teaching is all the people I see all the time. Having 140+ kids marching in and out of my classroom is getting a little rough for my introverted soul.

Editor

This has been one of the craziest weeks ever. It always is. It is... Homecoming Week, a.k.a. the week where kids won't pay attention to anything, regardless of how much time you put into planning the class. First of all, the kids are all encouraged to wear different themed outfits each day of the week.

Monday was Pajama Day. Who, in their right mind, would choose to encourage TEENAGERS to wear PAJAMAS on a MONDAY?! Let's just say we didn't get much done that day. While we're being honest, let's also just say that I happily partook in the pajama wearing.

Tuesday was ugly sweater day. The rule was that the kids could wear jeans only if they had on an ugly sweater. Otherwise, they had to be in full dress code.Now I know that people say our educational system is getting a little lax and that families are breaking down and kids don't know as much as they used to. I have seen brief glimpses of the truth in that here and there but never more so than on Tuesday. It never occurred to me that kids would have any question about the definition of a sweater. No, a sweatshirt is not a sweater. No, a long sleeve t-shirt is not a sweater. No, a big T-shirt with the arms cut off is not a sweater. I decided to not even get into the argument of what would constitute ugliness or not. As long as the kid had on a SWEATER, I let them squeak by. But can I get any amens out there that a solid navy blue American Eagle sweater is probably not an ugly sweater? Come on.

Wednesday was decades day. I was trying to decide what I should wear for decades day and wasn't coming up with much. Somebody suggested to me that I wear a poodle skirt. 2 questions- 1> Why would anyone assume that I would just have a poodle skirt lying around my house? 2> Since I do, however, have a real poodle, could I somehow attach my real poodle onto a skirt and wear that? I settled on dressing as a hippie.

Thursday was tie-dye day. I had no incident with this day. Neither did I have any tie-dyed items to wear. I did, however, overhear a kid trying to explain to another teacher that their shirt used to be tie-dyed, but it had washed out.

Friday, today, was a spirit day. So Freshmen and Seniors wore blue, Sophomores and Juniors wore white. It was a pretty good day. We had shortened classes, a pep assembly and then they fed us all hot dogs, chips, cookies and soda. And then we all got to leave early. Amen.

I never even got to the editor part of my post. Apparently I need an editor to keep me on track. I will leave the title, however, to entice you to read all about how I want to be an editor whenever I should happen to blog again. It could be tomorrow, it could be never.

Chocolatier

Before I jump into my next vocational venture, I must start with this side-note. I got into a cooking frenzy today (it's called avoiding schoolwork) and now I have chocolate chip pumpkin bread and chipotle lentil soup going at the same time. My house smells.. interesting. It's kind of disgusting, to be honest. I firmly believe that they will both turn out superbly. I also firmly believe that I will not serve them together.

My dream job of today is to be a chocolatier. The movie in my head has me tromping around the rainforests of south america, finding the perfect cocoa bean suppliers and improving peoples' lives dramatically by discovering their cocoa crops and helping these small farmers succeed. Then I see myself in my spotless, Spanish colonial chocolate kitchen crafting artistic masterpieces that critics will rave as 'sinfully divine'- wrap your head around that one! Aaahhh. What a great life.

I tried my hand at chocolatiering last summer (2009). It was an interesting, inspiring, and frustrating journey. And by journey, I mean that I made maybe 2 different batches chocolates. I made lemon ganache truffles and chocolate covered caramels. Yes I made the ganache and caramels by hand, thank you very much. Both chocolates TASTED good but chocolate is tremendously fussy and it never quite set up like I wanted it to. Oh, add expensive to the list of adjectives that describe my chocolatiering journey. Once you start buying things like candy thermometers, dipping forks, vanilla beans and Scharffen Berger chocolate, it really starts to add up. So if anyone has loads of money and would like to send me to culinary school to learn what the heck I'm doing, buy all of my equipment and ingredients, and fund my expeditions to South America, please respond in the comments section. :)

Party Planner

I have been thinking a lot lately about what I want to do with the rest of my life. At this stage in the school year, I don't want to ever teach again and I find myself interested in so many different careers. So maybe I'll blog about all the ideas I have. If you have any suggestions, just jump on in and give me some advice!

Today I want to be a wedding coordinator or party planner. I would love to just consume myself with flower arrangements and cake and photography. Keith and I were picking up a cake at a bakery this morning and I was imagining that I was a wedding planner. It was the morning of the wedding that I was planning and I was picking up a dozen donuts and taking them over as a little surprise for the bride and her friends as they were getting ready. Aren't I just so thoughtful?!

The only problems I can foresee are as follows: weddings and parties are stressful and people get crazy when they're stressed. I don't know that I would want to always deal with stressed-out people. Also, weddings and parties are always on the weekends, so I would always have to work when other people are off. Thus my only friends would be other party planners.

Home free

So Keith has been out of town for the last two days and comes home tonight. I can barely remember any other time when he has gone out of town without me. I am always up and leaving him to go here, there and everywhere. So when this little trip came up, I got so excited about what I would do with my free time. Hurray! I could do anything I wanted, eat anything I wanted, accomplish any sweaty, annoying task I wanted.. So I watched loads of HGTV and Gilmore girls, made flan from scratch (astonishingly simple recipe at the end of this post), purged my pantry of everything that had already expired- some expiration dates were 2007!! Now I know that my grandma could beat me hands down on that. I'm sure she has things that expired in the 80s, but for someone who just started keeping their own house in 2006, it's pretty horrifying. I organized said pantry and it looks so beautiful! The only problem is that everything is exactly in its place and there is no room for anything else. So each time I find something randomly in my living room or bedroom that should be in my pantry (hey, I'm still new at this..), I freak out. And I'm looking at my grocery shopping list and having a little panic attack about where I will put the staples that I have run out of.
The other huge task that I accomplished was sorting through all of my clothes and getting them in the right place. Because of several trips and LOTs of laziness, I had accumulated quite a little pile of clothing on top of my dresser. Now the dresser top is visible again, my old, stained or torn clothes have been thrown away or put in Kitty's little house so she can rip them even more, my closet is organized and my drawers are full. What a good feeling.
Now I am surveying the house and I see a million other projects calling my name- sort through old mail and papers, take out the recycling, do laundry, straighten the living room, clean out the car so we can sell it, sweep the porch and replant the pots whose plants died..
I have one thing to say. COME HOME KEITH!!! I can't handle any more projects.


Frighteningly Easy Flan:
Mix together
8 eggs
1 can (14 oz) sweetened, condensed milk
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

In a pan, melt down 1 1/2 C sugar until it becomes a thin caramel and turns golden brown. (don't stir until it is pretty well melted!) Pour this caramel in the bottom of a 9" cake pan.
Add the egg/milk/vanilla mixture.
Put the cake pan in a larger pan with some water in it and bake at 300 degrees for 70 minutes. Run a knife around the edges and flip onto a plate (with edges to hold in the caramel!) and let cool.
The end.

Kitty

This is my puppy, Kitty. She is a little curly mass and we are starting to just love her. In an ideal world, we would have loved her all along, but a few sleepless nights and little mishaps made it difficult. But now she sleeps until 7 am and she only potties outside and she is wonderful.

 I know all you dog people will look at this picture and have an instant little heart attack about a wire being so close to a puppy. Uhh... a puppy being so close to a wire. Whatever. Same thing. Another thing that makes Kitty wonderful is that she leaves wires alone. Yes, yes, dog lovers of America, I will make sure they are out of the way if she is ever home alone and out of her crate.

One great thing about Kitty is that she loves to play with just about anything. One of her favorite toys right now is toilet paper tubes. She can play with them for hours and she gets them stuck on her nose like this:

On Friday, I took my curly little puppy to the groomer because poodles have to get all kinds of grooming done that I was not quite up for doing- like pulling massive quantities of hair out of their ears. No thank you. We dropped her off at noon and picked this thing up at three:

It may be hard to tell from this picture, but she has little white bows in her hair above her ears. She looked miserable. Now, this little pink triangle that was around her neck is her new favorite toy. She wrestles around with it and tries to tear it apart. I think it's payback for all she had to go through.

Italian Lentil Salad

Ok, time to catch up on my Giada recipe adventures. Last Tuesday, I decided to make the Italian Lentil Salad. Obviously, it has lots of lentils in it.. So I cooked those up in a sauce pan. Then, you chop up and add all of these things:

 Back to front, left to right, grapes, hazelnuts, cucumber, scallions, bell pepper, and then the lemon you use for zest and juice. You mix all of this with some olive oil, salt and pepper, and then you serve your cold salad. Easy enough, right? I hadn't counted on this..

 Hazelnuts. Apparently, they are the biggest pain in the behind EVER. I never knew this. I saw hazelnuts in the recipe and I thought back to my fond memories of cracking hazelnuts, almonds, and whatnot and eating them from the shells. We only pulled out the nutcracker at Christmas, so I had this warm Christmasy wave of nostalgia wash over me.
I went to Trader Joe's and bought a large bag of hazelnuts, thinking of all the fun things I would do with the rest of the nuts. I only needed half a cup for this recipe. Visions of hazelnut risotto and hazelnut cookies danced in my head.
As I looked over the recipe, I noticed that these hazelnuts should be skinned, roasted and chopped coarsely. Still naive, I googled 'skinned hazelnuts' and that is where the madness started. Apparently, there are 2 ways you can skin hazelnuts. And also apparently, hazelnuts are terribly bitter if you leave the skin on. Believe me, my lazy self considered this option.
One way to skin hazelnuts involves boiling them in hot water and a few tablespoons of baking soda for a few minutes, then rinsing them individually under cold water and 'popping' the skins off. Then, since the hazelnuts have absorbed so much moisture, you put them on a pan and roast them in the oven.
The second method is to throw the skinful hazelnots on a baking sheet, roast them, and then put the hot hazelnuts between 2 towels (that you don't care about) and rub them together until the skins come off. According to my sources, this method is time consuming and less effective than the first.
I chose the second method. Laziness aside, I just couldn't quite face boiling nuts in baking soda. The picture above is the aftermath. As you can see in the first picture and the picture below, though, I think I did a fairly decent job.

So this is the finished product. I would give it a thumbs-middle. It was ok and the grapes and hazelnuts made it really interesting texturally. Bu, I kept getting bites that tasted like a mouthful of vinegar. And there was no vinegar in it! I'm thinking it might have been the scallions. Maybe if I try it again, I would use red onions instead.
Oh, and hazelnut risotto? Suddenly sounds atrocious.

Chicken Tacos

I am taking a quick break from Giada to share one of my favorite recipes. It came about through a lot of trial and error and picking bits and pieces from lot of food network shows. This is another recipe that I think Keith would have me make every day if he had his 'druthers'.

I start out boiling the chicken. I like to use bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts, because they are pretty cheap, but still only white meat. I've never been much of a dark meat fan.

 In the pan with the chicken, I add a quartered onion, a few garlic cloves, peeled and halved, a bay leaf, dried chipotle peppers (1 or 2), salt, cumin, and whatever else I happen to feel like adding. I add enough water to cover most of the chicken, bring it to a boil and then let it simmer for an hour or so.

This is what it looks like after it has simmered for awhile. At this stage, I take the pan off the heat and let it cool enough to put in the refrigerator. You can either go ahead with the chicken tacos right away, or save this little concoction in the refrigerator to make the next day, if you're planning ahead.

 When I decide I'm ready for tacos, I fish the chicken out of the broth, strain the broth and save it for soup, and shred up the chicken. In a frying pan, I sautee about half an onion in olive oil and then add the shredded chicken. To the chicken, I add some of Lawry's chicken taco seasoning. I usually use about half a packet since I am only cooking for 2. To this I add some water and let it cook for a few minutes, then I chop up about a cup of cherry or grape tomatoes and add them to the chicken mix, just cooking until they are heated through.

I couldn't figure out how to flip this picture, so you'll have to turn your head sideways for a minute. The picture below shows the real secret ingredients that help make these chicken tacos amazing. The green package is ducal refried black beans. They are from Guatemala and they are amazing. You can actually find them in the US now, at some Mexican grocery stores. Along with these beans is an avocado and some fresh cilantro from my garden. Ok, true confession- this is actually parsley, because it was what I had handy on my counter when I was snapping the picture. I would never put parsley on tacos, though. Cilantro is much better.

 We use whole wheat tortillas from Trader Joe's. Some day I might dedicate a whole section of this blog to the products I love from Trader Joe's. Keith likes crunchy shell tacos, so he usually has those. Here is the finished product:

The Christmas plate is a whole other story for another day. Looking at this picture is making me so hungry, so I had better sign off and go find something to eat. More Giada coming soon. I have already made 2 more recipes, but I need to find where I stored the photos on my computer..

Blueberry Mascarpone Turnovers

On Saturday morning, I decided to try this recipe from Giada: Blueberry and mascarpone turnovers. My life will never, ever be the same. The comment next to the date on this recipe says simply "ridiculous".

First, you mix together mascarpone cheese, sugar, cornstarch, lemon zest and lemon juice and add some blueberries. Then, you cut circles out of a piecrust. I cheated and used ready made piecrust, complements of Pillsbury.

To each circle, you add the filling, brush beaten egg around the edges and seal with a fork.

Then, you heat some oil to about 375 (this was as close as I could manage). and deep fry each turnover for 1-2 minutes.

Then, you let the turnovers drain on paper towels and sprinkle sugar on top. Arranage them nicely on a stolen IU plate that appeared among your wedding gifts (?!) and enjoy. The filling is beautifully balanced and the crust turns out flaky and delicious. Keith wants me to make them every day.

This is the one thing that I have noticed so far about the Giada recipes. The flavors are all so well balanced. I thought I cooked well before, but I can tell that I still have a lot to learn.

The Babysitter

By the way, I think I should give some props where props are due. The only way that I was able to make fish stew on a weeknight (I made it on Tuesday (?)) was because of the babysitter.

We read in our poodle handbook (from the breeder) that one chew toy that is good for puppies is pig ears. So, being the new puppy parents that we are, we went out and bought what the book said (unfortunately, we couldn't find any lamb lung..) and thusly discovered the most impressive trick in the book. Now we call these her babysitters, because she will sit and chew on these pig ears for hours and only stop when she needs to potty. So not only does she stay out of trouble, but she also gives you a very clear sign of when she needs to be taken outside.

Oh, and apparently black poodles get green eye, not red eye in photos. Who knew?

Ligurian Fish Stew

Due to several life circumstances, involving a little terror of a puppy, a sick husband, and a trip to Costa Rica, I never got around to making those apricot cookies. Instead, my first attempt at a Giada recipe was to make her Ligurian Fish Stew. Now, for those of you who know me, you will know that fish stew would be probably last on my list of things that I would ever want to make. I have never been much of a fish fan because it's, well, so fishy. And spreading that fishiness around in a stew? No thank you. But Evie e-mailed and told me that she was making this recipe and I should too. So I figured, might as well get it over with.

The stew started out pretty tame- potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, olive oil. But from there you add white wine, crushed tomatoes, red pepper flakes, white fish (I used orange roughy). Now I have never cooked with wine before and I always thought that I HATED wine in things. Just hated it. But, just like all strong, baseless convictions, this one fell apart. The wine added just the right.. something.. to balance out the fishy-ness. And the red pepper flakes made it spicy. Under the date that I wrote in the margin of the cookbook, I also added this little note: Changed my opinion of fish stew!

So, fish stew, you have my official apology. I am sorry I hated you for so long.

Giada at Home

Final decision- Giada at Home. It's her newest cookbook. Evie has decided to cook with me through the cookbook and Jen had mentioned it, but I haven't heard anything recently. (Jen?) It will be a little crazy and nontraditional, because we're all very busy this summer. For this week, though, we will be making Apricot and Nut Cookies with Amaretto Icing. I will try to post pictures before I leave for Costa Rica.

New puppy

We finally got our puppy that we have been talking about for a few years now. We ended up with a black toy poodle and she is ADORABLE. She is actually a really good puppy. She has already been potty trained to go on newspaper, so we'll just need to transition her to going outside. She plays by herself really well. She wants to chew on everything, but is pretty good about being redirected to chewing on her toys.

The only problem is that she is so dark that it's hard to take pictures of her. Sometimes, when she is lying down, I can't tell where her head is because she is just a ball of fuzz. I was ready to give her back after a night of whining, but after today I guess I'll keep her. She just follows me around and then plops down on my foot whenever I stop and then stays there until I move next. We'll see what I think tomorrow morning..

FREE!!

The absolute best thing about being a teacher is the end of May where everything you've been working on is DONE and there is nothing you are responsible for and nothing you have to do for a good 2 or 3 months. I am now in that stage. I turned in my grades, cleaned my classroom and locked the door for the last time (for this school year) yesterday. I still don't quite feel free. I still feel this awful feeling that there are papers to grade and classes to plan and things to worry about. I think it will finally sink in on Monday or Tuesday when I am still at home and watching daytime TV. For now, only my conscious brain knows that I'm free. Everything else will need to catch up.
So I am now trying to figure out what I will do with myself. I want to buy the Giada cookbook and get going with it. We're thinking about buying a puppy now that I have time to train it and can be home more so it doesn't go too crazy. I found these toy poodle puppies that are just ridiculously cute. I would never consider myself a poodle person, but we'll see. I'm also going to Costa Rica with some students in about a week and a half. Oh, and my apartment is a DISASTER since I have completely neglected it in the last few weeks.
I guess I have plenty to do.

No grill

Well, I looked into the Eating Local cookbook a little further and it turns out that about half of the recipes are done on the grill. I have no grill, nor do I have any space for one, so I'm thinking I might need to choose something else. I think I am going to go with the Giada cookbook.
I'm currently holed up with one of the worst sicknesses I've had in a long time. My doctor suspects pneumonia and it isn't treating me very nicely. Needless to say, the cookbook project is going to need to wait. If anyone has any great ideas for Spanish substitute plans, let me know.

Julie and Julia project

I have done some more thinking about what cookbook to use for my Julie and Julia project. Here are a few I am considering:

Giada at Home- California/Italian cooking. Looks like a good level of difficulty
Eating Local - about using local, farmers market, in-season ingredients
Barefoot Contessa Back to Basics- a little more challenging, but a good education
Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Latin Cooking- I am working on my abilities in this area anyway.

Any thoughts? Especially from Jen, who said you might join me. I want to make a decision and get started by the 15th.