Monday, March 02, 2009

Back from the edge of the planet

Nope, I didn't fall off the planet. I was worried for a while, right before Christmas when I thought I might, but it didn't happen.

I woke up to about four inches of snow this morning. Eowyn woke me up at 5:30 am absolutely determined to go outside. I made her wait about half an hour because she has this evil habit of barking - sometimes it's a cat or a squirrel, but most of the time I have no idea why and it bugs the shit out of me. I had a hard time finding her lead under the snow and she made herself all heavy when she thought I was trying to take her back inside (I just needed to scrape my boots in another direction a bit to look for the tie-out, but she didn't understand my explanation). Since I was already up, I had my coffee and made my grocery list for Tres Leches cake. My co-workers have put up with listening to me whine about my desire to make this cake for a few weeks now. I try not to bake if I don't have a reason to do so, it's an expensive habit in money and calories! My excuse today: my birthday was Friday, but my children were (and still are, thanks to the snow) at their dad's house and we didn't get a chance to celebrate.

By the time I had all the ingredients at room temperature it was time for a spot of tea. According to my web research, Tres Leches is best if it has at least the night to set in the fridge. Basically it's a sponge cake soaked in three milks: heavy cream, evaporated milk, and sweetened condensed milk, and then frosted with a vanilla cream frosting. YUM!

snow day stuff

Saturday I used my new birthday present and made some of Jamie Oliver's English Onion Soup from the Jamie at Home cookbook. LOVE. THE. DUTCH. OVEN. It and I are going to be best friends, I can tell already.

birthday present

Then, because I made some last weekend (and the peeps liked it for breakfast) I made another batch of Aunt Melissa's Granola from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I add all kinds of dried fruit to it and I like it because it's not overly sweet. One batch fills my old blue Ball Perfect Mason jar and seems to be just enough for a week.

this week's granola

Other than cooking, which really has been happening a lot, I'm working on Daphne's Baby Cape (rav link) and the comments posted about the yarn requirements being waaaaaay off are quite correct. I'm on the third skein (pattern calls for three) and I'm less than halfway done. The baby I'm making it for was born this past Wednesday and the rows are over 200 stitches; it's kind of a garter stitch slog at this point. I haven't been watching much TV and I haven't figured out Elizabeth Zimmerman's trick of reading and knitting (other than patterns) at the same time so the knitting has suffered.

I did give in and read the Twilight series. My interest waned, however, when it got weighed down in a lack of character development. There were several loopholes that really pissed me off, but I digress. Since I was all in a dither when I was done I had to go back and re-read my favorite vampire book Sunshine. Much more how vampires are supposed to behave, thankyouverymuch. I have a PILE of books next to my bed and I decided to go light and funny next. Dennis Leary fits the bill. After that the old bedside reading gets heavier.

Plans for the rest of the day? Watch some DVR'd shows and knit - the cape awaits!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I LOVE my Dutch oven too. You really will be best friends!!