Since my last post, the weather has turned lovely (though currently dropped back into coolish) and life is looking up! After a week's vacation from school I interviewed at Cathedral of Praise, the church closest to our home, for a teaching position in their preschool (infant-K3). They hired me that week as a substitute until a spot opens up in the older grade classroom. That's based on enrollment, which is changing slightly each week, so it's a bit of pot-luck... but I've had three days of work already in the last three weeks, have two more part-time scheduled this week, and two long full-time days in a couple of weeks. It'll be lovely when I get my first paycheck, and I'm having fun too! The director indicated they may call me a lot for the last-minute things, since I live three blocks (or so) away and can get there faster than their other subs. So that's good. I've gotta get used to the early - and fast - wake-up though; yesterday she woke me at 7:25 and wanted me there in 20 minutes, so I took my breakfast with me!
The weather's been nice enough that I spent a couple of weekends on a new outdoor project, making a "house" for my garden. The last few years I've had trouble with critters eating the produce before we do, so this is a 7.5' x 4' frame with bird netting all around it. I have to finish the door (it got cooler, and then we went out of town) and one panel of mesh that needs to be secured, and then it'll be finished and I can post a picture. My seedlings are starting to come up... some folks on my garden email list suggested that some old seeds may still work, but so far none of last year's are coming up. I didn't know much about proper storage then, so I may just be out of luck, but we'll see. I'm trying something new, working with companion planting (planting certain plants together that help one another grow better) so while I haven't added much more garden area than last year, I have a lot more plants. The tomatoes will be planted with carrots, green onions, basil, and thyme; the beans (trying soybeans and green beans this year) and strawberries are beside each other and may intermingle, and then I have a few from last year that are standing alone: blueberries, rosemary, mint, and a lilac (obviously not food, but something was eating it before it could grow to a hardy stage, so it's in the garden house now). I'm also getting a free gift of "vine peach" seeds, which I hear are the size of a peach, the structure of a melon, and the taste of a mango. That should be interesting. I also got some of the flowers that are beneficial to gardens, whether they repel pests or attract pollinators. I'm looking forward to the weather warming up a bit more so I can go out there and finish things up!
We started attending Alpha at church. We each have our own reasons for attending, though for me it's mostly the peer pressure... people are unaccountably (in my opinion) overly excited about the Alpha experience, and it's mostly something I'd like to have over with so that I can know what everyone's talking about. Alpha is a program designed for beginners to Christianity, people struggling or seeking, and for cynics and doubters who want to know more. It serves a really important purpose within Christendom, and is a great tool for introducing the basics and (hopefully) pointing folks to tools for a solid relationship with Christ. I'm really not sure that it'll do anything for me as I'm definitely not the intended audience, but I do know that - in any area of interest - it often can be beneficial to review the basics on occasion. So we'll see.
Other than that, we're just reading a lot and watching movies and hanging out with friends. We spent the weekend at my parent's house just because we could, sat around with them watching television and just hanging out. Our foster care social worker called yesterday asking to meet with us, but I had my phone off while I was teaching and missed the call, then I called back and left a message, so I'm waiting to hear back from her. I don't know if it's a regularly scheduled visit or if there's News. In the meantime, we ought to finish installing the gate and I need to tidy up a few different areas that we've been lax about. I'll copy this paragraph into the adoption blog, so folks who don't read both will be updated; sorry if you read it twice!
I guess that's it for now.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Almond Orangenilla Muffins - a Mescipe!
I love to mess around with recipes...thus the term (that I just coined myself!) "Mescipes"! I just made some muffins that are pretty darn tasty, and even a smidgen better for you than regular muffins. The original recipe is from the Joy of Cooking, "Reduced-fat muffins". (I decided to start with this recipe simply because we'd run out of milk; making "reduced fat" means no milk, apparently.) I'll put that recipe in here, along with changes I made and why I made them.
REDUCED FAT MUFFINS turned into ALMOND ORANGENILLA MUFFINS
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease or line muffin tin of 12 regular muffins.
Dry Ingredients:
Joy Of Cooking (JoC): 2 c. flour
Jessica Tryon (JT): 1 c. all-purpose flour + 1 c. almond flour that I made by grounding up almonds in my Cuisinart.
Why?: I've done this with other recipes and I know that it works, and almonds are tres good for you, and cuts down on the carbs from white flour. It does give it a texture though, and a little crunch, so if you don't like that in muffins stick with all-purpose white!
JoC: 1/2 - 2/3 c. sugar
JT: 1/3 c. regular white sugar and 1/3 c. Splenda, to cut down on the carbs.
Why?: Splenda's a pretty safe bet when baking, as far as sugar alternatives go; and though I can taste a Splenda flavour in other things I've done with it, I don't taste it in these muffins... yet.
JoC & JT: 4 t. baking powder - no change. I don't know enough about how this works to mess with it.
JoC & JT: 1/2 t. salt - no reason to change that one!
JoC: 1/4 t. baking soda (if using yogurt; don't use this if you're using milk!)
JT: 1/4 t. + 1/8 t. baking soda
Why?: I will be using yogurt. Also, the Joy of Cooking adds little extra recipes following a basic recipe to add flavours and things. Since I was going Orange, and it didn't have anything for orange, I followed tips under Lemon about adding the extra 1/8 t.
JoC: 1/4 t. nutmeg (optional) - I did not add the nutmeg, because I didn't want to!
Wet Ingredients:
JoC & JT: 1 large egg - didn't mess with the egg.
JoC: 3 T. veg oil or 3.5 T butter, melted
JT: 3.5 T. butter, melted
Why?: Obviously, using the oil instead of the butter will cut down on the fat. But I used the butter for flavor. Because butter is tasty. Plus, I smear some on when I eat them, too. I start thinking butter will be the death of me, but then I think of Paula Deen and stop worrying about it. :)
JoC: 1 t. vanilla extract
JoC: 1 t. orange juice
Why?: I intended to use yogurt instead of milk, but I only have vanilla yogurt! So I didn't add vanilla. However, I made orange muffins, so I squeezed half an orange and put in 1 t. of orange juice instead! This keeps the liquids balanced, which is important.
JoC: 1 c. lowfat milk or plain lowfat yogurt
JT: 1 c. Activia vanilla yogurt
Why?: It's what I had, but since we needed vanilla extract (see previous) that worked out great!
That's everything that the original recipe says to use. Mix the dry in one bowl, the wet in another, then pour the wet into the dry and stir it until -just- mixed up, then put them into muffin tins (made 12 regular muffins, kind of flat... not enough batter to puff over the top) and bake for "12 minutes (or slightly longer with fruit)".
However, I needed more orangeyness for my orange muffins. So:
To the dry mix I added: little pieces of oranges. I cut the orange so that I could section it like a grapefruit and cut each section into tiny bits. I squeezed them a bit by smooshing them with the flat of the knife. Then I dropped them carefully into the flour one at a time and coated them thoroughly. This keeps them from burning and sticking together in clumps.
To the wet mix I added: orange zest! I haven't got a zester, so I carefully peeled the orange with a veggie peeler (avoid the white bitter pith!) then chopped the peelings into teensy bits. The lemon recipe said to mix the lemon zest into the wet mix, so that's what I did with the orange zest.
Now that I've added little bits of oranges, I ended up not getting frantic when the timer went off, and these ended up having about 14 or 15 minutes. It was a smidge too much, the bottoms stuck; next time I'll definitely check them at 12 and make a wiser decision.
I know a lot of folks who freak out when it comes to not following a recipe perfectly. But I've found that in most cases, since recipes are really just a combination of elements creating chemical reactions, if you have similar ingredients (like orange instead of lemon) you can fudge it pretty easily. Use what you know from other recipes (like knowing that ground up almonds made good flour for cupcakes), or look up recipes that use your main ingredient and see what kinds of things they do with it. Most of that information, given a similar food type, will be interchangeable. Learning how to make Mescipes gives a lot more flexibility for creating great food when your ingredients may be unpredictable.
So what kind of Mescipe will you be whipping up next?
REDUCED FAT MUFFINS turned into ALMOND ORANGENILLA MUFFINS
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease or line muffin tin of 12 regular muffins.
Dry Ingredients:
Joy Of Cooking (JoC): 2 c. flour
Jessica Tryon (JT): 1 c. all-purpose flour + 1 c. almond flour that I made by grounding up almonds in my Cuisinart.
Why?: I've done this with other recipes and I know that it works, and almonds are tres good for you, and cuts down on the carbs from white flour. It does give it a texture though, and a little crunch, so if you don't like that in muffins stick with all-purpose white!
JoC: 1/2 - 2/3 c. sugar
JT: 1/3 c. regular white sugar and 1/3 c. Splenda, to cut down on the carbs.
Why?: Splenda's a pretty safe bet when baking, as far as sugar alternatives go; and though I can taste a Splenda flavour in other things I've done with it, I don't taste it in these muffins... yet.
JoC & JT: 4 t. baking powder - no change. I don't know enough about how this works to mess with it.
JoC & JT: 1/2 t. salt - no reason to change that one!
JoC: 1/4 t. baking soda (if using yogurt; don't use this if you're using milk!)
JT: 1/4 t. + 1/8 t. baking soda
Why?: I will be using yogurt. Also, the Joy of Cooking adds little extra recipes following a basic recipe to add flavours and things. Since I was going Orange, and it didn't have anything for orange, I followed tips under Lemon about adding the extra 1/8 t.
JoC: 1/4 t. nutmeg (optional) - I did not add the nutmeg, because I didn't want to!
Wet Ingredients:
JoC & JT: 1 large egg - didn't mess with the egg.
JoC: 3 T. veg oil or 3.5 T butter, melted
JT: 3.5 T. butter, melted
Why?: Obviously, using the oil instead of the butter will cut down on the fat. But I used the butter for flavor. Because butter is tasty. Plus, I smear some on when I eat them, too. I start thinking butter will be the death of me, but then I think of Paula Deen and stop worrying about it. :)
JoC: 1 t. vanilla extract
JoC: 1 t. orange juice
Why?: I intended to use yogurt instead of milk, but I only have vanilla yogurt! So I didn't add vanilla. However, I made orange muffins, so I squeezed half an orange and put in 1 t. of orange juice instead! This keeps the liquids balanced, which is important.
JoC: 1 c. lowfat milk or plain lowfat yogurt
JT: 1 c. Activia vanilla yogurt
Why?: It's what I had, but since we needed vanilla extract (see previous) that worked out great!
That's everything that the original recipe says to use. Mix the dry in one bowl, the wet in another, then pour the wet into the dry and stir it until -just- mixed up, then put them into muffin tins (made 12 regular muffins, kind of flat... not enough batter to puff over the top) and bake for "12 minutes (or slightly longer with fruit)".
However, I needed more orangeyness for my orange muffins. So:
To the dry mix I added: little pieces of oranges. I cut the orange so that I could section it like a grapefruit and cut each section into tiny bits. I squeezed them a bit by smooshing them with the flat of the knife. Then I dropped them carefully into the flour one at a time and coated them thoroughly. This keeps them from burning and sticking together in clumps.
To the wet mix I added: orange zest! I haven't got a zester, so I carefully peeled the orange with a veggie peeler (avoid the white bitter pith!) then chopped the peelings into teensy bits. The lemon recipe said to mix the lemon zest into the wet mix, so that's what I did with the orange zest.
Now that I've added little bits of oranges, I ended up not getting frantic when the timer went off, and these ended up having about 14 or 15 minutes. It was a smidge too much, the bottoms stuck; next time I'll definitely check them at 12 and make a wiser decision.
I know a lot of folks who freak out when it comes to not following a recipe perfectly. But I've found that in most cases, since recipes are really just a combination of elements creating chemical reactions, if you have similar ingredients (like orange instead of lemon) you can fudge it pretty easily. Use what you know from other recipes (like knowing that ground up almonds made good flour for cupcakes), or look up recipes that use your main ingredient and see what kinds of things they do with it. Most of that information, given a similar food type, will be interchangeable. Learning how to make Mescipes gives a lot more flexibility for creating great food when your ingredients may be unpredictable.
So what kind of Mescipe will you be whipping up next?
Thursday, August 6, 2009
blog moved
Apparently I still have 5 followers on this site, and I didn't realize it, so... just FYI... I moved! the url is still http://daybreakandtwilight.blogspot.com but what happened is that I started a new one and moved the URL over there and renamed this one, so your follower program thing says that you should stay here when, in fact, the URL has moved.
SO... click on the link above and come on back! A lot has happened since April!
SO... click on the link above and come on back! A lot has happened since April!
Friday, April 17, 2009
Boredom la-dee-dah... TOOMUCHTODO!!
So life was trucking along on a relatively even pace when it was suddenly stunned by everything happening at once. (Thus, of course, I blog. *heh*)
The moral of the story is that next Saturday we will be Dave Ramsey "Sell so much stuff the kids think they're next"ing at Wescott from 7am to 10:45, leaving the table to Jen and running to church for the 11:00 Confirmation rehearsal, running back to Wescott to clean up by 1:00, running home to meet my parents who are driving in from Charlotte, hitting the road for Seabrook by 2:00, and by 4:00 I will be immersed for Baptism in the Atlantic Ocean. Then Sunday morning Lanse and I will be confirmed.
Anyone who wants to come is welcome, but let us know because Seabrook is gated and we'll need to call in a pass for you.
That is all.
**************
Nicholas arrives tomorrow and will be around until Tuesday, I think. This is a very good thing. We have many ideas but no plans, which is typically how everyone around here likes things. He is bringing our kayak and some paddles, but we have nowhere to store it and no roof rack to actually get it to water. We're hoping to replicate Steve's "hang it from the garage rafters" scenario for storage. Of course we got a car that doesn't come with roof rack as an option, so we'll have to dig up the cash for a custom fitted one. We'll see how all that goes.**************
We are going through the Anglican class, which ends in Adult Confirmation. In order to be confirmed, you have to have first been baptized. There has been a family story that said when I was an infant, a Catholic family member got permission and a vial of Holy water and baptized me in the kitchen sink, since there was doubt about my continuing existence. My parents (being of the 'baptizing is for adults' vein) taught me that it didn't really count. They also taught me that communion was acceptable to take when I was old enough to understand it. In the church we currently attend, they accept infant baptisms and require baptism for taking of communion. I've been content with that thus far. However, because the Confirmation is a rite with the Bishop that requires having been baptized, and I was becoming more and more uneasy about not knowing for sure, I called the family member related to the story. Who has no recollection whatsoever and after lengthy discussion it was all agreed that even if it had, the situation 32 years ago would not have warranted the church having any record of it.I ended my last class with a 98.23%. It's sufficient. *heh* Started a new one this week on "Children, Family, and Community", and it seems to be ok... though repeating a lot of stuff we've already had, and not to much more depth than the first time. But we'll see. It's an instructor I haven't had, and she seems to be rather hands-off right now. It's her first term teaching for Walden, though she's taught many years in a community college. I wish I was more optimistic.
**************
The moral of the story is that next Saturday we will be Dave Ramsey "Sell so much stuff the kids think they're next"ing at Wescott from 7am to 10:45, leaving the table to Jen and running to church for the 11:00 Confirmation rehearsal, running back to Wescott to clean up by 1:00, running home to meet my parents who are driving in from Charlotte, hitting the road for Seabrook by 2:00, and by 4:00 I will be immersed for Baptism in the Atlantic Ocean. Then Sunday morning Lanse and I will be confirmed.
Anyone who wants to come is welcome, but let us know because Seabrook is gated and we'll need to call in a pass for you.
**************
Adoption homestudy update! Which adds a trip to Columbia to the list of things to do in the next two weeks.**************
We also needed to have physicals redone for the homestudy. I called and made the appointment Tuesday morning, went to bed Tuesday night with a sore throat, woke with a fever, and went to the appointment Thursday feeling horrid. Still feel horrid. I'm going out this morning (when I stop typing) to get my medications.**************
Things to do by next Saturday:- Pick up meds and med equipment (need a mask for the nebulizer)
- Get better
- Finish up stuff to sell at the sale
- Wrap up last month's budget info and complete this month's (which already started)
- Write two papers by Sunday night
- Clean the house for Nick (which is a disaster because of crafting stuff for the sale)
- Get groceries (we're out of everything)
- Bake bread (see previous)
- Do stuff with Nick
- Purchase and install kayak storage system
- Possible going away party for a friend tomorrow night
- Church
- Tuesday night class
- Meet with Doug about the baptism
- Do Week 2 homework (readings, discussion posts x3, 2 papers)
- Clean the house for my parents
- Host my parents
- Travel to Columbia for homestudy stuff?
- Survive through next weekends' schedule
- NOT PANIC
That is all.
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