Meandering (oranges?)

A meandering orange, apparently from Texas somewhere.

A few thoughts recently thought:

1. There was a conversation about Judaism on the BBS I chat on, and I realized something. Not being specifically one ethnicity with specific heritage traditions in a racial or locational sense, (the way Germans in Minnesota tend to around Christmas, for example...) I have been filling that need for heritage with the understanding that Judaism and Old Testament Israel is my family's cultural heritage. I do understand that there's actually a Rabbi somewhere back in my mother's family line, but I haven't taken the time to deduce if it stayed completely within the maternal line (therefore making me Jewish according to non-reformed Jewish tradition). However, my taking on the historical Jewish culture as my own personal history stems entirely from the fact that I became a Christian so early in life, that it's been as strong a part of who I am as being Norwegian is for my friends who re-enact Santa Lucia Day. The Jews being the first official God's People, being one of His people as well means that they are directly related to me somehow. Anyway, I don't feel I explained it well, but I found it interesting. I've learned in my studies of human development that everyone needs to have an emotional bond to a past, a story of the history of the family. Judaism is one of mine, even though I'm (probably) not Jewish. Weird.

2. My cousin sent us photographs of the demolition of my Grandparents' house in Wheaton. I haven't looked yet, because I'll be too worked up. I had a depression relapse for a week or so when I heard the college, after having bought it from my Grandparents, finally decided to knock it down. Apparently it was a tough decision; it was a fantastic house for off-campus housing, but it was in the way of something else they're going to build and it cost more to move than to knock it down and build a new one. I lived in the house for the first few years of my life, but came back a few times every year to visit for holidays and things. The house was behind Wheaton College's dining hall, (it was there first, and the campus grew up around it) and it was my escape and refuge during my crazy years at college. I have a lot of good memories of that house and my family there; all of my earliest memories are in that house, with just a couple of clear memories in the house in St. Charles before we moved to MN. Obviously, this photo is not one of my memories, but it's at the house. Four generations of Long family women in front of the house. I'm the smallest one. :)

3. Christmas plans are all over the place, but narrowing down. We are not going to Florida. My parents are going to Arkansas, but only for a few of the days Lanse already took off of work. So we may do something out there off-day anyway. Unfortunately, school stops for no one holiday, at least not intentionally. I had the week of Thanksgiving off by coincidence, but I have a discussion post due Christmas Eve.

4. Why I was having trouble getting my reading homework done:

The end.... for now.

Chicken Creation

Today's experiment is in the crock pot. I put in two chicken parts, smeared them with canned cranberry sauce, coated it with ground almonds, and nestled some rosemary in around it. Also dropped some cranberry sauce in the bottom of the pot.

Here's hoping!

UPDATE: It was acceptable. Probably won't do it often, but the chicken was really nice and moist and the rosemary flavor was great. The flavors overall didn't balance very well for me... like, when I ate a bite of the interior part it was all chicken flavor, but when I got near the edge it was all cranberry. They didn't mingle. But they do "Go". Maybe I have an eating-method problem; I'm not very good at analyzing flavors beyond "Mmmmm" and "Ewwww".

Cimmanimanimanimanim....

It's such a fun word. That's how I say it, sometimes, but then Lanse gives me that frowny schoolteacher look over his glasses, and I apologize. Cinnamon. It's what's in the oven!

I found a low-carb recipe for snickerdoodles. I'm hoping those are the soft and chewy cinnamon Christmas cookie, because I don't like those hard crispy ones. I think those are ginger snaps, so I'm staying away from them. We'll find out how they taste in about... ten minutes, probably. If they're cool enough.

I got the recipe off of Christmas-Cookies.com

"Low-Carb Snickerdoodles

(photo by me - after they came out of the oven)

Ground almonds create an "almond flour" which is a wonderful substitute for wheat flour for many baking recipes.

1/2 cup butter, softened
1-1/2 cups ground almonds
1 cup granulated Splenda
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 tablespoons granulated Splenda
1 teaspoon cinnamon

In a medium bowl, beat butter until creamy. Add half the ground almonds, 1 cup Splenda, egg,
vanilla, baking soda and cream of tartar. Beat until well combined. Beat in remaining ground
almonds. Cover and chill in bowl for 1 hour. Pre-heat oven to 350 F. In a small bowl, combine
the 2 tablespoons Splenda and the cinnamon; mix well. Roll chilled dough into 1-inch balls.
Gently roll each ball in the cinnamon-Splenda mixture to coat and place 2 inches apart on an
ungreased baking sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes until lightly browned at the edges. Carefully remove from pan to cooling rack to cool completely.

Note: 1.5 net carbs per cookie
Servings: 26" [not 26 inches, that's the end of the quotation. :) ]

As I was typing this, my 10 minute timer went off. The cookies still look really wet and soggy and haven't spread out enough, and are only brown by virtue of the fact that cinnamon is brown. So I'm giving it another five and we'll see what happens. My oven's been cooking crookedly lately. Sigh. Granted, the oven came with the house (which is 11 years old) so it may be on its last legs.

Update: They're good. I should have followed the directions and taken them out at 12 minutes even though they looked wet and sloppy. Now they're a bit crisp. They're very dry, which is true of my Mupcake recipe too, which also uses Almonds for flour and lots of butter and Splenda. So I think that's part of what you get. They taste lovely while eating them though. I'm starting to taste more and more the aftertaste of Splenda, which I didn't taste at all when I first started using it. So I may just try making these with sugar one day just to see. Or maybe half and half.

December?

Holy cow... how'd it get to be December already??

Thanksgiving was really relaxing, over all. We went to my folks' in Charlotte, but we'd had a huge Thanksgiving to-do when my brother and fam were there a couple of weeks prior, so we just kinda chilled out, had a regular-sized meal (but with nice dishes and appropriate traditional items, just not as many), watched a lot of movies, did a couple of my favorite Christmas puzzles. Went out driving with my dad just to drive around, hung out with mom watching movies, read three of four of the Wrinkle in Time books. Lanse painted a lot and hung out with the local gamers he knows from Rattrap Productions. Pretty relaxing.

Also, FYI... there's a new post on our adoption blog.

I've been fascinated to see via the live feed gadget who visits my blog! I'm really curious.... Chelmsford, Essex, who are you? Feel free to leave me a comment! :)