they will keep on speaking her name
I don't generally do New Year's resolutions, except for the kind where I say I will eat more, drink more and not lose weight, but I do try to have a goal in mind for the year.
For 2009, the goal was "get a job" and also, "stop spending money like it's water." I was successful on the first and mostly successful on the second, so yay.
For 2010, my goal is to 1. successfully make yeast bread, so that 2. I can make my own bread regularly for my oh-so-boring workday lunches, and 3. to get serious about organizing my apartment - or the kitchen at least.
Today I embarked on step 1, using this quick and easy artisan bread recipe (the internet is full of no-knead, artisan bread in five minutes recipes, as this is apparently a huge thing amongst bakers and foodies - this was just the link closest to the top of my delicious). Last night I mixed up the dough, let it rise, and then set it in the fridge overnight. I did not take pictures because if it failed, I didn't want any evidence of the crime to exist. (As I've said before, yeast breads and I have been unmixy things in the past, with results so traumatic that it's been a good ten years since I last attempted to bake yeast bread.)
Luckily, it worked beautifully, as you can see from the pictures.
shaped into loaves:
on coming out of the oven:
sliced, after cooling:
I will probably try some other recipes out - ones that are actually for sandwich bread, whole wheat, I guess, too, so if you've got any recommendations of sandwich breads that are easy and don't require rolling out (I have no space for that), leave 'em in the comments. But I feel like this is a good start to my goal.
Unfortunately, it couldn't be all good things, and I broke my mother's Pyrex baking dish (it was the pan full of water on the bottom shelf while the bread cooked). Luckily, it broke in the sink, so the cleanup wasn't that difficult. (It was still too hot to put into the cool metal sink, I guess. It shattered shockingly on impact.) So I ordered her a new one.
Then, because I was in the mood, I made the raspberry buttermilk cake that is so ridiculously tasty. I made it with cherries this time, since that's what my mother had in the freezer.
I added the flour and the buttermilk alternately, though I never end on the flour the way the recipe describes:
I feel like maybe the big KicthenAid is too big for this recipe - the flour had to be scraped down a lot more than it does when I make this cake at home with my hand mixer. Also, since I made it in an 8x8" cake pan
It took about ten minutes longer to cook than I expected (about six minutes longer than the 25 minutes that is the upper end of the suggested range).
The cherries were frozen and I had to wash frost off some of them, so hopefully they taste okay. I don't know how long they'd been sitting in the freezer. The package says they're pitted, and I really hope that's the case, or I will never hear the end of it.
Still, it looked good when it came out of the oven:
Hopefully it tastes as good as it looks. (eta) And indeed, it does. (/eta)
On the organizing my kitchen front, I need to buy a small kitchen cabinet or cart, and I have narrowed the field down to a couple of choices, all of which will make my tiny kitchen even more cramped, but are necessary so I don't have a knife falling on my head every time I try to get a spoon out of the closet.
These are the current candidates:
° white buffet with wood top
° small buffet with stainless steel top (I admit, this is my favorite of the bunch)
° craftsman kitchen cart (the wheels are a big plus)
° white cart with stainless steel top
I need to get off the schneid and order something, though, because right now, the pyrex bowls and the sifter are sitting on top of the microwave, and as I said, every time I reach into the silverware tray, something falls out of the cabinet onto my head. And also because I was weak last night - so so weak - and I ended up buying this Le Creuset rectangular baking set in Caribbean, and also this Le Creuset square baking set in Cobalt (Cobalt is apparently very popular, and I decided I didn't need to be all matchy-matchy when things were on sale). They were on sale, and Le Creuset is good quality stuff, so I think I got a good deal, but where am I going to put them? I need a cabinet! (I am also tempted by the tart pan and the pie pan, and I don't even make pies (yet)!)
So the cabinet is a must-purchase in the next couple of weeks, even though the real thing that's holding me back is the knowledge that I'm going to have to put the thing together myself, and I am not the handiest person in the world. And I don't have a lot of space, so I'm kind of going to have to build it where it's going to stand. My trepidation, let me show you it.
After I get my tax refund (which should be decent, considering they taxed my lump sum severance payment at about 49%), I hope to get a new laptop. I was considering a Mac, but I'd like to have some money left over, and also, I have to be honest - I love my iPod, but I'm not that impressed with the quality control, given all the problems I've had with them over the years. So unless I change my mind again (always a possibility), I will probably get another Dell. I've always been happy with the computers I've gotten from them, so I'm not sure I see a need to change now. I guess a lot depends on what I can afford when I start pricing things out.
I'd like to have some money left, because yesterday I decided I really wanted to go away for my birthday this year - I'm only going to turn 40 once (or, maybe, 39 for the second time) - and I should celebrate. So I will need some money for that.
The other thing I'm considering - maybe around Christmastime of this year - is getting a new TV. I just got a new TV a couple years ago, after the whole no sound fiasco (it turned out the TV was fine - the cable box was the problem, which I didn't discover until I'd spent a few hundred dollars on a new TV), but it's not HD and it's not flatscreen, and the prices have come down, so that's what I'm looking at in the mid-term.
I feel really grown up somehow, discussing all these things. Huh. Weird.
And wow, long post is long. i wrote most of it this afternoon while the bread was baking, but then didn't post because I had to edit and upload the pictures. Which I finally did.
Also, my parents are watching yet another Midsomer Murders (they own THE WHOLE SERIES on DVD (or at least the endless number of seasons that's been released here), which should tell you where I get my fannishness and completist nature from) and they have the volume turned up so loud I can't even hear the music I'm playing, two rooms away. Sigh.
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/129499.html.
people have commented there.
For 2009, the goal was "get a job" and also, "stop spending money like it's water." I was successful on the first and mostly successful on the second, so yay.
For 2010, my goal is to 1. successfully make yeast bread, so that 2. I can make my own bread regularly for my oh-so-boring workday lunches, and 3. to get serious about organizing my apartment - or the kitchen at least.
Today I embarked on step 1, using this quick and easy artisan bread recipe (the internet is full of no-knead, artisan bread in five minutes recipes, as this is apparently a huge thing amongst bakers and foodies - this was just the link closest to the top of my delicious). Last night I mixed up the dough, let it rise, and then set it in the fridge overnight. I did not take pictures because if it failed, I didn't want any evidence of the crime to exist. (As I've said before, yeast breads and I have been unmixy things in the past, with results so traumatic that it's been a good ten years since I last attempted to bake yeast bread.)
Luckily, it worked beautifully, as you can see from the pictures.
shaped into loaves:
on coming out of the oven:
sliced, after cooling:
I will probably try some other recipes out - ones that are actually for sandwich bread, whole wheat, I guess, too, so if you've got any recommendations of sandwich breads that are easy and don't require rolling out (I have no space for that), leave 'em in the comments. But I feel like this is a good start to my goal.
Unfortunately, it couldn't be all good things, and I broke my mother's Pyrex baking dish (it was the pan full of water on the bottom shelf while the bread cooked). Luckily, it broke in the sink, so the cleanup wasn't that difficult. (It was still too hot to put into the cool metal sink, I guess. It shattered shockingly on impact.) So I ordered her a new one.
Then, because I was in the mood, I made the raspberry buttermilk cake that is so ridiculously tasty. I made it with cherries this time, since that's what my mother had in the freezer.
I added the flour and the buttermilk alternately, though I never end on the flour the way the recipe describes:
I feel like maybe the big KicthenAid is too big for this recipe - the flour had to be scraped down a lot more than it does when I make this cake at home with my hand mixer. Also, since I made it in an 8x8" cake pan
It took about ten minutes longer to cook than I expected (about six minutes longer than the 25 minutes that is the upper end of the suggested range).
The cherries were frozen and I had to wash frost off some of them, so hopefully they taste okay. I don't know how long they'd been sitting in the freezer. The package says they're pitted, and I really hope that's the case, or I will never hear the end of it.
Still, it looked good when it came out of the oven:
Hopefully it tastes as good as it looks. (eta) And indeed, it does. (/eta)
On the organizing my kitchen front, I need to buy a small kitchen cabinet or cart, and I have narrowed the field down to a couple of choices, all of which will make my tiny kitchen even more cramped, but are necessary so I don't have a knife falling on my head every time I try to get a spoon out of the closet.
These are the current candidates:
° white buffet with wood top
° small buffet with stainless steel top (I admit, this is my favorite of the bunch)
° craftsman kitchen cart (the wheels are a big plus)
° white cart with stainless steel top
I need to get off the schneid and order something, though, because right now, the pyrex bowls and the sifter are sitting on top of the microwave, and as I said, every time I reach into the silverware tray, something falls out of the cabinet onto my head. And also because I was weak last night - so so weak - and I ended up buying this Le Creuset rectangular baking set in Caribbean, and also this Le Creuset square baking set in Cobalt (Cobalt is apparently very popular, and I decided I didn't need to be all matchy-matchy when things were on sale). They were on sale, and Le Creuset is good quality stuff, so I think I got a good deal, but where am I going to put them? I need a cabinet! (I am also tempted by the tart pan and the pie pan, and I don't even make pies (yet)!)
So the cabinet is a must-purchase in the next couple of weeks, even though the real thing that's holding me back is the knowledge that I'm going to have to put the thing together myself, and I am not the handiest person in the world. And I don't have a lot of space, so I'm kind of going to have to build it where it's going to stand. My trepidation, let me show you it.
After I get my tax refund (which should be decent, considering they taxed my lump sum severance payment at about 49%), I hope to get a new laptop. I was considering a Mac, but I'd like to have some money left over, and also, I have to be honest - I love my iPod, but I'm not that impressed with the quality control, given all the problems I've had with them over the years. So unless I change my mind again (always a possibility), I will probably get another Dell. I've always been happy with the computers I've gotten from them, so I'm not sure I see a need to change now. I guess a lot depends on what I can afford when I start pricing things out.
I'd like to have some money left, because yesterday I decided I really wanted to go away for my birthday this year - I'm only going to turn 40 once (or, maybe, 39 for the second time) - and I should celebrate. So I will need some money for that.
The other thing I'm considering - maybe around Christmastime of this year - is getting a new TV. I just got a new TV a couple years ago, after the whole no sound fiasco (it turned out the TV was fine - the cable box was the problem, which I didn't discover until I'd spent a few hundred dollars on a new TV), but it's not HD and it's not flatscreen, and the prices have come down, so that's what I'm looking at in the mid-term.
I feel really grown up somehow, discussing all these things. Huh. Weird.
And wow, long post is long. i wrote most of it this afternoon while the bread was baking, but then didn't post because I had to edit and upload the pictures. Which I finally did.
Also, my parents are watching yet another Midsomer Murders (they own THE WHOLE SERIES on DVD (or at least the endless number of seasons that's been released here), which should tell you where I get my fannishness and completist nature from) and they have the volume turned up so loud I can't even hear the music I'm playing, two rooms away. Sigh.
***
This entry at DW: http://musesfool.dreamwidth.org/129499.html.
people have commented there.