This Time I Really Did Want to Blog

I was on my normal don't-feel-like-blogging but then the keyboard just stopped working. Again. So there was a week or so when I wanted to blog but couldn't because of the whole thing where keys "U," "Y," "M," "W," "C," "J," and a few mutinous others were refusing to do their job. That is, put a letter down when they were pressed. I still managed to chat with friends on Facebook between our two broken keyboards and the on-screen keyboard. But it was slow going and now that we have a new keyboard, I'm reminded that now I can write my thoughts almost as fast as they come.

On of my friends is turning seventeen on Sunday, so I'm baking a tasty chocolate cake for him that I'll bring to tonight's movie night. It's all chocolate chocolate chocolate, luckily when I asked him if he liked chocolate cake (AFTER buying the ingredients, mind you) he said "duh," so I was relieved. He doesn't like green, but the letters are still going to be green because green is like frogs (and also looks good with brown), and his nickname is "Froggy."

Hopefully this cake will survive to be eaten. In January my group of friends threw me (and another guy whose birthday is three days before mine) a birthday party. One of the cakes never got to be eaten. Instead, Frank started a cake fight and then we ended up sticking candles into a stick of butter and decorating the butter with sprinkles and then having him blow those candles out (along with mine since I kind of disappeared when they decided to sing happy birthday).

But Frank isn't coming so she won't have the opportunity to throw cake and I don't think it will occur to anyone else. :P

Next, I'm going out to the garden to water, weed, and take pictures (okay so it's 100F in the shade and 85F indoors...still...) :P

I Made Bread

I haven't been on in ages. But maybe that's a good thing. It means I have more to tell.

My garden this year has turned out to be kind of small. I have 2 Calendulas, 1 Parsley, 8 (0r was it 9?) onions, a plant that is either a melon of some kind or Armenian Cucumber, and a huge patch of beans. Yesterday I also planted nine mint starts. They're not exactly edible mint (they're eau de parfum kinda thing), but my reasons for planting them were a) mint is invasive so it should crowd out the other, prickly, thorny, sticker-y weeds; b) to till under at the end of the growing season to compost during winter and improve the soil; c) to add more green to my patch of ground.

We haven't had a full day of sun since March/April -ish. The temperature never hits above the late seventies. I'm not complaining. It's more pleasant to weed with rain sprinkling on your head than the sun beating down on your back and making you sweat for it.

It's very strange, though. We usually never have temperatures under 90-95 -ish.

I made bread for the first time on my own the other day. As usually occurs with my cooking, my family loved it and gobbled it down, but I was more picky. It had a nice taste, but it was too heavy and I'm pretty sure yeast hates me. I nearly never get it to rise right. The only time I ever got it to work like it should was with a Swedish sweetbread I made one Christmas season; Swedish Kardemummakrans (the main problem with the Swedish bread is how fast it get stale. It has to be eaten within a day or two of baking).

I think the main problem with my bread I just made was in the rising. It calls for letting it rise once and then putting it into the loaf pans to let it rise one more time before baking. I was thinking I would try either letting it rise longer or else having it rise twice before I put it into the pans to rise. The other thing is, it called for hot water to mix with the flour before adding the yeast, and I use boiling water. So maybe cooler water, as well. I also plan on using that trick where you put a wet dishtowel over the bowl of dough while it rises.

This is the recipe I used:

Whole-Wheat Bread

Ingredients:

• 3 Tablespoons yeast
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 5 cups hot water
• 7 cups whole-wheat flour
• 2/3 cup creamed honey
• 2/3 cup olive oil
• 2 Tablespoons salt
• 6 cups whole wheat flour

1. In small bowl dissolve yeast in 1/2 cup warm water; set aside. In a large mixing bowl, combine hot water and 7 cups whole wheat flour. Beat vigorously with a wooden spoon (or mixer) until smooth. Add 4 cups whole-wheat flour. Mix well. Let stand for 15 minutes; then turn dough out onto a floured board and knead in 1 to 2 cups wheat flour--enough to form a smiith, elastic dough.
2. Put dough into a greased bowl; cover. Let stand in a warm place for at least 30 minutes or until double in bulk. Turn onto a greased board and divide into 4 equal portions. FOrm loaves and place in greased loaf pans. Let rise until double in bulk. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-45 minutes. Bake 15 minutes longer if you like your bread crusty.
   

I have also found the camera cord for the better (read: twice as many megapixels) camera. Now I can start posting pictures! :)


ETA: The texture and flavor (aside from the heaviness) is quite good. The bread is soft just like the store bought stuff and I have had no such problems with it being too crumbly. If I can get the rising part right, this recipe's a keeper.

More Meaningless Chatter

I have a dilemma. I don't like spiders (except Daddy Long Legs). But I don't want to hurt spiders. And I don't want them to hurt me. And there's a huge one on the wall a few yards away. And I am squeamish. This is one of the things I hate about summer. The insect population goes crazy! Last summer there was an excess of moths. You'd drive down the road at night in the middle of July and you'd swear it was snowing. Please don't ever let there be an excess of spiders!

I have been listening to the new age station of an online radio site. I really love new age music. My favorites artists are probably Enya and Loreena McKennit. I recently bought "Ever After" on DVD. We've owned it as a family, but as one of my favorite movies (or maybe the favorite), I wanted it for my own. Funny thing. The family's is rated "PG" and mine is rated "PG-13"...why? Anyways, so as a "special feature," it has the theatrical trailer. I watched it and lets just say that they did a spectacular job. And you know what pleased me the most? The trailer is accompanied by two songs. The first is a haunting melody: "The Mummers' Dance" by Loreena McKennit. The second is more 'freeflying' and adventurous: "Fable" by Robert Miles. This is the trailer; tell me if it doesn't make you want to watch the movie (whether for the first time or the hundredth):

Nothing Specific

I found the camera. I can't find the bloody cord. So it doesn't do much good.

I did finally get some things done. I planted most of my little seedlings. None of the catnip did anything. And I only have one jalapeno. The soil desperately needs improvement, but although I know of a great deal of different things that can be used for such a purpose, I can't find seem to be able to obtain them. So I have tilled my garden by hand, all the while cursing the stupid clay and reminding myself how much I loathe red dirt.

My mother and stepfather are at church and the batteries in the mouse are getting low and I have no idea where the replacement batteries or the mouse-with-a-cord is because my mother doesn't put anything in a logical place and, even worse, she never remembers where she put it. Let's just hope that the mouse lasts another hour and a half until they get back so that I can keep doing the computer thing.

I wonder what I want for breakfast.