This Coming Tuesday
18 Jun 2009 Leave a Comment
in Blogging Trials and Tribulations, Tips Tags: blog topic, Tip
I think I’ll try for Tip Tuesday.
I’ve been neglecting my blog. I have yet to figure out a decent topic for it. I was going to post about what I ate in a day, but that proved to be sort of onerous. I haven’t updated for a while, and as a result my view stats have flatlined…. Oh dear!
So, I’m going to try to post a random tip on tuesday. Stay tuned! Please come back!
Went for a Walk/Run Today
25 May 2009 Leave a Comment
in Life Tags: Exercise, Life, Run
Went to test out my new ankle today. Seems to work alright. A little achy, but nothing horrible. I was out for about 1 hour.
I stuck to the actual river pathway, and remained on even and flat ground.
I am pleased to report that I am not as out of shape as I thought I would be. My legs burned, and my heart raced, and for a second, I had that uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, where I thought I might puke. The puking feeling quickly went away though… It was just a sign that I was pushing my body a bit too hard.
The run actually kick-started an pretty productive day for me.
Although I did not apply to any jobs, I managed to fold the laundry, wash and fold another load of laundry, I weeded and tended the hedges for about 2 hours, I finished sewing my tea towel… Three more to go. Put stuff away, and in general felt like a superstar today. Whoopee for me!
I hope I can keep this up so that I might shed a few inches and a few pounds. It would be lovely to fit into my old clothes again… Not to mention, it would be a huge boost to my self esteem.
Adventures in Breadmaking I
21 May 2009 Leave a Comment
in Food Tags: baking, Bread, Food, food science, Gluten
In my continuing effort to figure out this whole bread-making thing, I once again tried to bake a nice fluffy loaf of bread yesterday. It was raining and I figured it wouldn’t be so bad if I heated up the house a little with the oven.
I’ve tried several times before. I figured it was just my kneading abilities keeping me back. I would knead, and knead, and knead, until I was blue in the face and my arms were sore.
Nothing.
I could not get the dough to be nice and soft and gluten-y. like everyone figures it should be. I could not get my dough to pass the “window-pane test”, where when you stretch the dough, the gluten formed will allow the dough to stretch to such a thin consistency, it’s sort of sheer… like looking through an… opaque window….
Gluten… I bought some gluten once. I can’t remember if it was gluten flour, but it was supposed to increase the gluten content in my all-purpose flour. I guess it was a little bit better… Not enough for a nice fluffy loaf of bread though.
I’ve watched my boyfriend’s mother kneading bread dough. It looked simple enough when she did it, 2-3 minutes by hand on the countertop, and she was done…I’ve kneaded up to 20 minutes by hand…
So, I am now a proud owner of my very own Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer (with dough hook!).
My first attempt… The dough clung like mad to the hook, and wouldn’t let go no matter how many times I pulled it off the hook. It would go around and around in the bowl, attached to the hook…. Thump. Thump. Thump. I thought that was the way it had to be (although, it seemed mighty odd), so I let it rip in the mixer for a full 15 minutes. Result? Dense bread.
After a careful internet search, I concluded that this is not what the dough is suppose to do. I am pleased about this, because it didn’t seem like my mixer was handling it too well. The dough is suppose to react like you might imagine, like all the cookbooks and recipes say it should.
I’ll try again another day…
Okay, So I Haven`t Done Anything Yet…
11 May 2009 Leave a Comment
in Blogging Trials and Tribulations Tags: blog topic
I said I wanted to take pictures of everything I ate in a day. I haven’t.
I’m horrible. I’ve forgotten.
I had good intentions.
I just ate the food before I remembered what I was planning. Not very good.
So, maybe I’ll try something else to blog about. I’ve noticed that if you don’t regularly post anything. No one shows up to your site. Funny how that works.
No one shows up…
I lose interest.
Horrible.
I need something to blog about.
I need some sort of topic.
Well.. I’m still thinking about it.
Why am I being so obstinate?
Just write something!
Anything!
Geez, I get like this.
Indecisive, leading to inaction.
Hmmmm….
Well, they say the first step to recovery is acknowledgement.
I just wish I could get past the acknowledgement stage.
Anyone have any ideas for me? Any words of wisdom?
Anyone?
There’s a handy comment section.
Please leave me a note!
Blog Idea
05 May 2009 Leave a Comment
in Blogging Trials and Tribulations Tags: blog topic
I was contemplating posting pictures of what I ate, everyday for an entire week? How does that sound? Sounds good to me. The point of doing this is to document exactly how much food I’m eating. Apparently, it’s an eye-opener. I wonder how I will pull this off when I’m in public or during meetings? Maybe I’ll have to skip those moments….
Cheat on Quick Pizza and Garlic Sticks
23 Apr 2009 Leave a Comment
in Food, Food Tip Tags: Cheat, Food, Garlic, garlic powder, garlic salt, Oven, Pizza, Square Pizza Stone
Yesterday, was a pizza day. I had made some cupcakes earlier in the day, and decided that since the oven was already hot, I’d be having pizza for supper. I was going to make a pizza dough from scratch, but cheated with with some frozen pre-baked pizza rounds which had been purchased from the grocery store and stuffed into my freezer.
One of the pizza crusts had broken into three pieces while in my freezer. So, I went ahead and made a pizza on another crust.
If you don’t have a pizza stone, I highly recommend it. Get the largest one you can find to fit in your oven. Mine is square. I love my square pizza stone. It fits nicely in my oven, and I don’t have to worry about getting my pizza to be perfectly round, or to land perfectly on the stone. More on my love of the Pizza Stone another time.
I had a round one before (It broke, I thought it could handle the heat of being on the floor of my oven, but I was wrong). It was difficult to manoeuvre a fresh pizza onto a round pizza stone… Especially, if your home-made crust is not exactly round, or too big for said round pizza stone.
Anyway, prepared pizza crusts are the way to go. I was going to make a crust from scratch. However, I did not have an hour to spare to wait for the dough to rise. My time-management is not quite perfected yet, but one of these days… So prepared crust, sauce in a can, and a few toppings, and bada-bing! One pizza.
The Garlic Stick resulted in using the broken crust. Instead of chucking out the pieces, I spread some olive oil on top, sprinkled a healty dose of garlic powder (NOT garlic salt – which is garlic powder mixed with salt) and a few grains of sea salt on top. Baked it all on the pizza stone. It was delicious. However, the crust I refused to garbage was definitely the consistency of cardboard.
So, the take home points are:
- Home made pizza crusts are always best.
- Prepared pizza crusts are handy when short on time.
- Large, square pizza stones are the way to go, forget the round stones.
- While flavourful, the texture of garlic sticks made from using store bought, frozen pizza crust leaves little to be desired.
Yerba Maté Espresso … Not Bad.
15 Apr 2009 Leave a Comment
in Food Tags: Drink, Espresso, review, stovetop, Yerba Mate
So, I’ve had this 1kg bag of yerba maté, for at least 3 years…. Bought on the cheap in the not-as-nice area of town. It’s been sitting in my cupboard because I find it has a bitter quality to it that I’m not overly enthused about.
For those of you not in the know, Yerba Maté is an energizing tea (supposedly not caffeine, but some other stimulant) made from the twigs and leaves (yeah, twigs – sounds appetizing, doesn’t it) of the yerba mate shrub. It is traditionally served by pouring hot water (not boiling) over leaves that have been placed in a gourd. It is then sipped through a type of metal straw. The gourd is refilled with water as the tea is drunk.
The straw is hollow (obviously) with a sieve-like end (or other design) placed into the maté. It is made in such a way as to act as a filter for the maté leaves.
You don’t need a straw or a gourd to enjoy it. Just use whatever you use for loose tea leaves (tea ball, french press, just loose…). My maté came with large and very fine particles. I had recently enjoyed Roobios Espresso (more on that in another post), and figured I could use the same technique for maté.
Now, I’ve only got the little stove-top espresso pot. I put in a few scoops of the maté, leaving a bit of room at the top for expansion of the leaves. I placed my pot on stove and proceeded as normal. The first shot was nice and strong. I subsequently refilled the water reservoir of my pot and made a couple of other shots with the same leaves. The next couple of shots were, understandably, weaker but still good.
Give it a shot, you might enjoy it!
Goaty Goats Milk :| — Now what?
13 Apr 2009 Leave a Comment
in Food, Food Tip Tags: Food, Goat Milk, Goaty, how to use up, review
I usually have oatmeal in the morning with a splash of milk to help thin it out and cream it up. In the past, I’ve mixed in soy milk, rice milk, tofu milk…. All fairly acceptable. Having decided to try Goat’s milk as an alternative to regular milk, I put that in my oatmeal, expecting nothing too mind altering . With that cute little goat on the label, how could it be bad? …It was like eating a milky lamb stew with my oatmeal in the morning.
Bleeech! Definitely something I was not ready for.
It is horribly “goaty”. Don’t get me wrong. I love goat meat, lamb meat, goat cheese (which, really isn’t goaty)… The distinctive lamb/goat taste is something I like…. But, not in my milk.
Now I am left with the rest of the “goaty” 2L container of goat milk. Great. What to do…. What to do….
After spending some time searching for a way to use this up, here is what I found:
- Good Goat’s Milk should not taste Goaty, Off, or Gross. It should taste slightly sweeter than cow milk, maybe even slightly buttery; otherwise, it is old, or the hygiene practices of the farm are bad.
- Suck it up and just drink it was the answer many of goat milk lover’s gave. In light of the above finding though, I don’t think they have experienced the goaty version. Or, the goaty version was not the version they were first introduced to…. With their love of what they know the milk can and should taste like, these people just “suck it up” and attribute it to a bad batch of milk. For the uninitiated, this goaty version of goat milk is rather … revoltingly, stomach churningly, sickening.
- Try to use up the goaty milk in a savoury dish. Not sweet. <– This is the option I am considering.
- Turning it into cheese. Sounds a little involved, and am not sure if I am up to it. Besides, would I just be making goaty cheese, or will the goat flavour mellow in cheese form?
- Or use it to make some beauty product (ie. soap). This involves cooking, curing, soap molds, lye…. So, unless you’re already a soap making enthusiast….
I don’t generally use alot of milk in my savoury dishes, if any. Does anyone out there have any recipe suggestions? Perhaps another suggestion as to what to do with it? I could freeze it, but then what? It seems like such a waste to watch it go bad in my fridge, and then chucking it out… My other half is all for throwing out the vile liquid. Immediately.
UPDATE: Chocolate Milk Mix makes it a bit better. Chocolate hides a multitude of sins!
If you fond this helpful, please click on my poll, or leave a comment below. I would love to hear from you!
Bagpipes… Love them or hate them?
11 Apr 2009 Leave a Comment
in Calgary Tags: Bagpipe, Bow River, Calgary, clarinet, Poll
Bagpiper on the Bow
I don’t like them. They sound like cat dying a slow painful death.
This is why I cringed as this guy walked up to a spot just a stone’s throw away from where I was seated. I was enjoying an outdoor, spring-y lunch… Did he hear me when I said, “I hope he doesn’t stop here!” or was it just an obvious spot for him to stop and practice?
The good news? He wasn’t that horrible. His bagpipes were not the familiar, high-pitched squealing that I’ve heard in the past. It had a mildly pleasant, low rumbling background. I bristled whenever he missed a note. eeeeck… a wrong note on the pipes… but over all, I didn’t feel the need to run over, wrestle the the offending instrument away from him and then heaving that tortuous contraption into the river. No, my ears weren’t bleeding. .. Who could have guessed?
There were many passers-by coming up to the guy and complimenting him on his skill…. I wonder if I would get the same response if I dragged my clarinet out to the river edge to “practice”? <–The Piper said he was “practicing” but he was only there for 15 minutes, tops…
Euphoric on Being able to Offer Help
16 Apr 2009 Leave a Comment
by Sweet Hope in Blogging Trials and Tribulations Tags: blog topic, Comments
So, my post on “Green Carrots in my Carrot Cake!” is getting a good amount of traffic. I am thrilled that I’ve been able to help others with their problem. … Not so thrilled that no one has left me a comment. I’ve even inserted a poll in that post trying to gauge if it was actually helpful…. Nothing. No comments, no one clicking on the poll… Maybe, it’s just because there has not been enough traffic to my site yet. Still… I’m just starting out and would appreciate some feedback.
I wish I could think of some other tip to publish… I was listening to the CBC Radio yesterday. And they had a segment on blogging. They talked about how many blogs out there just troll other news sources, and then copy and paste the story into their own blogs. A compilation of other sites, and not very personal. That element of blogging has been lost by cutting and pasting. I’ll try not to do that in this blog… But it is difficult… More time consuming, but I think, in the end, it will be worth it.