Heeeex in spaaaaace....

(Hopefully you realize that's a take off've the old Muppets Show "Pigs in Space!"?)

Check out what they found on Saturn's top side! Or rather, they found it there 26 years ago when Voyager cruised on by, and it's still going strong, thanks to new imaging by Cassini. While the bottomside of Saturn has a huge human-eye-like feature that resembles a hurricane, this something totally different. It's the only hexagonal storm feature found on any planet so far, and you could fit four Earths into this thing!

For more info, read the rest of the article (where you'll also find a link to a brief video of the hexagon-shaped cloud structure)!

Spring is in the air...

...and growies are coming outta the ground! I only wish I'd been more careful with making sure the focus was better for the flowers instead of the surrounding green leaves. Oops! Oh well - enjoy!

More Bread!

Here's the finished result - this braided bread tastes GREAT! Sadly, it turned out a tad flat, and so won't be the best sandwich bread (plus the three flavors sometimes separate while cutting), but it's got great flavor and texture. Start with one very soppy starter batter/dough, split into three, and then add different stuff to each. The additives include molasses, caraway seeds, whol wheat flour, rye flour, and corn meal. You end up with a cornmeal "white" bread, a whole wheat bread, and a dark rye/pumpernickel. Good stuff! Next time I'd be tempted to divide it to make three loaves instead of two, and put them in loaf pans. Wonder if that would work?



Oh, and I made quiche too!

I don't have a problem!

Well, ok, maybe I do, but a big chunk of that problem is WHERE AM I GOING TO PLANT ALL THESE SEEDS!?!?

I've got all these seeds to plant, and no yard. We ALMOST had a great yard for gardening, and a nice deck for plants, etc... But that kinda fell through. So now I'm possibly back to having a rental garden plot. Plus, with not knowing when someone might come to look at the place, I've held off on starting this year's seeds, and some things just won't get grown afterall this year I guess. :(

Here's me sorting out all the seed packs so I can get started... I meant to have fewer varieties than the 13 or so I had last year. Seems I still managed to order 12 varieties this year, and then the seed companies tossed in a couple freebie packs of other varieties. Greeeeat...

Here's Simon trying to help.


"Um, I think you have a problem..."


First tray of Jiffy peat pots starting to swell after dumping water in with them. These things are great for starting seeds!


The after and before shots of a Jiffy peat pot. Insert dirty "swelling" jokes here...


Another shot of the fully hydrated Jiffys.


"Seriously dad, you've got a problem... The first step is admitting it..."


I'm not sure if I'm starting tomatoes or Nerds candy plants! What's with the blue coating on just this one variety of tomatoes!? I've seen pink coatings on watermelon and corn seeds before - either as a marker (male vs female) or perhaps an innoculant? But why on one out of fourteen varieties of tomatoes? Interesting! (Seriously - they look like blueberry candy!)


Annnnnd....wrapping up the first tray of seeds - this one's tomatoes, peppers (only four varities this year - we really don't eat that many, and I need to scale down!), fennel (never grown before), dill and catnip. I filled another one of these trays with JUST two varieties of parsley and like six varieties of basil! Ahhhhh...as much as I'm dreading winter's passing, I'm also looking forward to summer!

Daddy's little helper

This was a buuuuusy weekend - we first had to keep moving just so we didn't think too much about losing the house we put an offer in on to someone with a non-contingent offer (buying and selling homes at the same time SUCKS!). Then we had to get busy with cleaning and organizing when, after starting multiple projects, we found someone was going to come looking at our place early Monday morning! AHHH!

Before we found out someone was coming to see the place, I was juggling a kitchen project and another project at the dining room table, while Brett worked on installing the new mount to the new entertainment center for the new LCD TV (Sony Bravia 40"! Nice!). Here you can see that Simon really wanted to help!

Guess what's baking!

Ok, I don't want to give it away just yet - but I DO want to say that I FORGOT to take pictures before putting them in their greased bowls, so I removed them for their photo shoot. AND I think I've been getting a little heavy handed with the oil I've poured in for the "lightly greased bowl", so I need to go back to just using some cooking spray, or a dab of Crisco, or a bowl rubbed down with an oiled paper towel maybe?

Kitten in a box!

Kitten in a box!


Kitten checking out the world!


Kitten outta the box!

Would you put this in your mouth?

You can blame my dad for sending along the link to this culinary challenge. And no, that's not the kitchen of anyone I know in the photo below.




"What is it?" you may ask... Well, it's a bacon-wrapped, cheese-filled, battered and fried hot dog. MMMM tasty! And I know at least one person who'd try one of these things and probably love it! (He's upstairs brushing his teeth and getting ready for bed right now).

I have to admit - I'd TRY one! I'd feel some major guilt about eating a whole one...but knowing me, I'd enjoy it!

Like sex on stage...

If you watched last nite's American Idol, saw Blake Lewis' performance, and didn't feel a little tingle inside, there's something wrong with ya... This guy is definitely Top 4 material - and could be higher if it's not him vs the divas of Lakisha, Melinda and Jordin!

Plus Brett and I just want him for our own. Granted, we'd also take Chris, but somehow Chris was in the bottom two tonite. I'm glad he didn't go home. I'm guessing maybe it was the wake up call for Chris' fans to make sure they're calling in!

Mmmm, dinner and tastey treats!

Tonite's dinner came together amazingly fast. Got a pot of water boiling while taking care of something else. Threw some pasta in the boiling water. Minutes later threw in some frozen shelled edamame (mm!). In a separate pan I started frying up some diced pancetta...something I'd only tried once before, and was inspired to give another try thanks to a recent Nigella Bites (or Feasts, I forget which one it is now...). While that was sizzling way I carved a bunch of chunks of breast meat from last nite's roasted chicken (that's another story all unto itself!). Just for extra fun I put a couple pats of butter in with the pancetta, then added the chicken to warm up, seasoned with fresh cracked black pepper, then tossed in the drained pasta/edamame (wish I would've thought to add some fresh minced parsley and crushed red pepper!). Scooped into bowls, and grated on some parmesian cheese.


Mmmm - that was a good dinner!! Oh wait, what's that peeking in from off camera here?


Why, it's those three loaves of bread from earlier today! What if I cut a slice from one - just to see how they look on the cross section?


Yuuuuumm-oh! Cinnamon swirl bread! And it's really good toasted, and also really good with some simple powdered sugar/milk/vanilla icing drizzled on the slices. MMM! I MIGHT even try buttering and frying a slice sometime - I know Eat N Park has the "Grilled Stickies" (haven't eaten there in yeeeears though).

Now if I could just figure out why my coils have a habit of separating. Maybe a little more butter inside to gel them together? Or less butter so the dough fuses with itself? This might involve a little research!

Awww, aren't they cute!?

I actually managed to get Brett to pose with Simon. The first one looks a little awkward, but then again, Simon's a little slow....so I don't think he minded the not-so-complementary pose! ;-)


There we go - this one's a little more like it!



And after all that hard work posing for pics, Brett needed a nap. He konked out on the sofa for awhile...

Brett's Sacrifice to the Dog God!

Oh Great Fido - I present to you this tastey morsel in the hopes that you will guarantee us plentiful crops this season!


(As uncomfortable as this looks, Tucker LOVES having this done to him! Seriously! Brett hoists him up like this, and Tucker starts purring and knitting his paws...pure kitty pleasure!)

Killer Cats!

This is nowhere near as serious as it looks:

What's going on in the kitchen...RIGHT NOW!?

It's 6:20pm Saturday, March 17th. (Oh, Happy St Patties Day! I totally forgot til Brett pointed out all the people wearing green while we were lunching at Chick Fil A today)

Anyhow - it's 6:21pm Saturday, March 17th. I smell good and doughy (no, it's not extra winter weight, NOR because I ate most of a 5-serving package of Brach's Pastel Fiesta Malted Milk Eggs yesterday) - that would be "I feel doughy". (Ok, I confess...I do. A little. Go ahead Peter, tell me to get to the gym - I know I need to!)

Where was I? Oh. It's 6:22pm Saturday, March 17th, I smell doughy, and I'm afraid Moxie does too. I can't help it she came in and gave me some loving when I wanted to start blogging. I think that, no matter how much you wash your hands when you're done in the kitchen, dough making is one of those things that lingers with you for hours - just because you work the dough with your hands so much.

6:25pm. Saturday. Easily distracted by other topics, I meant to tell you why myself, the cat, and the kitchen smell so good. In addition to that great dough/yeast smell, there's also hints of sugar, melted butter, and cinnamon!

Here's a hint at what's rising in the kitchen:



They were supposed to be a one-evening event, but after making the dough last nite, I decided World of Warcraft was more fun....so I parked the big bowl of dough in the freezing garage. This morning, instead of getting up and completing the doughy project, Brett drug me off to Canton's Best Buy (45 minutes away), first bribing me with Chick Fil A. We exchanged the Samsung LCD TV, which was having a lot of "light leakage" in the lower right corner (as confirmed by a Best Buy tech that came out to the condo last week), for the Sony Bravia - both TVs are 40", both 1080p, so the quality should be good, and we should be happy with our purchase considering what it costs! Since we weren't happy, and the tech even said this has happened with a lot of the Samsungs, we took his recommendation and swapped to the Sony, which conveniently enough, dropped a couple hundred in price since we first bought the Samsung! Sweet!

And what was really funny was the girl doing our exchange writing down "TV leaks" as the reason for our exchange. It's not like we poured water into it!

Our new baby!

And tonite, if we're not playing World of Warcraft, maybe we'll be watching something cool on the new TV while snacking on ....well, I don't want to say what they are. But they DO need to go in the oven any minute now (assuming they've risen enough!)

And assuming they turn out good, you know I'll post pics! ;-)

How does your KitchenAid mixer sound??

So does anyone here have a KitchenAid mixer??

I had an old hand-me-down on loan for years, and then treated myself to a nice new red one this past fall. LOOOOVED it when it arrived! I realized, once I was getting into all the bread baking, that maybe I really honestly should've gone with the professional level, instead of the artisan. I never thought I'd need that capacity or horse power. Oh well, I could certainly live with it - it definitely does the job, and I've only maxxed it's bowl out a couple times.

But I'm really concerned. It grinds. ALOT. It's surprisingly noisy, and the top, even when locked in place, bobbles around alot - and not just for heavy duty bread mixing, but even lighter-fare stuff like cake batters.

I got it online, and it's been mooonths now, so it's not like I can take it to a store and exchange it. I wonder if I should contact KitchenAid? I just know I've heard the newer ones made aren't AS good as the original line - company buyouts and that sort of thing?

Hm. Whaddaya think?

Good Stuff!

One of the nice things about working from home occasionally, which can get very monotonous without human interaction, is the chance to do a little bread baking. I'm finding bread baking is both a very needy (no pun intended) AND a very "leave me alone!" kinda thing... Sure, you've got to mix together the ingredients, and let the KitchenAid do all the work of kneading them when you don't have much time, but then you just...let...it...sit. Then come back to it, punch it down, and let...it...sit. Come back, punch it down again, shape, put in/on pans, and let...it...sit. Then bake for quite awhile (again, you don't need to supervise this part!).

So - Brett came come home from work on a day I've worked from home, and find some nice bread fresh from the oven!

This week was no exception - I finally tried the Recipes from the Old Mill French bread recipe that Julie highly recommended I make. I have to say that, while it's SHAPED like French bread, I don't know that I'd really classify the taste/texture as the French bread I know. (Listen to me, acting like I know all about breads!) If I could compare it to something, I'd say it's very similar to Subway's wheat bread used for their sub sandwiches. (This is a good thing, as that's one of my fave breads there) It's a nice tender and wheaty bread... Julie swears it freezes well too, so I cut the two loaves in half, and froze three of the half loaves. We'll see how it turns out!

Here's some posing of the ingredients... As you can see, it's a very happy mixture of yeast, water and sugar!


Turn my back for a couple of minutes and OH SHIT!


Luckily there was very little of the yeasty water that went over the edge - mostly just foam, and not as much as it looked like being wasted! A little while later, after mixing the ingredients together and letting the dough rise, here's what I had.


Annnnd the rolling out flat and then rolling up "like a scroll" technique from the book...


Placing on lightly oiled and dusted (heavily in this case!) with cornmeal cookie sheet... (And this means I can't cook these directly on the baking stone, which crisps up bread nicely!)


Positioned, lightly topped with egg wash, and sliced....


...and finally baked:


These guys had a beautiful golden/bronze color! Very tender! And great taste! MMM!

Head Shots

Check out the two beautiful boys. For even more fun, check out the curly eyelashes above Tucker's left eye!

Cuddly Belly

Don't you just want to stick your face in this and blow a big ol' raspberry!??

Final Frost Date Countdown!

Not that I'm counting down or anything... ;-) This'll help me figure out when I need to start getting seeds started....ASSUMING I'll have somewhere to plant them! (Still doing the house hunting/negotiating thing)

Yuck, not looking forward to this week...

Ugh, this is SO not my kinda week. Look at that forecast. Give me warm sunny days, or blizzards blanketing everything in white and shutting down roads ANY day. But chilly drizzly weather? That's such a downer! :(

Aw!

As mentioned here before, I turned 38 last Sunday. Mom and dad opted to spend my birthday in Cancun - great way to celebrate it! ;-) Actually, MOM'S birthday was Wednesday (#61!), and they've started going to Cancun every year or two around this time (something about mom needing sand and ocean after getting sick of the Rochester snow storms).

Anyhow, they got home last night, and dad posted a bunch of pictures from their trip. How cool are these two pictures?!!?



Sweet! Thanks mom and dad!