AJAX BELL

Author of the Queen City Boys books

Category Archives: nom nom nom


by Leave a comment

Adventures in substitutions

It’s a cold, cold winter night here, so I did the only thing one can do, cooked and baked until the house was warm and smelled good.

Quinoa Red Lentil Soup


I used this recipe (the stove top version which only took about 35 minutes) which came highly recommended from a trusted friend.  I saw it and thought, oh I have all those things, I’ll make that.  HAHAHAH!  Well, I had quinoa and red lentils.  Of the spices I only had fresh ginger, paprika, cumin and thyme.   So I used those and substituted 2 tbl of green curry paste for everything else.  Also I didn’t have any of those vegetables, so I used a yellow onion, diced, a yellow squash (the zucchini like kind), also diced and a can of diced tomatoes and a couple cloves of garlic, finely chopped.  I did follow the directions pretty closely, despite all the substitutions.   At the end of cooking I also put half of it through the blender until it was smooth and added it back in with the rest (a secret that improves 85% of soups).

I think it turned out great.  Would be excellent with a dollop of sour cream but there’s few things that isn’t true about.

Apple cake


2 eggs
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup applesauce
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp pumpkin spice
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 apples, peeled & chopped

Directions:  In large bowl, beat eggs, applesauce and oil until smooth.  Add sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, pumpkin spice, baking soda, salt and mix well.  Add flour, beat until smooth. Fold in apples. Pour into greased and floured 9 by 13 pan. Bake at 350F degrees for 50-55 minutes.

I substituted Bob’s Red Mill all-purpose gluten-free baking flour.  Also I normally would do 3/4 cup applesauce and no oil, but I was unsure about this flour mixture, because I’ve never used it and I figured a little oil might help.

I’ve used previous versions of this recipe (I seem to reinvent it every year, whole wheat flour, less sugar, no oil, now gluten-free) to make muffins for which it is excellent.   The original recipe called for 2c sugar and a cinnamon and sugar glaze, but I really prefer things less sweet.  You should experiment until it tastes how you like.


by Leave a comment

cookies and stories

Most importantly I made gluten free peanut butter cookies this past weekend.  Here is the recipe:

1c peanut butter
1c sugar
1tsp vanilla
1 egg

Beat peanut butter and sugar together, then add egg and vanilla.  Roll into walnut-sized balls and place on greased (or parchment papered) cookie sheet and crush in # pattern with fork.  Bake 10(ish) minutes at 350′.  Eat.  Be amazed at how much like a floured cookie this is.

I made many and brought them to work.  No one seemed able to tell that they were any different than any other peanut butter cookie.  I might next time reduce the sugar and add a second egg to see if they can be chewier.  These came out just like I remember the standard Joy of Cooking recipe, just like a PB cookie, but I would like chewier version.  Also I recommend greasing up your hands before rolling the dough balls, as they are sticky wickets.

♦♦♦

I am still reading Deathless.  I don’t ever want it to end.  I feel like I’ve been seriously slowing down on it all week in a subconscious effort to draw out the fairytale as long as possible.  In my head the whole story is animated in paper cut-outs like the cover:

Also it makes me want to dress like a fashionable 1930s revolutionary and decorate my entire house in Russian folk art.

Speaking of folk art: Lubki prints of popular culture stories (I’m not linking to the original source here because it’s in Cyrillic).  I could totally decorate my house in there.  And then lounge around in this skirt.  And people would only think I’m slightly less crazy than they think right now.

♦♦♦

I also saw X-men: First Class this week and loved it.  Think this is an awesome introduction to the universe.  Though I’d recommend the comics over the other movies.  But despite some small casting discrepancies it was pretty well done and very enjoyable for a summer movie.  My triffling story problems with it are endemic to current films and don’t really detract from the movie (characters have instant changes of heart, but who has time for back story and moralizing when there’s explosions to be watched?).  Also Michael Fassbender wears the heck out of some clothes in this movie.  Mmmmhmmm.

Heading to the west coast in a little more than a day for my amazing little sister’s graduation.  Very excited to escape the oppressive middle TN heat right now.  Need to pack a neat capsule wardrobe, both fashionable and urban and for much cooler temps.  It’s kind of exciting.  Also need to finish some web work I promised folks and do a metric ton a job work before I go.


by Leave a comment

Sunday dinner

I’m heading into work late.  It’s way too cold, icy and snowy to go outside.  In lieu of doing work this morning, I typed up my Sunday dinner menu for you.

Spice Rubbed Lamb Chops

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon freshly ground cloves
1 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 large lamb shoulder blade chops

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.  Mix the 2 teaspoons salt, 1 teaspoon pepper, cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon together. Brush each lamb chop lightly with the olive oil and season with the spice mixture. Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the chops in the skillet, without crowding until brown and crisp on both sides, about 3 or 4 minutes for both sides. Finish chops in the oven for 1 minute for medium rare, or to desired doneness.

(I substituted cayenne for cloves, which I realize isn’t the same, but worked out very well.)

Chickpea and Leek Soup

5 medium leeks
1 can chickpeas
2 cloves of garlic chopped finely
1 medium potato
4-5 cups of vegetable or chicken broth
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmesan plus extra for garnish
1 Tbs butter
2 Tbs olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

Dice and boil the potato, set aside.  Clean and slice the leeks, lengthwise and then in narrow strips.  Melt the butter in a heavy bottomed stock pot with the olive oil and add the garlic. Once they begin to soften, add the leeks and a generous pinch of salt.

Once the leeks are soft and smelling good, add the pre-cooked potato and the chickpeas. cook about 2 minutes then add the 2/3rds the broth.  Simmer 15 minutes.  At this point you have to decide how you want to serve the soup – as it is, puréed or semi-puréed. I blend about half of it and ad it back to rest of the soup. Add the rest of the broth to your desired thickness)and the grated Parmesan.  Serve with more grated fresh Parmesan.

I served all of this with butter lettuce salad, as well.

Over all, super easy.  Since there’s only two if us, we usually end up with enough soup for two more meals.  I’ll probably add chicken and mushrooms to it when I reheat it, to keep it new.


by Leave a comment

back to normal blogging: food & shoes & unrelated pictures

I had a fine, mostly relaxing, albeit too short weekend. I capped it with a delicious dinner that I was so pleased with, I have to share it with you.

I started with a small pork tenderloin (about enough for two people with no leftovers) and marinated it for about 5 hours in:

1 cup white wine
3 tblsp. Dijon mustard
5 garlic cloves, minced
fresh Basil, chopped finely
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 350º. Place meat in small roasting pan, with the remainder of the marinade poured over it.  Cook 45 mins, turning once, until internal temp is 140º.

Then we had a leek gratin.  I was a little leery of this, but it was incredibly delicious

3 leeks, trimmed, split lengthwise, and well rinsed
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 Tblsp. unsalted butter cut into pieces
1/2 cup heavy cream (I used half & half because it’s all I had)
6 Tblsp. grated cheese (I used Edam, the original recipe called for Gruyere, but depending on what you’re going for, most any mild cheese would work)

Preheat oven to 350º. Arrange the leeks cut side up in a single layer in a baking dish. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste, dot with butter, and gently pour the cream over the top. Sprinkle with the cheese, cover with a lid or foil and bake for 35 minutes. Carefully uncover and bake 5 – 10 minutes more until the top is golden brown and the leeks are tender.

Even better than they cook for same amount of time at the same temp!

We had it with crusty whole grain bread and white wine.  I used too much butter (I never referred back to the recipe after I first saw it) to no ill effect, but I’ll probably try and do it right next time.  I also would cut the leeks into about 3″ pieces after splitting them, to make it easier to serve (although having a knife that’s actually sharp in my house would have gone a long way toward helping that).

—

I have been looking for a menswear styled woman’s oxford for close to two years now.  18 months ago I could find one pair and those weren’t real leather.  Now they seem to be the ubiquitous shoe for fall.  Although, as ever with something like this, I know exactly what I want and my need for detail often means the thing I want doesn’t exist.  But sometimes, as I did on Friday, I stumble on the exact thing I’d been hoping to find.  This time the bar was even raised: they come in purple.   Alas, I’m going to be saving my pennies for a while.  And I’ll probably get the grey ones for practicality’s sake.  Still in the interim, while the weather is still warm here, I will fantasize about fall outfits, with sweaters and the perfect oxfords.  In purple.

Today’s picture brought to you by my desire to have eaten such a lovely dinner in Catalan France, while wearing a vintage patterned shirtdress and purple oxfords.  Someday I’ll have a castle too.


by Leave a comment

darkness comes on standard time

As I did at exactly this time last year, I have taken the refashion pledge:

I pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of “new” manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 2 months. I pledge that I shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovated, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that thriftiness brings!

So I will probably be doing most of my sewing blog posts over there, but I will try and link them here when they go up.

I made Thai green curry for dinner to stave off the depression of the first Standard time early sunset. Spicy, wonderful nom nom noms!  And hopefully to help me feel better.

The past two months of house guests, lots of running around, plenty of work and then, most recently, being sick, have left me feeling broke down and worn out.  I have need-to-do projects stacked knee-high around the house. I feel the need to just catch up on my life.  Like not even the projects, just you know, being me who isn’t hosting guests or sick or at work.  Ugh.  Lots of sewing will surely help. I should get started on that. 🙂

This weekend I spent a bunch of time fantasizing about a lovely, relaxing summer holiday here.  My mom is just now flying back from here, which also seems about right for where I’d rather be right now.  I did, after many false starts, finally book my tickets to Seattle for the winter holidays.  Dec 20-28.  I’m very much looking forward to that too.

I didn’t do anything for Halloween, but come home and put on pajamas. Lame, maybe, but so relaxing.  I’ve been thinking about my Gramma Marge and my Grampa Ray a lot today. El Día de los Muertos means honoring them.  For a while now I’ve been wanting to make a standing El Día de los Muertos altar for them in miniature.  I should perhaps take some time today to put down my plans for it so that I can start making the little pieces of it over the coming year.  I will light a candle for them tonight.

Picture today is my dining room fireplace “altar” for honoring the dead.


by Leave a comment

Thinky thoughts

I am freaking exhausted.  Staying up until 4 am pretending to be a cool rock chick will do that, I guess. Fun night, better day (despite the hangover) showing the PNW boys Nashberg.

Fall still seems to be raining it’s way in.  I’ve gotten pretty used to Indian summers here. I guess it’s still possible.  It’s just been so overwhelmingly grey and insanely wet for the last week.  The air tastes like despair.  I have been here, in the sun, for so long now that apparently it takes only a week of grey for SAD to set in.  Luckily a good day of bright Southern sunlight can knock it out.  Now if only the sun would come out.

Libelle and I went shopping yesterday and I got an amazing wool coat, Italian, with the tags still on at the new Goodwill for $15.  I am smitten with it. It’s purple, but not too purple.  I like autumn all right, though I lament the loss of summer.  The coat is so wonderful that I think I might actually make it through winter.  I will try to take pictures tomorrow.

I lost my evening reading random personal blogs that Google Reader recommended me.  Usually it recs me sewing blogs or something clearly related to other blogs I read (like music or local news) but I got these two random ones.  One a girl who seems lonely and sad, but maybe doesn’t realize how pathetic she comes across (lots of writing about the boyfriend she misses, even though they broke up a year ago and she hasn’t spoken to him in seven months, ugh, so sad).  And another is a sort of hipstery dude in Brooklyn, but he posts kind of interesting art, and these hilarious (possibly unintentionally so) one line movie reviews, so I might follow him for a while.

Then I was thinking about how these blogs are nothing but weird windows into people’s lives so I went back and read my own entries from the last three Septembers.  And I guess since this blog is sort of about nothing, it is also a weird little window into my life.  I was reminded that I get really homesick every September, so it is excellent that I am going out to visit this week (omg, I need to pack).  And there’s odd little entries like this one that make my life seem interesting.  I guess my life is interesting.

I was contemplating some meme where you put all your past addresses into Google Earth and post the pictures of them, but then it seemed oddly morbid. Still, here is the house I grew up in.  It is part of what makes me interesting.  This pictures makes me happy.  Maybe it is because it seems so sunny.

The Placebo version of this song was on the premiere of Vampire Diaries (which so far doesn’t suck) and reminded me of how much I love it.  I have probably listened to it six times tonight.  It makes me feel lonely and happy at the same time.  This video is clearly dated though still incredibly lovely.

This live performance is also dated, but the emotion in it is fantastic.

I am covered in mosquito bites from walking around Spring Hill cemetery this morning.  I hate the word “upcycle.”  I am tired and achy.  I should be in bed.  Instead I am scrunched up on the love seat eating a sandwich consists of wheat bread (the cheap, crappy kind that is like brown white bread), tartar sauce (better than mayo on sandwiches) and havarti.  It is kind of trashy and incredibly delicious.


by Leave a comment

What the storm brings

cupcake joy!

Amid today’s crazy booming thunderstorms I made cupcakes.  Rainbow cupcakes with cloud frosting! Hooray!!!

First we mix the batter:

like easter

Which comes out looking more like something for dyeing Easter eggs, than something you’d want to eat.  In fact they don’t look much more edible after they’ve been baked:

tasty?

Obviously what we need to solve this problem is cream cheese frosting.  Lots and lots of cream cheese frosting:

clouds of joy

And the the most important part, eating:

taste the rainbow!


by 2 Comments

YAY PIE!

013

Sunday, day of rest.  I am sitting around now in a grubby tank top and yoga pants, so that’s kind of restful (if by restful I mean slovenly and lazy).  Not an empty day.  After a quick trip to the store I came home, cleaned up a little and ate lunch.  Then did way too much ironing and cutting.  But hey, my next FIVE sewing projects are cut out, so that’s some good accomplished.  I really need an assistant to do my ironing for me.  And maybe the cutting too.

Then I made pie crust using my mom’s tried and true recipe (tastes delicious!) and made mini pies.  The first round was pepperoni and cheese savory pies.  About four inches across (sadly devoured before pictures could be taken).  They were good but a little crust heavy.  Next time I think I’d roll it thinner, and maybe make them in triangles instead of circles.  But again, the crust was delicious, so who cares if there was a little much of it.

After that were much smaller fruit pies.  Marion berry and lemon.  Technically I guess they are jam tarts, since I used marion berry jam and lemon curd instead of making tiny amounts of pie filling.

004

I will probably do this again, but I will probably buy pie dough or, more likely, puff pastry.  If you have a nice kitchen that is well appointed, I will totally come to your house and make them all from scratch, but in my teentsy kitchen it’s nearly impossible to roll anything out and have a place to put things as you make them (I had to clear everything off the counter and lay a bamboo cutting board over the stove surface just to have almost enough room to work).

016

Now I am going to pin stuff together so it’s ready to sew tomorrow and contemplate the next baking experiement: rainbow cupcakes.


by Leave a comment

Saturday Sampler

PocketCambridgeDetail

Tiny pie lollipops. Lollipies. LOLLIPIES. I probably will not make these, but I do see some very tiny pies in my future. Time consuming, sure, but probably worth it. I’ve made hand pies before. I was just thinking about them the other day, but now I want to make two bite pies. Tiny, tiny pies!

The original blog, LuxiRare, the tiny lollipies came from is very strange. It’s high fashion and food which seems odd–or not sewing and cooking go together, I guess. It’s just so very different from the usual cutesy quilting/knitting/ combined with cupcakes blogs. It’s weird sort of gothic-y unwearable clothes combined with delicious looking but very hard to make food. I lost an hour browsing it last night when I should have been asleep. Her pictures are gorgeous even if I find much of her subject matter and the clothes she makes weird.

Feral houses. A little sad, but gorgeous pictures!

Macclesfield Alphabet book. Used to produce 15th century “luxury” books. Weren’t all books a luxury in the 15th century?

Moroccan Inspired Dessert Table! I’m not 100% sold on the colors here but the concept is fantastic and it does all look lovely.

Not as old, or as storied, but still fun: American castles.


by Leave a comment

stiches, grapes, cakes and frogs

010

The black dress is finished.  I put the pictures up on Flickr a couple days ago, but I forgot to post here.  I’m very happy with how it fits and how comfortable it is.  I’d like to make another in a print.  I’m thinking something like this:

lemons!
Maybe it’s too much?  Or maybe I just don’t like that black background.  I wish I could find something like it with a brown or muted blue background.  I think two of that dress, basically in black, would be too much.  The lovely burgundy muslin is probably unwearable for me.  I swear I preshrunk the fabric, but after I washed it it’s about four inches shorter.  Still a great dress, I just need to give it to someone shorter than me (unlikely) or someone who is comfortable wearing things shorter than I  wear them (likely).  So maybe I could just make a second dress in a color?  Though I really like the idea of a pattern.  Hmmmm.  I like the idea of a border print too, but those seem to be hard to come by.

My Colorado Rebecca (as distinguished from my other Rebeccas) has a new blog about her adventures with wine.  No, no, not in a drunken shenanigans kind of way.  More of a ‘follow along as I learn about this’ kind of way.  She’s at Adventures of a Wine Noob.  Go check her out.

For the last two days my hair has looked fantastic.  This is because I haven’t been out of the house or seen anyone.  Tomorrow it will surely go back to frizzy madness before it’s time to go to work.

I am recovering okay from the dentist stuff.  I had a rough morning.  And an afternoon trip back to the dentist to get a tiny bit more patching up.  An evening with  painkillers on the couch watching old standbys has helped a lot.  My chin hurts.  I won’t be surprised if it comes up bruised.  My gums are bruised and my lips.  My teeth don’t hurt so much any more.  Am certainly on the mend.  I kind of want to go run around tomorrow (the couch gets old after a while), but I will refrain so I can be good for work tomorrow night and healthy for the weekend.  So instead of errands and work, my choices for tomorrow are watching the most recent Bond movie or catching up on Mad Men (I haven’t even watched season 2 yet, ack!  3 is about to start).

I’ve posted before about the rainbow cupcakes.  Every time I think about making this it’s usually too late at night to get the ingredients I’d need.  Some day though, there will be rainbow cupcakes.  And now I have a new obsession: cake pops.    (Also go here and scroll down and see all the many delightfully decorated cake pops.)

Libelle just went outside to scare away the very loud frog that was on the porch.  Or maybe it was a bird.  Mostly likely a frog. Or some sort of alien hybrid frogbird.  In any case it was loud and annoying and seems to be gone now.  Oh, wait, I spoke too soon.  Stupid rain.  Stupid frogs!!  You stay in the gully.  Don’t come on the porch!


by 3 Comments

mish mash

Keds has this design your own shoe thing, where you can mix and match from their designs or you can upload your own pictures and get Keds made in any pattern at all.  I don’t even really wear shoes like this, but I think this is so incredibly cool.

Oh!  Oh my!!  Dinner cupcakes, bread version.  Dinner cupcakes, meat version.   And then, after the dinner cupcakes we have delicious gay cupcakes.

Paper stars!!  someday I am going to lock myself in the house and make hundreds of these.  I will fill jars with them and give them away to everyone.

Trey Deuce Club, Vol. 1.  Get it!


by Leave a comment

mostly just weirdness

Tim Burton is remaking Alice in Wonderland?   HOORAY!!

I can’t remember who I got the link from over the weekend (Wm. Gibson, maybe? Seems like his sort of thing), but check out abandoned places.   (The site is a little funky to navigate at first.) I need to make notes of things like this.  Like if I won the lottery I could just tour weird abandoned places.  That would be very interesting and surely take you all over the world.

This week I really need to get it together to make one of these light boxes.

I really want a decent, West Coast style burrito for lunch.  Alas.  Maybe I’ll get tortilla swhen I go out.  Grump grump grump.  If I go out.  It’s really damn hot this week.


by 2 Comments

one of those/a case of the Mondays

I’m having a Day already.  Now I’m just sitting around waiting for the mechanic to call and tell me how much money I am about to hemorrhage into my car.  I have succeeded in not bursting into tears at problems I can’t control. However the postman just delivered a huge box of chocolate chip cookies homemade by one of my aunts.  And that, my friends, was enough to make me cry. And I’m having cookies for lunch.  Who can blame me?

Libelle pointed out several times this weekend that it is still technically spring but since I am horribly sunburned and covered in bug bites I am going to go ahead and call it summer in Tennessee.

So mere seconds ago I was pausing in typing, thinking hard about positive things I could post about (besides cookies and wonderful family members) and then I spilled coffee on my new shirt while I was thinking.  I’m just going to go ahead and call today a total fail.  Anything bad that happens from here on out is a given.  Anything good is a bonus. Ugh.


by Leave a comment

lost week

Today was a total loss for me.  I achieved almost nothing but eating, surfing the internet, watching TV and picking up a little bit (a very, very little bit) around the house.  I also took my mom to the airport which was very sad.

We had a good visit.  On the one hand I didn’t get hardly anything productive done in the past week, but on the other, I had a great week.  I think my mom had a good time too.  We went on lots and lots of walks, saw Star Trek (mmmm, Chris Pine), saw the Medieval art thing at the Frist, ate many great meals (including my own discovery of new to me good places to eat in Nashville), went to the museum under the Parthenon, walked more, shopped a lot (new shoes!), got pedicures, saw the great museum at Cheekwood (fantastic especially the William Edmondson sculptures), spent much time loitering at Ugly Mugs, and of course, I worked a bunch causing Ma to spend a lot of time at the bar (but I think she had a good time).  I got plenty of exercise and maybe not enough sleep (especially last night).

I definitely feel somewhat guilty about shirked responsibilities.  But hey, I feel like a good daughter and pretty relaxed and excited about new parts of my city I discovered.  Alas as with nearly every vacation we take together, I forgot entirely to take pictures.

And now back to regular life.  I’m somewhat terrified by what my to do list will look like tomorrow morning.


by 3 Comments

birthday shoes

Thank you all for the amazing birthday wishes.  I will get to telling each and every one of you, individually, how much I appreciate it, uh, some time soon.

My birthday started with coffee and cupcakes from Libelle and later included some fantastic sushi, definitely the best I’ve had in Nashville.  And lots of new shoes.  And because Missy Sue asked (she’s going to kill me for calling her that here, but it does protect her identity), here’s pictures of the shoes I got (courtesy my super awesome mama):

Nine West WinerNine West JonieAldo FalylalyAriat Show Baby

I maintain that the last pair are very practical.  You can never have too many low-heeled crepe soled boots.

So there it is, I left 35 behind with sushi and shoes.  Not bad, not bad at all.  I’m sure I’l have some long dramatic post to make about aging and life changes, but not today.


by Leave a comment

I am

I am having Bristish cafe style cheese toasties for breakfast (Momma, we will get some wheat-free bread and make these when you visit).

I am listening to Last Train Home‘s “Last Good Kiss” over and over this morning, as it seems to suit my current situation.  Perhaps a little more dramatic than my reality, but it works nonetheless.

I am making a list of things to do today.  I recently gave up this practice in favor of a rotating ongoing master list of things that needed doing.  That just gave me much much much anxiety so I have reverted back to the simpler list for the day.

I am trying to ignore my impending birthday.  Yes, it’s a month away, but yesterday I woke up all full of contemplation about it.  The years ending in 0s and 5s are fine for me, it’s the 1s and 6s that get you.  They make me feel compelled to assess where I am in life and that never seems to match up with what I think I should have acheived.

I am going to sew something cheerful today, since the skies are so grey.  I am going to be grateful for the grey because I know it is what brings the green.


by Leave a comment

babies, babies, tape and tacos

Last night I dreamt about my friends’ new baby.  She was sitting her little seat, still too small to hold her head up, but she was very alert.  I kept trying to tell her she could go to sleep, that everything would still be there in the morning, but she wanted to see what everyone was doing. Clearly I have some special insight proving she will be one of the smartest girls ever!!

I am so tired today.  I am fantasizing about an afternoon nap.  I am disappointed that the hammock isn’t set up already.  Not enough to bother setting it up though.

I am going to draft out a test pattern for a baby clothes idea I had.  I am maybe going to finish the dress I’ve been altering for Libelle.  I am maybe going to sweep and mop the house.  I am maybe going for a walk in the sun.  I am maybe just going to sit here and work on the stupid RSS feed coding problem that I am still having.  I am maybe going to shower.  I am maybe going to walk to the cafe next door for lunch.  Why am I not in downtown Portland with 600 taco trucks to choose from?  I want good tacos.  Mmmm, tacos.  I am maybe going to be easily distracted today.

I did manage to get around to making some bias tape the other day:
tape-01

I used this tutorial for the continuous tape (less sewing!).

I have many many many other things to do today, but first more coffee!!  HURRAH!


by Leave a comment

cakey cakes, no nutmeg

So this morning I made the gingerbread pancakes.  They were kind of underwhelming.  I had lemon curd though, so that made them spectacular.  If I made them again, from that recipe, I would double the coffee, double the cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger.  (Ahem, or even use nutmeg, as I couldn’t find any, so I used allspice instead.)  They were kind of too cakey too, I might also add more buttermilk. I’m full, and yet still kind of craving gingerbread.


by Leave a comment

dreamcakes

How would one go about making gingerbread pancakes?  It can’t be that hard right?  And ha, I’ve only had two sips of coffee and it took me the entire typing of those first two sentences for me to realize I could just Google it.  To complete this experiment I would also need to procure lemon curd.  So I guess it isn’t happening today, although Publix will probably come through for me on the ingredients.

Last night I dreamt that Libelle and I moved into a new house.  It was strangely laid out and needed a lot of work (just like our current house!!).  In the dream, as we were moving, and all our friends were helping us lay new floors through the place, I went outside and saw hoards of traffic.  Apparently it was game day, UT (Tenn) vs. UT (Texas) (and no, I have no idea if these teams would really play each other in football) and we’d moved in right across from the stadium (which I guess means we either moved to Kville or Texas?).  Oh No! My dream self thought, the Nashvillest girls warned me about this!  I have to decide before game day if I am going to leave the house at all, and time it around the traffic.  And I started shaking, grabbed a friend and kind of collapsed against him and started sobbing.  When he asked what was wrong, I choked out that I’d only just realized that I’d left East Nashville, and if I’d realized before then I never would have moved.

So clearly, the mental message here is: don’t leave East Nashville.  Heh.  The weird thing is though, that actually the stadium’s location traps us in east Nashville when the Titans play.  The traffic management is so bad that we are left with only a couple options for getting into the city and those are generally the long, very very long way ’round. It’s hard to say, really, if my psyche is warning me against moving out of E. Nash, or if it is just anxious about football season.  Which, uh, preseason isn’t even until like August or something, right?  Also, damn it, Tennessee, what have you done to me that I am dreaming about football.

Anyway, somehow I woke up from all of this fantasizing about gingerbread pancakes with lemon curd.  Which I think I read about soemwhere recently, as this isn’t something I would generally make up myself.  Alas, I have no lemon curd (which is a shame, I should perhaps always have some in the house, of course I’d just eat it and have to get more), nor buttermilk to make the pancakes with.  I could instead make waffles with apple butter.  It seems almost as good, but only almost.  Hmm, maybe I will have bacon instead.  Why is Sunday breakfast always so late and such a production?  What I am really asking here is: why does someone not just bring me exactly what I want for breakfast on Sundays?