I was tired last night and didn’t get around to posting. I can’t think of anything interesting to say this morning, so I’ll tell you about Bejeweled. It is a terrible little game that will take over your life. Brad introduced it to us last week, and we sat around for many an hour saying, “Just one more game.” My best game happened before church on Sunday, when I just kept getting good turns over and over and over. I was literally sweating, because my hair wasn’t dry and we had to leave in twenty minutes. (“Just one more minute….”)
Anyway, if you want to try to line up three sparkly jewels in a row to make them disappear, try this. Don’t blame me if you lose your job because you forgot to go. Click the pic.
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Max Flax
Do you know how much flaxseed meal Brad Royuk eats every day? A surprising amount. See this?
That spoon is piled higher than Marge Simpson’s hair! And he eats two of them! *Jibblie* Looks like a compost pile.
Peggy, the rest of this post is for you. I wanted to test the terra cotta saucer thing, so I got one at Wal-Mart. I wanted a big one, but they only had a six-inch-diameter one. That actually worked out fine for my little loaf. I believe I could bake a larger one on it, and the cost for this little miracle? Ninety-seven cents! (I’m pretty sure it’s going to crack eventually, though. They only had one, and it has a little fissure in it.)
I sprinkled some of the flaxseed meal on the bread before I baked it, and let me just say – don’t do that. Those oil-filled flecks burnt like firewood. Not tasty.
New, better, more powerful bread
So, I’m never making no-knead bread again. Too many steps, too messy, and too much time. I’m now hooked on ‘Artisan Bread in Five Minutes’. The real recipe is here, but I cut it by two-thirds so I can make it in the plastic coffee cans that keep getting donated to the CDC. This is awesome! You mix together (for the coffee can) 2 cups of warmish water (not hot), a packet of yeast, 1 tablespoon of kosher salt (2 1/4 teaspoons of regular salt), and four cups of flour. Mix until the flour is wet, cover loosely with something (not a cat) and set it somewhere warm for 2 – 5 hours to rise. Then you put the lid on, toss it in your fridge and cut off hunks when you want to bake a loaf.
You quickly mold it into a ball, let it rest on a cornmeal-covered board for 40 minutes and bake it in a hot oven on a pizza stone (I use a stoneware cake pan). If you throw a cup of water in a metal pan in the oven it makes a rockin’ crust!
I’ve had two batches going in the fridge. The one on the left is all white flour, the one on the right has some wheat flour. The dough improves with age, and the wheat bread was better the second time I baked some.
I love crusty bread with butter!!!! Warm from the oven, my life is complete. If you want to see a You Tube demonstration, click here. I love you, bread.
Laurenburg
I’m not sure anymore if Laurenburg means Lauren city or Lauren mountain, but I’m pretty sure it’s one of those two. Unfortunately, Laurenburg needs more visitors if it’s going to thrive and prosper in 2008. I don’t know what the future has in store for Laurenburg, but I’m assured that the more people who visit the city the faster it will grow. So lets get those extra credit points rolling and send annoying email to all your friends and add a link at the bottom of all your emails and put a link on your websites and tell your coworkers at the water cooler (assuming your water cooler is connected to the interweb). You can make your own city here.
Window rant
Happy Birthday, Mom Royuk!! She’s our ‘between’ birthday girl!
Ok, I’ve been keeping this topic secret for awhile, but I’m ready to come out in the open with it. My obsession with temperature has reached a new level. A couple of weeks ago I started to put that shrink-with-a-hair-dryer plastic sheeting on the windows at the top of the stairs. I finished one window, then got out the handy-dandy thermometer to check the difference between a plastic-covered window and a regular window. I wanted to feel the satisfaction of stopping the heat in the house from leaking outside.
Guess what? No difference. None. Exactly the same temperature as the other windows. I felt betrayed!!!! Sure, if the window is drafty, the plastic will stop the air from moving, but we don’t have such drafty windows. This problem required some thought.
You should know that I’m not a fan of curtains. The only curtains we have are the ones in the living room that came with the house. I’ve read about how having heavy drapes that seal off the windows can stop heat loss, but I wasn’t about to go out and spend money on curtains. So…. here’s the first test window.
Yes, that’s a comforter. Can you say ‘trashy’? Laugh all you want, but it’s for science, not for beauty. This ugly thing is currently blocking sixteen degrees from leaving the bedroom. Cozy warm side:
Here’s the reading behind the curtain… er, comforter:
So, in conclusion: Get curtains for the winter!. I have other windows in various stages of experimentation (pictures available upon request), but even having regular curtains (or ‘towels’) on a window can make a significant difference. Block the gaps at the top & bottom, it’s even more efficient!
I’m glad that Lloyd hasn’t kicked me out yet. I’m also glad that we don’t have people dropping by that would judge me by my window coverings. It’s good that I’m going crazy now while I can still enjoy it.
Just like a rancher
I’m turning into Becky Home Ecky on the weekends. It was snowy, so it was another good day to just stay inside. I puttered around the house cooking and making cookie dough – not the roll-out kind. (I’m part of some guild of ladies that makes baked goods for students at Concordia. I told them right off the bat that I can only make chocolate chip cookies – no cakes. That seemed to work out, and I only have to do it about once a year.) Anyway, I was so gung-ho with this cookie thing that I also made a half-batch of a coffee/chocolate shortbread recipe from the internet. I haven’t baked it yet, and I’m saving the details for it’s own post. The recipe involved chopping some chocolate, to my very great joy.
I’ve told you how much I love to chop, right? Onions, celery, apples, nuts, garlic, chocolate – whatever. But there’s a problem. I’m not the most careful person. I don’t ‘clean’ my cutting boards very well after each use as much as give ’em a quick wash and swipe it dry. (Except for the plastic cutting board for meat – that one gets sanitized in the dishwasher. Meat germs give me the jibblies.) Consequently, sometimes my apples smell a bit like onions. I’ve often thought that I should mark one side of the board for onions and savory stuff, leaving the other side stink-free for sweet things. But how? Carve ‘onion’ into it? Hack a chunk out of one edge and just remember? Brand it?
Brand it?
Brand it.
Oh, yeah. Getting dangerous with hot metal! (I used tongs. I’m not completely insane.)
My dad made these cutting boards for me. I love them, and now they’re permanently mine.
It’s a little salt shaker I lost the plug to. No comments about the tragic state of my drip pans. Those don’t get cleaned very often at all.
Burn, baby, burn.
“O” is for onion. and ocelery. and ogarlic.
