Baking Bread Bowls: A Discovery

The Husband and I have finally realised why so many of our baking projects have been a bit - shall we say - lacklustre. When making pizzas, or cinnamon buns, or fun artisan breads, we somehow neglected to realise that our bread dough needed to be proved in the oven before the real baking commenced.

Thankfully, the Husband decided to give the proving a go this time when we made bread bowls to accompany that potato soup I made the other week. Good job he did, too. When we peaked in the oven before turning up the temperature, we realised that 10-15 minutes in the oven at about 90*C was just what the dough needed. Our little awkward spheres had plumped up nicely and nearly doubled in size - making them just right for holding tiny servings of soup. It's always the easiest mistake to correct that takes the longest to realise. Sigh.

Mmm....

Truth be told, it was a bit more trouble than it was worth, and all that soggy bread at the end is a bit awkward, but at least I can now say I've done it. I may yet try it again with a different sort of soup. There's this spiced butternut squash recipe I'm dying to try out...

just wait until you can have real food...

Hello, Dearest

So being the foreign language-loving nerd that I am, I've attempted in my life to learn French (this did not last long. About one semester of middle school, if I remember correctly), Spanish (two years of high school), German (one year of high school and two of college), and even - prepare for a pocket-protector-wearing fest of nerd-dom - Welsh. For fun. Well, really, because I wanted to know how to pronounce Ioan Gruffudd's name and then was magically sucked in via the power of a "Teach Yourself [insert foreign language here]" CD. This random affiliation for languages that are not my own also means that, thanks to the 3 years of study I've successfully forgotten most of, I know that the German word for "dearest" is "Liebster". Interestingly enough, that's also the name of the lovely chain-letter-style award I just received from the wonderfully witty Rachel over at Make A Long Story Short.

Seriously: go check out her blog, she's hilarious and charming and has quite the way with words. Not to mention any post that talks about and features the adventures of her bouncing baby boy, Henry. Long before I properly knew this girl in real life, I had stalked enjoyed her blog for months, consistently thinking to myself, "I want to write like that."

So in the spirit of passing along a good thing, here are a few of my other favourite and lesser known blogs:

I come from what I feel is a pretty literary family, and my cousin, Jen, is most definitely not the exception to this rule. In fact, I think she's the case that best proves the rule. Her blog - Greybon - is a wonderful collection of well-worded anecdotes about her life, and other random and interesting tid-bits.

Looking for a delicious and easy veggie recipe? Look no further than my awesome friend Alicia over at Real Delicious Food. The dishes she posts about look good enough to make even a carnivore like myself consider adding a few more veggie dishes to my life. (I'm pretty sure even the Husband wouldn't protest.)

Small Girl, Big City is the blog home of Krystle, who has the awesome distinction of being the only person in college who was cool enough to make me want to live with her for two separate years. She's also in the midst of being awesome while living in DC and manages to blog about it with the sort of smiley wit and enthusiasm I have to appreciate, even in my most sarcastic and curmudgeonly moments.

And now for the hard part: five fascinating facts about myself. I can promise five facts, but I make no claims about their ability to capture anyone's interest...

1. I used to live down the street from Sir Derek Jacoby. For realsies. I saw him walking his dog twice and was about thisclose to walking up and asking him about his dog. All the while, of course, I'd be nonchalantly pretending that I didn't care a fig that he was a famous actor, while inside doing the most embarrassing fangirl dance imaginable...complete with flapping hands and squealing noises.
2. When my mom remarried a few years back, my new stepbrother was in England doing missionary work, and spent some of his time partnered with the guy who was later housemates with the guy who would end up - after my own semester in England - becoming my husband and the father of my gorgeous Ethan. They all know each other now and we still laugh about the coincidence.
3. (And this is where we start to lower the tone...) My toes are weirdly short. As a kid I never realised this - I just though other people had freakish monkey toes - but no. Mine are the anomaly, apparently.
4. My mother, once, as a kid was approached from behind by a random adult in her neighbourhood whilst talking to one of her sisters. The grown-up in question asked, "are you Viola's granddaughter?" When my mom said yes, she was told that she sounded just like her grandmother. I now use the transitive property of math to conclude that - allowing for variances in accent (my accent is the bastard child of four regions of two countries, now) - since I sound just like my mom, I also sound just like my great-grandmother. The historian in me finds that sort of heritage of sound pretty awesome.
5. I am - according to family lore - descended from the families of two US presidents: Zachary Taylor and James Madison. Oh, and like any child of a good Virginian family, a Confederate general, too: Ambrose P. Hill. (Sadly, there's a special kind of awkward-looking that runs in the family that leads me to believe from daguerreotypes I've seen that these old family stories are totally legit.)

Pinterest Challenge

I may be on my own as far as the timing is concerned, but I'm doing the Pinterest Challenge. What is it? you ask. Well, the idea is to find something you've pinned on Pinterest, stop being lame, and just do the project.

You may remember that the last time I mentioned this idea, I had selected this as my project to complete:

...some sparkly, vintge-y Christmas ornaments to complete and hang on the tree next year. Well, my take on it went a bit astray of the lovely Bible verses in an Albrecht Dürer-style font. That said, I'm still not done with this endeavour, so we'll see where else it can end up once all the details are settled on.

I decided that a fun idea would be to have literary Christmas baubles. As a parting gift from Jane Austen's House Museum, I was given a book of Hugh Thompson's illustrations to Pride and Prejudice from the early 1900s. (The illustrations, that is, not the book itself!) At some point, I may go back and buy a copy of this to keep in tact, but I have to confess that I cannibalised it in the name of crafty Christmas cheer.

all supplies gathered together

In the name of having a bit of diversity - and because I wasn't sure I had enough illustrations in my Hugh Thompson book to cover all 6 baubles - I made a run to the charity shops back on the high street of the old neighbourhood and picked up two other books to cut apart all for the princely sum of £1.10. (Actually, for that price, I didn't just snag Roald Dahl's The Twits and Homer's Iliad - both of which I already have copies of - but also a dirt cheap copy of Eat, Pray, Love. I read the sequel ages ago and liked it well enough. I figure for 50p, even if it's relatively rubbish, I could throw the same amount away on a chocolate bar.)

So that's 60p for the books, £1 for the baubles (on post-season sale at B&Q), 40p for the gold ribbon to hang them, and about £4 for the glitter spray paint. (I had the glue and paint brush already, but those only added about another £2) All told, about £8 for 6 baubles...but realistically, I only spent about £3 on this project, since there's enough glitter spray for several other projects when I decide to work on those.

After ripping out some of the pages of The Twits with the best illustrations, as well as some snippets of text, I mixed a bit of water with the glue to get a nice Mod Podge-like solution. Then, I'd paint my paste on the baubles and on both sides of my strips of paper, shellacking the paper to the bauble until I had a good covering...

First half done and drying under the keyboard

my paste painting technique

Of course, I have to point out that your hands still get pretty sticky even with the paint brush. The brush is really just to smooth out the strips of paper nicely without it ripping and sticking to your tacky fingers. Eventually, I just put the ribbon on and let the baubles hang under the keyboard in our bay window and decoupaged them there. Of course, that decision was inspired in part by the need to keep E entertained. He's refused to nap until now today, really, having slept in an additional two hours this morning, so I stuck him in the Moby in order to get the first three of my six baubles completed.

Now, the P&P illustrations presented a challenge. You see, the camber of the baubles was drastic enough that I couldn't use any really big illustrations...for that matter, even the small ones were a challenge. So, I cut out individual characters from the half-page reproductions and then filled in the gaps with the captions.

A very Darcy Christmas ornament

Once all of the hideous silver plastic had been hidden away under a layer of paper, I shook up my can of glitter pray paint, cracked open the living room windows, and went to town with a thin layer of spray. I held up one of the book covers behind the ornaments to keep glitter from getting all over my curtains, and eventually - holding to the Sherry Petersik rule of Lots of Thin Coats when it comes to spray paint - I'll go back and get these things a bit more sparkly. Perhaps more Edward Cullen than Liberace. (That's the only time a Twilight reference is a positive thing.)

Another project I'll get the Husband's help with this weekend? Bread bowls. You see, I decided to go out on a limb and make soup for the first time this week. Not that it ended up being that difficult, but it's always a bit daunting when you haven't done something before.

Potatoes, garlic, part of an onion, and a couple of celery stalks gave us a really delicious soup for dinner throughout the week. Specifically,
4 stalks of celery
2 cloves of garlic
4 medium potatoes
2/3 of an onion
4 cups water
2 cubes of chicken bouillon
2 cups milk
salt and pepper to taste

Basically, you just boil the potatoes in the chicken stock until soft and cook the celery, onion, and garlic in a bit of butter. (Of course, you've chopped everything up before this.) You take maybe 2-3 ladles full of the chicken broth after 10 minutes and add it to the celery, onion, and garlic, and let those cook for another 10 minutes. Chuck everything into the blender and mix it up until it's smooth (or as smooth as it gets) and then combine everything together, adding the milk and adding as much salt and pepper as you see fit. I warn you: this makes a lot of soup. I had to break out my huge teal le Creuset pot to handle this batch of soup. But the thing is, it's simple, it's tasty, and it doesn't require a lot of time to put together. In fact, I did all the prep with a baby strapped to my front.

So those have been my creative outlets for the week. Hopefully, I can get up to something else fun next week, too. Baby willing, that is.

Rearranged

Notice anything different? How about now...

Yeah - not only did a new coat rack get installed in E's room, but we also rearranged the whole thing on a whim over the weekend. It was the Husband's idea, actually, and I'm really glad he suggested it. The room feels so much more open now that the shelves are all along one wall. I don't have a picture of the shelves on that last wall yet for two reasons:

1. there was a whole drying rack of rather personal clean laundry in the way
2. the shelves are still unorganized and, thus, are a hot mess.

Le sigh. Once I can utilize a few naptimes to get everything in its place, perhaps more pictures will be forthcoming. In the meantime, I'll consider a post about my first foray into soup-making and start looking at paint chips for another project I have in mind...

practising chewing for when those pearly whites come in

Baby's First Snow!

Last night saw the first snowfall over our part of Hampshire in E's entire life. I'll be honest with you; he was way less jazzed about this momentous occasion than either of his parents.

why are we doing this whole standing malarkey anyway?

We bundled him up as best we could - to the point of closely resembling the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man - and put him in shoes for the first time ever so that we could rush outside before church this morning to capture our little boy's first encounter with the most awesome variety of frozen water.

what's going on here?

Granted, this will be far more exciting when he's old enough to appreciate being allowed to frolic with reckless abandon through snow drifts higher than his head, but for the moment, it'll have to do.

Welcome, my son, to the wonderful world of snow!

we could get used to this...

LOLs

Who knew that jostling E like he's on a PowerPlate was a good way to get some giggles out of him?

Baby's Ten Commandments

My latest Facebook status update gave me an idea. Granted, probably an idea that's been done to death in other venues, but it's my blog and I'll do what I want.

E's been suffering with a bad cold for the past few days. Unfortunately he caught it from me. I can't feel too guilty because there's nothing to be done: if he chooses not to let me sleep, I'm ridiculously susceptible to becoming Typhoid Mary, and yet - unless I'm dying - I can't keep the Husband home from work to take care of E so that I can rest and keep from infecting him. Of course, when he's sick, most of the rules I'm learning about raising a tiny human are suddenly even more imperative. Witness the following lessons I've learned:

1. Thou shalt always check to see if thine infant suffers the pangs of hunger when he cries. Verily, this is an assured balm to ease his sorrows.
2. Behold, the fruit of thy womb doth know when the rocking and walking have ceased. If thou shalt cease moving, then shall there be much weeping and wailing and gnashing of gums.
3. Thou shalt have a schedule; yea, and this schedule is thy God. Thou shalt abide by its timetable with much exactness lest thou receive unto thyself a child who is wroth in his weariness. (And again there shall be much weeping and wailing and gnashing of gums)
4. Verily I say unto thee, thy baby must breathe. And yet, lo and behold, the bulb syringe is a scourge and a torment most grievous to be borne. Thou shalt employ it but sparingly and make much atonement for thine offence.
5. A baby's hands are a great joy; yea, they bring much rejoicing when wiggled about or clapped together.
6. Even in slumber, thy child is omniscient: yea, his knowledge is exact. If thou shalt put him down to clean, verily I say unto you that he shall awaken with much swiftness and loud lamentations.
7. Behold, the drum and pipe and tabor do make joyful noise. Yet the drumming thou hearest from thy child's nappy are the sounds of wo and call thee to thy duty. Be thou swift to change these soilings.
8. When sore wailings begin and lamntations wax strong, remember thou that sometimes these things must simply be borne with patience and long suffering and love unfeigned..
9. The sleep of a child is most precious; disturb it not, even to rest the weariness in thy limbs. Bolster thyself with cushions instead to receive strength unto thyself once more.
10. Carry on in thy way with patience and diligence and love thy child with all thy heart and behold his smiles and giggles and cuddles will reward thee with a joy greater than all the treasures of the earth.

And now, in strict adherence to commandment #3 we're going to peace out for a walk around the neighbourhood.