Chloe

This is another neighbor's cat, Chloe, who is a cross-eyed Burmese.  Being cross-eyed doesn't stop her from chasing Priscilla around and up into trees.  Gorgeous fur!

Toasty legs!

I just wanted to put these up.  I've been doing a lot of sewing and cooking (with exciting new Christmas presents!), which I should update with soon, but these legwarmers were a long time in coming....

The book they are from is a few years old...they are the "Super-easy Legwarmers" from Last Minute Knitted Gifts, but I got it from the library just so I could make these.  They are so boring to make, but they make a pretty fabulous legwarmer.  I wouldn't make them as a gift though, they took me several months of slogging through k1p1 ribbing.  Kind of brain-melting.

Yes those are my front steps and yes that much moss is standard here.

Comments can be helpful.

Or dangerous.

When browsing sites like Allrecipes.com I enjoy reading the comments.  Sometimes they can be really helpful.  Add more ginger.  Add allspice.  Too sweet, reduce sugar. Adding a touch of lemon juice to your apple pie makes it amazing (true fact). These things can be very, very good to know.  

But sometimes comments can be misleading or even strange.  Here are a few of my favorites:  

Comment on a Tabbouleh Recipe:

"I have always made it without mint, just because I didn't have it on hand and it is wonderful. I have't tried it with the green onions suggested here, usually just a little yellow onion chopped super fine, or just left it out. I don't squeeze fresh lemons either, though I'm going to try that way next. "

There aren't that many things actually in Tabbouleh.  Sure, some people add cucumber.  I personally make it with quinoa instead of bulgur so that it's gluten free for parties.  This person, however, is leaving out three of the CORE ingredients of Tabbouleh.   I'm going to make cheeseburgers and leave out the meat and buns and cheese.  By the way you shouldn't just try to use fresh ingredients in your cooking. That should be a cornerstone of your cooking from the beginning.This goes doubly for lemon juice in a dish where the main dressing is composed of it.  Realemon juice is plain nasty.  

Try not.  Do. Or do not.  There is no try.  Yoda knows how to cook.  

Another bad comment is people who try to make ethnic foods but are afraid of foreign ingredients:

"I didn't have any tahini in the house so I substituted a little peanut butter and some ground sesame seeds to get the nutty flavor."

My god, woman get to a grocery store now!  Tahini, for those who don't know, is ground sesame seed paste.  It tastes, looks, and smells completely different from peanut butter.  I can't even fathom how gross it would be to put that into a dip with garlic, lemon and beans.  Maybe it's more like a thai peanut sauce flavor?  Still that is really NOT HUMMUS.  I don't put red peppers in my apple pie, so don't put peanut butter in your tahini.  

There's also the "I messed this up terribly, so I'll give this perfectly good recipe a bad review" comment.

On a perfectly functional recipe for crepes:

"Sadly, my crepes turned out thick, undercooked (or burned), and tasted like flour. I'm not sure if that's a reflection of this recipe (followed to a T) or if I'm just an awful cook."  

My crepes were great, so I'll let you pick which one was the reason your crepes came out badly.  Undercooked?  How is that the recipe's fault?  Turn up your stove.

Now everyone makes mistakes.  Most of mine in the past have resulted from an attempt to vegan-ize a recipe that really is a disaster without meat.  And experimentation is fine, that's how fusion is born, but I happen to be very by-the-book in the way that I do things, because I don't have time for a meal to taste bad.  

Bottom line:  Reader beware!  I like to check more than one recipe if I'm looking online.  Usually all the best recipes are similar, i.e. Gravlax, which I'm about to try soon!  I also really, desperately try to avoid About.com pages at any cost.  As an information professional as well as a cook, I really feel they are the bottom of the barrel as far as reliability is concerned.

Sewing...yep still hate it.

I managed, against all odds, to finish this.  That's a really easy-looking tutorial, right?!  Wowee, what fun, I said to myself.

The tension on my sewing machine is very iffy and no matter how you do it, it only goes right every...3 times you re-thread the machine.  This means the thread may break at any time, or get loopy in the back or whatever the hell else thread wants to do wrong.  Annoying.  Also while I was sewing, the needle snapped in three pieces.  I still haven't found one of them.  Maybe it flew up my nose and is currently lodged in my brain.  That could explain why I feel dumber than when I started.

Not to mention finding acceptable-looking fabric at JoAnn's is like looking for the Arc of the Covenant. It may or may not exist.  If it does, its probably buried very deep, and its going to kill you to find it.  I guess most people who sew go on the internet to find their lovely designer fabric.  I managed to get this one with shoes (wtf?) that isn't too bad.

In the end, the goddamn fabric shrunk so much during prewash, that I was only able to make the bag half the size I wanted it to be, so now it's totally unsuitable for its intended purpose, which was to be a swim/gym bag for myself.  Now its more like a purse.  What a scam.

The straps were also twisted, even though I swear I had them in there straight when I sewed it up.  I tried to fix this but only one one side, and I found that to be the least valuable endeavor I've ever attempted.  So one is twisted?  Well too bad, nobody will ever notice.

Oh, and I added a pocket.

Ugh point me towards the handbag store. :(

I finally did it!

Zach helped.  Really. Our own crepes with Nutella and home-made cardamom-vanilla-agave whipped cream.  The All Clad d-5 pan helped a little, I'm sure.

And if you don't have one yet, you should get yourself one of these:  MISTO.  Its a bit like Pam or other non-stick cooking spray, but you can use your own gourmet oils (EVO or something organic?).  Pump it up and it makes a fine spray that easily coats pans, veggies, etc. Re-use again and again.  Find them at discount stores like Marshall's and also at places like Kitchen Connection. Genius.

Fall in Oregon...

Half a mile from my house is Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge, home to much wildlife and a great hiking experience.

Things growing on things which are growing on other things which are...you get the idea.

Blue Herons and Egrets are common here.

No-Knead bread

I've never had very good luck with loaves of bread.  While tasty, they always come out a little bit heavy, not moist enough, or both.  Bread also requires a lot of work which, as a modern person used to modern conveniences, I am not really willing to do.

So what I need is to not knead.  Enter the no-knead bread method brought to the table by author and bread-baker Jim Lahey, who revolutionized bread by creating a method so easy, and foolproof that you could literally have fresh home-baked bread in your house every single day.  Without a bread machine or doing more than 5 minutes of actual labor.

The secret is time.  The bread dough is mixed and then left overnight to basically "knead" itself.  Then the dough is baked in a dutch oven to control the moisture and create a moist bread that still has a crispy crust.  Why not try it yourself?  Here is the original 2006 New York Times Article with the basic recipe:  No-Knead Bread.

The recipe is really easy to tweak yourself, or grab a copy of Jim Lahey's book with more no-knead and some sweet bread and other interesting recipes:  My Bread.  There are also many recipes available on the internet, and many other books, too.  While a little primitive and simplistic, I think this method of bread-making will satisfy most people who are tired of flavorless and expensive store-bought bread but who also have no time or patience for cooking.  I'm not a bread-baker, but I do love this recipe.  It's great and leaves you enough time to find your next great cooking adventure.

So how does the bread turn out?  I'll let the pictures tell you themselves:

My first loaf, still in the pot.  I replaced some of the bread flour with 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour to make it a bit healthier.

As the bread cools and the crust shrinks, it makes a fun crackling noise that the book calls "singing".

Amazingly lofty, not heavy at all for home-baked bread!  We've already made sandwiches with handmade charcuterie purchased  from Elephant's delicatessen here in Portland. 

Loaf #2, baked with 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour plus amaranth, sesame seeds, oatmeal and other grains for bite and flavor.