A set back

I had a set back with my bread baking endeavour when I threw out my starter (!?).  I feel really mad at myself for doing this.  My primary reason was because I wanted to make a natural one from the yeast found in my kitchen both because I think I'm clever enough to do this and because I've heard that type of starter will last longer.  I also wanted to have it in a smaller container in the fridge.  Unfortunately, it is really cold right now and we're trying to save on electricity by not leaving the heaters on constantly.  Consequently our kitchen is not the ideal spot for a starter to ferment.  After a couple of days of sitting with only some tiny bubbles to show for it, I tried giving it a little boost by sitting it in a warm oven.  Silly me - I didn't preheat the oven thinking I'd just blast the heat for a minute and turn it off.  I got distracted and left the heat on which basically started cooking my starter attempt AND the plastic container started to soften so I had to throw it all out.  

The thing is, the starter I had was working really well and it seemed to be lasting well too.  I should have kept using it until I had a consistent secondary starter all ready to go. In the meantime, I have nothing to use for the loaves of bread I want to bake right now so I'm just going to have to go with a slow rise normal bread.  Very annoying.

The outcome

I wrote about the birthday cake last week.  It was a true feat to create so I felt it deserved posting some photos here.  The second photo is just to show you its height - see how the milk jug on three saucers is shorter?

 

Free? Bloomington

Well, it can be almost free.  Last week I found birthday coupons for a free sandwich at Which Wich - imagine a yummier Subway, $5 at MacAlister's - a family restaurant, a free dessert at Fazoli's Italian Restaurant, and a free pastry at Panera Bakery and Cafe.  These are all redeemable without any other purchase.  I considered going to Denny's to get my free birthday breakfast except I just love our home-made breakfasts too darn much.  I also got coupons for buy one, get one icecream at both Dairy Queen and Cold Stone creamery.  I'm definitely redeeming the second one, despite the weather, because I hear their creations are amazing.  I know these restaurants are just trying to get us in their doors but it's lovely to have an excuse to get out and about with Jbird when the weather is so cold.  Our circumstances allow us the free item only but we love the treats.

A trip to the thrift store

We finally made it to half price day at the thrift store again.  I used to go every month but it is always on a Saturday which is my busiest day of the week so I rarely make it anymore.  This week we were looking for things for the baby.  We crammed a bunch of little hard covered books and toys into a $3 bag which came to $1.50 because of the 50% discount.  We found a piano glockenspiel for her first musical instrumental.  We also found loads of onsies and clothes which were all $2 a piece, discounted to $1 a piece.  They all look really new - I suppose newborns grow out of their clothes very quickly so they don't get much wear.  Some of the items have never been worn.  It was a really fun little shopping spree.  This is my favourite dress of them all.  I especially like that it's not pink.  You don't have anything to compare it to but it's really tiny.

 

Cake(s) for another celebration

I haven't even put away the Christmas decorations and we're still eating left over Christmas treats yet I find it is already time for more baking because a certain somebody is turning 32 on Sunday.  32! What an age.  

For this celebration, the celebratoree wanted a Rocky Road cake from this recipe book that I found at the library.  I really really wanted to make the delicious looking extremely espresso chocolate cake but Jbird doesn't like coffee and I shouldn't have coffee so I went for the rocky road for it's textured appeal.  It's a fun creation to make: a three layered cake with thick rocky road icing in between each layer and all over the tops and sides.  I made the cake today.  It seems almost like a brownie, with 10 ounces of melted chocolate, another cup of chocolate chips, and a cup of toasted and chopped nuts.  The recipe called for pecans but I opted for a mixture of almonds, pistachio, cashew, walnuts, and hazelnuts.  I hope it was a good decision.  Tomorrow I will make the rocky road icing but I'm just going to put it between the cake layers.  I prefer the smooth look of a chocolate ganache on the outside.  To add a bit of texture, I will press nuts, dried apricots, and marshmallows all over the top.  I'll do the ganache on the third day (Saturday).  I find it nice to spread out making these creations as they can take a long time and I start to get sloppy and frustrated after too many straight hours on one project.    For second dessert - what birthday girl wouldn't want second dessert? - I'm making lemon poppy seed mini cupcakes with a chocolate cream cheese icing.  The recipe book had so many great ideas, I couldn't stop at one recipe.  I'm saving a third recipe for Valentines day - Jbird and I only tend to have cake for celebrations. 

I hope you don't mind me not bothering to share the recipe as it belongs to the owners of the book.  I also hope this post will encourage you to consider looking for new recipes rather than sticking to what you already know. 

Gingerbread house

During the blizzard and subsequent snow days I decided to expend some pent up energy on the laborious task of building a gingerbread house.  It really is a task too which takes several days to accomplish.  Day one the dough is made, chilled, rolled it into house shaped components, and baked.  Then it is left lying around for a day or so to harden.  Day two is building day as the walls are all put into place.  The building part is quite a frustrating job as the icing doesn't stay the consistency you'd like it to stay.  Sometimes it will appear as though the walls are all holding together just to watch them collapse when another part is added to them.  These have to be left a while to make sure the icing is going to keep those sides together before putting the roof on.  This was a particularly frustrating task for me as I had made the side walls in two pieces (silly me) and the roof pieces did not want to stay put.  Decorating was mostly just fun.  There were sweets galore until I was on such a sugar high, I knew I was going to crash <KABOOM>, a mess on the kitchen floor.  And now it sits looking pretty on the piano mantel, where it is likely to remain until one of us thinks to throw it out, looking delicious but growing stale.  Here are some pics - see the tiny ducky pond and gingerbread snowman we placed out back?  I can see there would be scope for a lot of fun creating the garden had put the house on a bigger plate.

Winter warmer - part one

It has been very cold here.  We had that blizzard that gave us a foot of snow over a week ago and a bit more since then which hasn't yet managed to melt.  Jbird and I went for a bike ride just to get out of the house yesterday - best to get moving or I get the winter blues.  It was snowing lightly which was very pretty, but not sticking, so the footpaths were dry and safe to bike on (mostly).  It was so cold, and we'd expended some energy on the bikes, so I felt excused in coming home to make a decadent hot chocolate straight from a 72% dark chocolate bar.  I melted the bar (around 70g) in 450ml milk, heating it to just before boiling.  I probably didn't need to use quite so much chocolate - Jbird thought it was too strong and he normally likes his food flavours far stronger than I do.  It reminded me of something you'd drink at the Chocolate Factory in R. Dahl's famous book.  Rich, creamy, and delicious.  Needless to say, I fell into a deep chocolate coma on the couch shortly afterwards.

Little Bird update

We had our first ultrasound yesterday.  It was really exciting to see the baby moving all around inside me, sucking her thumb and wriggling her legs.  Baby's placenta is sitting directly between the outer wall of my belly and the baby which is why I haven't really been feeling kicks.  Or what I have felt is so faint, I didn't think they were kicks at all.  Especially after I told a certain mum-the-midwife I thought I felt a kick around 17 weeks and she told me it was definitely too early.  So then I decided I was just feeling a lot of digestion going on.  Tummy grumblings.  But now that I know they should feel faint, or lower on my abdomen, I can recognise them all the time!  Notice I'm calling her a she? Yes, we're having a little girl!  It was lovely to see everything is tickety-boo - and that there is only one in there, phew!  We're half way there, 20-ish weeks to go.

In the first picture on the left, the baby's head is on the left and she's holding her fists up to her face with her round belly to the right.  The picture next to that shows her head on the left then tummy on right but I'm not sure what else is going on.  The bottom left picture is her profile.  She has the brains of her daddy.  The bottom right picture supposedly shows us she's definitely a girl but I can't make it out at all.  The placenta is the blob above her.  Jbird finally heard her heartbeat at the appointment too.

 

Walking in the winter wonderland

We had a blizzard on Boxing Day and everything still looks gorgeous out.  I went for a walk yesterday and managed to get lost as my usual points of reference are covered in Snow.  When Andy and Nic were here we went down to the lake for a walk through woods.  It was simply gorgeous with snow falling as we walked and everything covered in white, the usual woodie sounds muffled by the snow.  It was slightly eerie to come across the bloody remains of a carcass that had been dragged a short distance by an animal or a hunter.  Blood looks really gruesome in contrast with the white of the snow.  Jbird was disappointed not to have a sled for the hills.  My photography skills do not capture the beauty as it really was but here's a pic from that walk.

A return

Christmas and New Years have come and gone since my sudden hiatus.  My hostessing skills were stretched to the limit but it was fun to have a brother and his wife for New Years and others for our Christmas dinner.  The Bloomington Bike Gang, aka those members of the Bird family living in Bloomington, spent every waking moment together for a few days.  Much fun was had, although we didn't use our bikes once as a lovely friend lent us her car while she was away. 

I have definitely been feeling the loss of this space although it was nice to have the break.  I think I want to continue with a change to my 'rule' for how I use it in the hopes that I can retain creativity, motivation, and careful editing.  Luckily I am the one making the rules.  From now although I will still try to write regularly, I will no longer write 5 times a week. The thoughts will remain very everyday-ish in keeping with the name.

Happy New Year!