The best day of the Christian year: Happy Easter!

fancy footwork + weak ankles = bad idea

Hello!

I apologize for procrastinating my way out of posting last week... I had a Quantum Mechanics midterm to occupy me until Wednesday afternoon, and then I had the brain death from the midterm to prevent me from other occupations until, oh, let's say right now.

The rest of my time in Miami was all kinds of fun - I went and watched more tennis (thus achieving a fantastic sunburn) on Key Biscayne, spent time with my cousins, and thoroughly enjoyed being out of weird Midwestern spring weather.

While driving to and from Bloomington, IL, I realized yet again that I am living in a small town in the middle of nowhere. I never realize this until I leave, because grad school is difficult and sometimes makes me forget that there's anything outside of the Physics building. It's quite pathetic, and I'm hoping this summer will allow me to reclaim just a little bit of my humanity.

Upon my return to the middle of nowhere, I set a cup of currants to soak in dark rum so that I could make rum raisin shortbread (39). Currants are basically raisins made from a different, smaller kind of grape (and honestly, I'm not sure what else the difference is except that they cost twice as much).

These are your typical shortbread cookies: there's lots of butter involved, some confectioner's sugar, vanilla, and orange zest. The currants added a nice taste and texture, plus they make the cookies look cute. Of course, presentation is key, because nobody wants to eat an ugly cookie. Although I don't have too much to say about these cookies, I will say that I like them.

Between last weekend and this weekend I've spent some time experimenting with new recipes. More specifically, this has meant using tofu in things I make. Now, I realize most of you who read this probably think of tofu as food for health-food nuts and vegetarians, but it turns out to be pretty tasty stuff when prepared properly (likewise, soy milk is not just for lactose intolerant folks). 'Proper preparation' can mean something like pan-searing it or applying a good marinade. I also decided that it was time to use up the rest of my quinoa (a grain kind of like couscous), and in that pursuit, stumbled on this recipe for black beans and quinoa. When I cooked this, it was so delicious I couldn't believe it, and I honestly think this is a dish that even picky people (e.g. my stepsister) would eat. Give it a go. Seriously.

This weekend has already been pretty full, but in a good way. Last night I got all dressed up (in this lovely dress I picked up in Miami) for a wine and cheese party at my friend's apartment. Of course, I have no class beyond dressing myself, so I showed up with a plate of Pigs in a Blanket. This was fine - I had gotten approval from the hostess and my friends seemed to appreciate the food. Some time well after midnight, I came home and went to sleep. This morning I woke up, went swimming, cleaned my kitchen, played soccer, enjoyed a spontaneous cookout, and baked cookies.

Today's cookies are peanut crisps (40): basically, this means crunchy cookies with peanuts in them. The recipe was very straightforward, almost to the point that I thought it maybe had a typo in it. After all, putting together only half a stick of butter with 1-1/4C brown sugar sounds a little ridiculous. Fortunately, there was enough liquid involved in the recipe that there wasn't a problem. These cookies are much simpler than many other things I've made (and many things I will be making in the future), but I think their simplicity comes as a bit of a relief in the face of all the fancier stuff. Also they taste good, considering they're full of brown sugar, which is the best sugar.

I suppose before ending this post I should explain the title. It all boils down to this: today I played soccer with shoes that don't quite fit right and my usual weak ankle problems. When I play soccer I'm not very good at sprinting but I'm decently quick at changing direction (hence the "fancy footwork"). This means a lot of strain on my ankles, and so usually whenever I play a sport that involves this sort of business, I twist my ankle halfway or 3/4 through the game and it's all downhill from there. There are two options for me here. One is to not play soccer or ultimate frisbee, but that's silly. The other is to continue looking into ways to get better ankle support, since the arch-support inserts I used today didn't help. The third option, of course, is not to play on a nobbly field but that brings me back to option 1. I guess I'll go with 2.

In the meanwhile, I will gently limp around until things go back to normal, and will sleep very well tonight.

..that's where we wanna go, to get away from it all

Greetings from South Florida! It's finally Spring Break, and I have left the cold and blustery Midwest weather for a more comfortable climate this week.

Traveling to get here was fun, but the kind of fun that is like going to the dentist: I flew out of Bloomington, IL, which has a very tiny airport with free (!) parking, but I got there way too early, and I had to change flights in Dallas, which was rather out of the way, and eventually I made it to the MIA.

While in Dallas, I saw a few iPod vending machines. These didn't just have headphones or Shuffles, but there were iPod Touches in there (so, like, items costing $300+). Who drops that much money on an impulse like that? I spent less money to fly than it is to casually purchase such an item. Here, I'll show you:

It's nice to be able to come back and visit here: Miami is sort of like a home to me, but sort of not (although I did live here for some 8 years). I like seeing familiar things, and I'm glad to have been able to visit with a couple friends. Unfortunately, most of my good friends from high school have gone elsewhere, for undergrad or graduate studies, or just for not living here anymore. As for the question of where I'm from, I'm still not sure. I'll work on that one later.

Another funny thing that reminds me of old times is that I went shopping with my grandma, and the sales lady who helped us couldn't believe 1)that I'm as old as 23 and 2)that Grandma is actually my grandma and not my mother. Of course, when I was younger, my height made people think I was older, but the grandma thing has been recurring for a while now.

I think that is all I have to say about Miami for now, maybe I'll post more later (but most probably not)

The real purpose of this post is to give two cookie updates. I got so caught up in teaching and finishing homework last week that I didn't find the time to post after baking.

The peanut butter and chocolate things I had made were so disappointing that two Saturdays ago I decided to go with something safe, and made pecan biscotti (37). These were incredibly easy to mix, especially since they called for vegetable oil instead of butter. However, as with all biscotti, they took a while to bake: I think I mentioned this before, but I had to shape the dough into a flat log, bake for about half an hour, cut the cookies into their appropriate shape, and then bake them for another fifteen minutes.

These cookies were much more popular with my friends - in fact, the three dozen or so I made were gone by the end of Monday (i.e. the day I brought them in).


(marked as a best cookie) This previous weekend the break forced me to choose a recipe with a smaller yield: most of my friends left town very early Saturday morning, so I did my baking Friday night, dropped about half of the batch off with people who were going to go camping in Tennessee, and ended up bringing the rest with me to Miami to share. Perhaps I should mention that I made brown butter toffee blondies (38). Brown butter is made simply by cooking butter over medium heat until it turns brown. This changes the flavor and texture a bit, and the slightly nutty taste goes fantastically with the toffee and walnuts. Honestly, I thought these were really delicious, and I think I'll have to make them again to share, perhaps this summer (I'm also happy to share the recipe). The picture doesn't do them justice - I think I undercooked the blondies a little, which left them nice and a little bit squishy on the inside, meaning they stayed moist and were just how they should be.

Yes, I'll definitely be making these again.

Slightly underwhelmed

Last weekend was a continuation of my crazy cooking/baking/doing everything at once from last week. I slept in on Saturday (after all, it was my only chance to get a good sleep before diving back in to the homework cycle), then went to Sam's Club and Meijer. At Sam's, I picked up something like two pounds of smoked salmon, which makes me very happy (and when I start eating it, I will be even happier). I will not be eating it straight like Cassi has, though: she has a pack that she's been keeping in the office fridge, and at lunch time she gets it out and just eats strips of it. I'm ok with that, but I think the flavor can be better enjoyed with, perhaps, a bagel.

Part of my busyness is due to my decision to make coffee cake to share with my first-year friends for the Brinner (that is, breakfast for dinner) we had on Saturday night. So I called my grandma up to get her recipe, and made my first coffee cake ever. The recipe is fairly straightforward - the dough has yeast, flour, sugar, &c. and has to rise several times before it's time to roll it out and add the pastry filling. Fortunately, I didn't have to make my own filling, and this time around I used apricot, only because the raspberry filling was out of stock when I ran to the store. Next time I will use raspberry. But, fruit choices aside, it turned out very nicely, once I moved the pan high enough in the oven that the bottoms didn't burn. You can see in the picture that it's very pretty too, which is good because visual appeal is an important part of the food experience.


My cookies from Saturday, on the other hand, did not turn out to be quite as good. These are what my cookbook calls "Peanut Butter Whoopie Pies" (36), but I don't think they call for so much enthusiasm as that. The cookie part is very floury, with some unsweetened cocoa and buttermilk involved (oh, and lots of butter too), but I find that, perhaps just because I'm comparing it to other foods, the cookie flavor is somewhat bland. The layer in the center is peanut butter mixed with butter and powdered sugar, which, to be honest, seems like a bit of a waste. The recipe calls for taking two cookies and sandwiching them together with the frosting in between. When I did this, it was like eating a small hamburger, and I didn't like it. Instead, I chose to keep the frosting separate and to bring it in with the cookies so that my friends could put the peanut butter mixture on the cookies in whatever quantities they decided were appropriate.

I find myself underwhelmed by this recipe, so I expect not to revisit it after my project ends. I suppose this is alright, though - in three years when this project ends, it'll probably be good to have some recipes eliminated so that I don't just go through the cycle again.

Martha Stewart is a liar and I am a nerd.

Yesterday, I went swimming as I usually do, and after picking up a few ingredients, I settled down in my apartment to cook up a storm. And so after several hours' work, I made myself some pretty decent pad thai and a delicious beef and beer stew. The stew kind of reminds me of french onion soup, but with a nice brown beer taste included. If you're up to cooking for 3+ hours, I highly recommend it.

After all my cooking, it was time for baking. This week's recipe is mini black and white cookies (35), which are like the big ones, just smaller. How much smaller? Well, I'm pretty sure the recipe meant to make the cookies teaspoon-sized instead of tablespoon-sized, so these are about 2" in diameter. The cookie part is very simple: the buttermilk added to the recipe makes it taste like cake instead of a usual cookie, and otherwise the ingredients are pretty typical. The frosting is also fairly straightforward: confectioners' sugar, corn syrup, water, vanilla, lemon juice, and dutched cocoa added to make the chocolate half. I think that perhaps there's a bit too much lemon juice for the white frosting, but the chocolate is very tasty.

All in all, I declare these cookies worth making again, although I think I'll try making them smaller so perhaps they won't puff up so much (I doubled the recipe since I was promised a yield of 4 dozen and definitely got 2 dozen...).

As for being a nerd, I definitely looked at these cookies lying out on the counter and started to think of them as being magnetic dipoles that weren't aligned, like in a paramagnet. Fortunately, my thought train stopped there, but I'm a little ashamed that I even thought that way.


Okay, I think that's it for now, as usual I'm very busy, so I don't have too many interesting things to say. Perhaps I'll try to drum something good up for next week.

Never fully dressed without a smile

This weekend was as busy as ever, with a nice carry-over into the week with my usual 7-10 page problem set to write up for Tuesday afternoon. I'm finding that even taking Saturday to do house things is sometimes not enough (well, it doesn't help that I plop down in front of the television every so often and just sit there for a while). Oh well.

Last Wednesday I decided that it was time to get a library card. So I drove down to the Champaign Public Library, got my card, and picked up a couple CDs and movies. I'm very purposeful about my music choices these days: I'm trying to get all the background music (all classical) from one of my favorite Japanese dramas. It's slow work, because I keep going in without a list of what I need, and try to remember off the top of my head. Ah well, next time I'll make a list.

I also borrowed When Harry Met Sally, which, through a series of events, led me to ask the guys in the first-years' hall what their favorite chick flicks are. I ended up only asking ten guys, and their answers were pretty run-of-the-mill. Three of the guys decided Ten Things I Hate About You is their favorite, and the other movies picked were, well, not my top choices. But the point was not to compare my taste to theirs, but rather just to ask a question they don't usually get asked. And this goes to any guys reading here too: what's your favorite chick flick? I won't judge you for it, I'm just interested in knowing.

(34) On Saturday, I finally got a chance to get my cookie gun (okay, it's a cookie press, but calling it a gun is more entertaining) out and make some cute wreath cookies. These cookies are your basic butter cookie: lots of butter, a little bit of sugar, and real vanilla seeds. I italicize that because vanilla beans are super expensive, but I sprung for them this time, just so I could do it right. If/When I make these again, I'm totally going with the 1tsp extract/bean substitution. There's also cinnamon involved, which looks very nice on the ones that I carefully sprinkled, and a little scary on the ones I rushed on. That's alright, these cookies went over well in the office, and it was fun to get to use a different tool to make pretty cookies ^.^

Alright, it's time for me to dive back in to my work, and then go teach. Fun times.

Valentine's day is a great day for single people to get things done

Yes, I am a complete nerd. I am also thoroughly enjoying being single, as yesterday my friends who are dating were busy with their significant others, while I had the time I'd been trying so hard to find to clean my apartment, wash my clothes, catch up on a couple movies, and bake lovely cookies.

Seeing as everyone is free today (and my problem sets are due Monday and Tuesday, plus some 90+ quizzes to grade by Tuesday afternoon), I'll have to keep this post short.

This semester, even though I'm only taking two classes, I feel like I have less time than ever to do things that aren't Physics. Part of the problem is that my schedule is so spread out, I spend 3+ hours in Loomis where I'm doing homework (or wasting time online). My workout schedule has also taken away from the leisure time I so enjoy, but I'm trying to take that time to catch up on pleasure reading. Yes, I can read while on an exercise machine. It's really not that bad.

Add all that to the nasty sinus irritation I had at the end of last week, and the results are disastrous. This is why I'm in homework death mode.

As of this semester, I've declared Saturday to be a No Physics Day. This confuses some people: I'm a Christian and I'm taking my sabbath (of sorts) on a Saturday? There's a pretty simple answer to that: with my schedule as it is, I can't do Sunday, and it's much more important to take a different day rather than to blow it off since I have homework on Sundays.

So yesterday, in my no-physics time, I finally got a chance to bake the cookies I'd been meaning to make last weekend. These are Pecan Linzer cookies with Raspberry filling (33). I modified the recipe a little, since it called for cherry jam and I couldn't find any that I wanted to use. Instead, I strained and reduced the homemade raspberry jam my Grandma Carol gave to me last Christmas. Seeing as raspberry is my favorite fruit, I do not consider this change to be any kind of sacrifice.

The dough for the cookie part has ground up toasted pecans in it - a little different from typical linzer cookies, which apparently are supposed to have almonds instead. I have no comments in comparison as I haven't tried it the other way. But, adding together the called-for ingredients - mostly usual things, flour, butter, sugar, some cinnamon, &c - resulted in a somewhat dry dough to roll out and cut. From there, the process is pretty simple, especially since I picked up a set of linzer cookie cutters, which are round and fluted, and have something like 6 different shapes that can be put in the center to make the nice window effect. It being Valentine's Day and all, I thought hearts would be appropriate (and cute). Perhaps another time I'll make different shapes.

So there you have it. Every so often I decide to opt for the cuter cookies, even when I don't really have the time to devote to them. That's ok, I know my friends will enjoy them, and that's the most important part.