Brains are silly things.

I'm going on a date with my husband. For the occasion I'm wearing large dangling hoop earrings. I feel really self-conscious . I know I shouldn't, but I do. 

They probably cost less than $5 and they aren't ostentatious at all. Yet I feel as though I am shouting, "Hey, Everyone! look at me! I'm wearing earrings!" 

Usually I can't take it and I take them off before I leave. Not tonight. Tonight I'm powering through. Im going to enjoy my dinner and look amazing (because those silly earrings really do perfect my outfit) and not feel awkward at all. 

I've decided. 

(At least that's the plan.)

Always Double Tap

I've learned that flies are just like Jason Bourne. If you don't see the body, they're not dead. 

Reflecting

As I'm lying on my bed with a 9-month little cutie-pie girl propping herself on the back of my husband, jabbering on about who-knows-what, I realize something. Those problems I've got and those stresses that exhaust me? How inconsequential. How blaringly unimportant compared to these loves. 

batten what?

I slacked last month, but this month I'm back on board with the Daring Bakers and...

BATTENBURG CAKE!

Traditional Battenburg is a yellow and pink checkerboard affair. Rather lovely but I was thinking a little boring flavor-wise. I opted for the walnut-mocha version. It's the opposite. The colors aren't so ravishing, but the flavor makes up for it.

A sweet and a sweetie.

Mandy of What the Fruitcake?! was the girl who did the hard work this month and prepared the challenge. Bravo! Mandy, because this dessert was supremo!

Not only does it look really awesome, but the cake itself was really, really delicious. To get the check-effect, one must trim the cake. And what does one get when one trims one's cake? One gets delicious trimming-snacks to nibble on! Huzzah!

Dame Battenburg

The darker cake is flavored with instant espresso. It didn't pop with flavor, but it had a lovely color. The whitish checks were speckled with walnut pieces. Soooo, soooo, soooo tasty. I'd make a plain cake just with the walnut layer. No need for icing or anything, just give me the pan and a fork.

Everything was glued together with an espresso buttercream ambrosia of delight. The chocolate plastique surrounding the outside, eaten with the espresso buttercream and then a nibble of espresso cake and walnut cake? Oh dear. Nom nom nom nom.

Highly, highly, highly recommend this baby.

And here's one more of my cutie-pie daughter...oh yeah, and the cake.

Mandy of What The Fruitcake?! came to our rescue last minute to present us with the Battenberg Cake challenge! She highlighted Mary Berry’s techniques and recipes to allow us to create this unique little cake with ease.

Recipe can be found here.

armenia, how could you have hidden this deliciousness from me for so long?

Armenia! This month's Daring Bakers Challenge hails from the little country nestled between Turkey, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Iran in Western Asia. Jason from Daily Candor chose to honor his Armenian heritage and gave us Nazook, a classic pastry and Armenian Nutmeg Cake.

Armenian Nutmeg Cake

I made them exactly according to his recipe and oh. my. goodness. They were absolutely delicious.

The Armenian cake had a delicious crumb crust on the bottom with a distinct nutmeg flavor (1 1/2 tsp worth!) and a subtle molasses-y undertone. (I assume because of the rather large amounts of brown sugar.) The walnuts covering it made the otherwise visually-boring cake rather fancy-schmancy looking. Ultimately it comes down to flavor, though, and this baby is going into the permanent recipe box. Highly recommend! (FYI:I did have to cook it for about an hour, which is 30 minutes longer than his suggested time.)

Nazook, right out of the oven.

This challenge was actually two recipes and while at first I was a bit bummed at having to do both, I had no idea what I was complaining about. I didn't even know Nazook existed nor how empty my life has been until now. The recipe is actually very simple, but the results. Oh the results. I'm closing my eyes as I'm remembering the decadence...mmmm...

The cool thing about the Nazook dough is that there was no liquid. It consists of flour, sour cream and butter. This makes for such a flaky crust. Yum. The filling is butter, flour, sugar and vanilla. Such simple ingredients. Such excellent results. Those little rolled-ed up, browned bites of heaven are so incredibly exceptional. Seriously. Under the word synergy in the dictionary, a picture of Nazook should reside.

Thank you, Armenia! Thank you!

You can find the recipes here on Jason's post at Daily Candor.

The Daring Bakers’ April 2012 challenge, hosted by Jason at Daily Candor, were two Armenian standards: nazook and nutmeg cake. Nazook is a layered yeasted dough pastry with a sweet filling, and nutmeg cake is a fragrant, nutty coffee-style cake.

delicious, but Daring Baker challenges always are

Since my life has calmed down seemed to stabilize has been truly missing the Daring Bakers' challenges, I decided to join up again. Luckily for me, this month was pretty simple. I make bread on a regular basis and Sara and Erica of Baking JDs challenged us to add a Dutch Crunch topping and then make a sandwich of our creation.

I forgot to pay attention to the reveal date of the challenge and this morning decided to see when it was. It was today! Eeep! So here I am, just finishing my loaves at 11:21 pm and hurrying to type up a post to make it by the end of the day, simultaneously hoping that the bread cools enough so I can cut it and make a decent-looking/-tasting sandwich. (This is not the triumphant return to Daring Bakers I had hoped for.)

You know, I think I'll just make a sandwich tomorrow. If the bread lasts...

Update! I got up this morning and made the sandwich. Mmmmm! So good. I went for pastrami, hard-boiled egg, avocado, chives (don't like raw onion, but like a little onion flavor) and topped with baby spinach. Delicious! Thanks, Sara and Erica!

Sara and Erica of Baking JDs were our March 2012 Daring Baker hostesses! Sara & Erica challenged us to make Dutch Crunch bread, a delicious sandwich bread with a unique, crunchy topping. Sara and Erica also challenged us to create a one of a kind sandwich with our bread!

The recipe and instructions are here on their site.

baby steps of progress

Squeeeee! They've sprouted! 

Look at that sweet, little, tiny baby lettuce!

Granted, these are radishes and leaf lettuce, which are notoriously easy. 

But still...my garden is growing!! 

Hello, row of radishes! A couple more weeks and I'll eat you!

(I way overexposed and supersaturated the pictures so the sprouts were more visible.)

wake up feeling like crap...no more!

I just discovered this super-awesome app for my iPhone. It's called Sleep Cycle alarm clock and the premise behind it is ingenious. Since we go in and out of varying depth sleep cycles throughout the night, this alarm clock monitors you and within a designated time window, will wake you when you are in your lightest sleep.

From experience, the effect is that your alarm goes off almost like you were expecting it. It's as if you are "sleeping 'til you wake up" but somehow an alarm is involved. I love it. Hopefully, gone are the days of hearing a strange beat from the far side of my dream, slowly and confusingly realizing I was actually sleeping and not knowing what is going on before I remember that Disco Inferno is my alarm and I'm supposed to be waking up. (Yeah, yeah, it's a run-on, but I think it really lets you experience the confusion I'm talking about.)

Apparently your body moves, or doesn't as the case may be, depending on which cycle you are in. This app uses the sensitive accelerometer in the iPhone and monitors your movements, resulting in a graphed record of your sleep. I'm a graph person. I love analyzing and finding patterns. To me, the alarm feature is just an added bonus.

At left is my graph from last night. At 2am, you can see I came out of a pretty deep sleep since my dog had put me in such an uncomfortable position. I  kicked her off. Then at 6:30-ish am, my 2 year-old wanted to get up. I coaxed her into going back to sleep. (You can see that shortly after 7am I was in the deep, deep throes of la-la land, so I'm not sure when she crawled out of my bed.)

The cool thing is that after a few nights, I've noticed a pattern. One, I've been entirely horrible about going to bed at a reasonable hour, but that's nothing new. Second, I've noticed that I am consistently in light sleep or even awake in the six o'clock hour. If I can just go to bed earlier, it seems as though I should be able to wake up "for good" at that early hour. Heck, I just might become a morning person after all.

PS - This app costs $.99 and is well worth it in my opinion. 

fresh veggies? yes, please.

We have a motto here about our yard:

Don't waste your time growing things that aren't edible or useful.

Take out your frustrations and give that bag a good stabbing.

In that vein, all the beautiful but pointless ornamentals planted by the previous owners have died. Well, not quite all of them. The ornamentals that were strong enough to make it through the Houston summers and random freezes without any help from me have lived. I'm rather proud of those tough little suckers.

The now rather empty flower bed surrounding our back patio is starting to fill up with kitchen and medicinal herbs. Parsley, Oregano, Chives, Horehound and Rosemary, to name a few. But herbs haven't been enough.

I've been wanting a vegetable garden for quite some time now, but it didn't ever make it to the top of the priority pile. See, vegetable gardening is a very labor-intensive task. I'd first have to section out part of my yard. But we have a sprinkler system and I'd have to make sure I wasn't getting in any pipe's way. Then I'd have to rototill, and since our soil is crappy clay crap, I'd for sure have to add all sorts of stuff to it to make it growable. But I wouldn't want to since it's so much work, so raised beds with new, good soil would be the next best option. But that's a lot of work because I'd have to...Are you getting the picture?

Oooh! Such a sinister gardening moment!

Well. God bless Mother Earth News magazine. I love checking out their back issues from the library and in the April/May 2010 issue I found the answer to my problem: a no-dig garden! You simply buy bags of gardening soil, cut them open and plant directly into them. Brilliant! No roto-tilling, partitioning of yards or amending soil. Plus, I could start as small as I needed to.

First, you jab a bunch of holes in one side. They suggest a screwdriver, I used the handle of a spoon that one of the kids had left out from their grub digging. Either way, this puppy needs some drainage holes. I also suggest massaging the bag to distribute the soil evenly. Mine was rather compacted to one side. Plus, who knows, maybe that soil is all stressed out from being handled so violently.

Yep, collards.

Now that your bag of soil is all relaxed, flip it over, making sure that the soil is distributed nice and evenly. Get yourself a nice sharp knife and cut the plastic off  the now-top of the bag, leaving a good two inches on each side. You don't want all that nice soil falling out now, do you?

That's it. Your garden is ready. Just plant whatever seeds you want and ta da!

Another nice thing is that I was able to label the bag. And with my radishes, since I'm going to plant new ones every week, I was able to mark where I had already planted a row of seeds. It was awesome!


The last photo is my finished vegetable garden. In SE Texas it's time to plant collards, radishes, beets, lettuce, green onions and leeks. That's what you're looking at. Each  month I'll add something else to the garden. As soon as my seeds come in the mail from Fedco Seeds (highly recommend ordering from them), I'll be planting cabbage and some other stuff which I can't remember right now. So I'll go pick up another bag of soil and do it again! I'm so excited!!!


There is a bit of rain on my parade though. I have to be very careful where to put this dream realization. My HOA, I'm sure, is against having bright yellow plastic bags sitting on my lawn. I think I placed them where they are not visible from the road...hopefully. We'll see.

I'll let you know how this works out. I won't promise you a play-by-play, but I can let you know if this li'l experiment ends up working...or not. 

Thank you, Mr. Pushpesh Pant.

Dinner tonight came from my latest library visit: India Cookbook by Pushpesh Pant. Delicious! We had the Baghare Gajar (savory carrots) and Khoya Matar (peas with thickened milk). The peas were a little strange as they took almost an entire box of dried milk that you proceeded to saute in ghee first. Didn't work quite perfectly but the taste was divine.

My mom fried up some chicken strips with Indian spices. (I told her, "Mom, I'm going to make some carrots and peas. You're in charge of the chicken." This may not seem a big deal, but was, in fact, a little mean, since at that point the chicken was frozen solid in the freezer. Sorry, Mom!) We also had a Masala Milkshake. (A super yummy, non-iced, blended milk drink with almonds, cardamom and rose water. Oh so good!)

I've already made another meal with India: The Cookbook. It was superb.

This book is going to mine. Oh yes. It will be mine.

art time!

I needed to wait until after Christmas to post these as they were made into a calendar for our families. But now they're all out and I wanted to share.

Our Christmas present to our siblings, grandparents, etc. was a calendar of ourselves. But we didn't want them to be any ol' pictures. So I came up with the idea last year to reproduce famous paintings. My plan was to do two a month and then we wouldn't be rushed. HA HA HA HA HA! Who was I fooling?

I completely forgot about it until late October.

But...I always do better with an impending deadline...

We ended up revamping our choices anyway because some paintings were too ornate or the costumes too difficult to reproduce and our budget was rather limited.

The unexpected part was that the kids learned all sorts of truths about paintings and photographs. As did I.

Truth #1 - Posing is hard work! And painful! Sometimes the shoots would take upwards of 30 minutes and we were constantly taking pictures and making minute adjustments.
"Move your foot just a titch more to the left."
*snap picture and compare to original*
"Nope, not far enough. A little more."
"Mom! My leg is starting to ache!"
"Just a few minutes more...I promise!"

Truth #2 - Paintings, while looking real, do not necessarily adhere to reality. My daughter, reproducing Flaming June, found that there was no way, short of breaking bones, to get her body in that exact pose. She's a child and the woman was full-grown, so there are some proportion issues, but frankly, I'm not sure even a professional yoga master could do it. Let alone fall asleep in that position! All the time the kids were realizing as they looked at these great works of art, "Hey! That's not even possible!"

Truth #3 - Photographs are just as dishonest. As a group, we were constantly looking at the paintings and asking, "What do we have around the house that we could use for that?" By the end, we were all outside-the-box thinkers. Strips of cut t-shirts became suspenders, a swimming medal, while being careful to hide the bright green ribbon, became a royal pendant, and very carefully placed fabric transformed into a beautiful, flowing dress, to name a few. And in the end, shoulders wrapped in towels, and bed sheets piled on heads, became pretty close representations.

(As always, click on the pictures for enlargements.)

i don't love poetry, but...

俳

haiku: poetry
that my un poetic heart
can truly love

my birthday dinner

For my 35th birthday, I wanted to have a real-life, grown-up, outdoor dinner party. So I did. My best buddy from Oregon even flew in as a surprise!

So while my mom and I made the meal (Indian, my fave!) Best Bud took all my ideas and made them just right. (She always does, she's so talented.)

Partner these images with Billie Holiday, The Andrews Sisters and Frank Sinatra serenading over the spicy scents of the meal. Ah...so much fun.

balance-shmalance

I've been struggling lately with that enigmatic concept: balance. I hate it. It doesn't really make sense. How can I maintain this balance-thing when I don't even understand what the term means?

The visual I have is one of those old-fashioned scales where you have the things you need to accomplish portrayed as little weights. We carefully place them on the scales in such a way so they maintain an even keel. (Sorry, mixing my metaphors there.) So we can keep placing more or more on as long as we keep them 'in balance'? And when is it unbalanced? When the weights fall off? Or when it's just barely off horizontal? Does anyone really know?

What about the idea that we are one of those circus performers that balance all sorts of things upon our chins? (cue calliope music) They must be placed just so in order to keep them from tumbling down. We are also limited by the length of our arms as to how much we can place upon the pile. (Unless we have help, but I really don't want to go any deeper in this analogy, if that's okay with you.) It sure seems awful precarious, doesn't it? Is that really how I want to live?

In any description of balance, there is an accompanying element of instability. If I misstep, will it all come tumbling down? And won't my neck get sore keeping it in that position all...the...time?

I'm exhausted just reading about it. How can people really aim for this as their goal?

I've decided that being a world-class cagola player or a side-show extraordinaire is not what I want to strive towards. Especially since I'm not the best at choosing which things are most important to place on my balancing piles in the first place. So I've made this agreement with God: I give him the multitude of odd-shaped pieces that I'm failing to balance on my own. He then picks out which ones are just right for the day and as I go along, He's right there beside me, carrying them Himself, letting me know what's important. I go to bed at night with peace. And that's a big thing for me.

Now don't get the wrong idea. I suck at this, too. I often forget to ask for His help (or maybe I'm "too busy" to stop for a ridiculously short few minutes) and then I'll spend the afternoon engrossed in Pinterest (which I love, but isn't really the best use of my time usually), kicking myself when the kids are still working on their school while I'm finishing dinner at their bedtime of 8 o'clock. But luckily I've got a God who believes in second chances (or third...or fourth...or thirty-fifth...) And being a crappy God-relier (yeah, 'relier' is a real word, I looked it up) is 1000x better than balancing the world and her seven continents on my chin.

(Dang it! I just spent the last 20 minutes looking at Pinterest because I checked to make sure the link worked right. Grrrr...that site is a giant time-sucking lamprey eel...of awesomeness!)

techno love/hate.

I've finally gotten an iPhone.
The other afternoon I looked down and the battery was at 82%. My first thought?

"Awesome! I've been really productive today!"

How sad is that? A high battery shows that I haven't been messing with it much, thus I've been busy doing the things I need to get done.

My iPhone battery readout can now act as a productivity meter.

Almost directly.

Too much time on Words With Friends or perusing the Interwebs and not only does my battery life drop like a well-oiled cannonball, but so does my ability to check off those super important "To Do" boxes.

"Let's see...54% battery at lunch time? I've wasted half my day today! Whip crackin' time!"

OR

"2pm and my iPhone is at 91%!! (in the words of my consultant husband) I'm practically at Full Utilization!"

I'm not sure how I feel about this. We have a TV in our bedroom and upstairs in our Family Room (where I rarely go during the day) and no cable. This is on purpose. With no TV in our common areas, I accomplish much more. Now I've invited a pocket-sized So-Much-More-Than-A-TV into my life. One I can carry with me EVERYWHERE. It's up to sheer willpower now. There's no Removing The Temptor.


*gulp*

clever swim-related title

I just had an hour's worth of work vanish with the wrong combination of mouse clicks. *heavy sigh*

To sum up in ten sentences.:

1. Four of the kids are on a summer swim team.
2. I have to get up early.
3. I'm not an early riser, but have always wanted to be.
4. Swim team has given me the opportunity to change my sleeping habits.
5. "Early to rise" necessitates "early to bed."
6. "Early to bed" sucks.
7. Swim team = crazy busy.
8. Crazy busy = 2.5 hrs a day (Tues-Fri) and 7 hrs every Saturday for 8 weeks.
9. Crazy busy sucks.
10. The positives of swim team outweigh the sucky parts...just barely.

In retrospect, I think this sum up version is better.

the green-eyed monster

If I ever check out this one friend's wall on facebook I can't help but feel jealous and insecure. She's beautiful, successful, has way fewer kids than me (so her life is obviously easier than mine (that was sarcasm, if you didn't know)), is skinnier than me, has more money than me...I'm sure I can come up with more.

It's ridiculous, I know. It's juvenile, I know. It's like she makes me feel like I'm back in high school again with all those "Am I good/cool/skinny enough?" thoughts. I hate it. I have actually outgrown those insecurities. (Thank you, God!) But for some reason this one person drags it all back up again. The crazy part is that I'm completely aware of how skewed online personas can be, since most people only report the rosy everything's-going-good stuff. I know that everyone has crap they have to deal with and everyone has different strengths. We really can't compare ourselves since God made us all with unique purposes. That knowledge is all up in my head, but when she's on the screen, I can't feel it in my heart. So what to do?

Right now it's blaringly obvious to me that I need to get some Divine help. If anyone can get this ridiculousness sorted, it's Him.

And why did I even post this for the world to see? Ummm...the good answer is "If it just helps one person, it's worth it." Yeah, right. But the real answer is, "I just had to get off facebook because of her and I'm tired and should be in bed and felt like posting some honest/transparent stuff."

Nitey nite.

anonymity.

I flirt with the idea of doing a completely anonymous blog. (My friend said she was toying with the idea and that got me started thinking about it.) A blog that is linked to an unknown email and which has no outward connection to me at all. It would be a faceless voice in the blogo-void. I could say anything I wanted about anyone and no one would know.

In having a known blog I have to use restraint in posting. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I think twice before blabbing all about this funny thing to happened to the people near and dear to my heart. But an anonymous blog? No such restraint would be necessary. No one would know who was typing, nor would they know who it was about. Ah, the bliss.

But that got me thinking more. What good would this do me? And the more I thought, the more I realized that it would be more harmful than anything, at least for me. It might be freeing to type whatever I want, but self-control and restraint are two virtues that most people, especially me, need to exercise. And if I'm spilling my guts to the interwebs that can do nothing to help me, will I really want to repeat the whole thing to God who can actually do something about it? 

So my answer is no. No anonymous blogging for me. But it was a nice thought while it lasted.

india...could we meet in the near future?

I've been enamored with India lately. The food, the cinema, the culture...it's fascinating.

I've been cooking out of Madhur Jaffrey's cookbooks and my only complaint is that my husband doesn't like curry. *heavy sigh* Fortunately he's a non-complaining, adventurous sort, so I can overlook his curry-hating shortcoming. (For the record, Madhur's Moghlai Eggs from either Quick & Easy Indian Cooking or Simple Indian Cookery (I can't remember which) are amazing!!)

And while they are cheesier than all get out, I have fallen for Bollywood and Hindi cinema. For one thing, I love learning about the culture. Sure they're not entirely accurate, they are movies after all, but I have been able to glean certain cultural aspects. For instance, it is a sign of respect to an elder to touch their foot with your hand.

I also love how clean the movies are. The conclusion of the movie, the resolution to the romantic turmoil that we have witnessed for the last three hours (that's usually how long they are) is that the lovers embrace with a very emotional, intense...hug. The first time this happened I felt a little ripped off. I mean, they should kiss, right? Then it happened again. And again...and again. I realized this is just how it is and now I'm used to it. The newest movies aren't as conservative, but when compared to what Hollywood has become...it's a nice change.

Two of my favorites: Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (this is the longest running movie in history, over 15 years in the theatre. First half is pretty cheesy but if you can survive it, the 2nd half is good.)  and  Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (If you read the Netflix description it will give you the wrong impression (like most Netflix descriptions). This is a beauty-and-the-nerd story and has nothing to do with age.)

I just finished watching the PBS mini-series, The Story of India, and realized that in all of my 16 years of formal education the only things I learned of India's history concerned the British Raj and Gandhi. Those events are such a tiny fragment of what has happened in that region and I find it sad that the only things I know are those that are connected with the West. Well, it won't happen to my kids. They aren't only going to learn about one half of the globe for two reasons: 1) I want them to be knowledgeable about all of God's people, all of Earth's citizens, not just those from the West and 2) I want to learn it, too.

One more thing...Did I mention the colors? How can you not love a culture that embraces red, fuschia, turquoise, orange, and yellow? And the spices...have you smelled cardamom and cinnamon? Oh! and the masala chai? How can anyone not love a cup of that brewed deliciousness? (For the record, 'chai' means 'tea', so saying, "chai tea" is like saying, "tea tea." Pretty silly, right? Technically you should say "masala chai" which means 'spiced tea.' But of course, Americans don't know that and if you said, "Can I have a Masala Chai?" you'd probably just get a silent, I-Don't-Know-What-You-Are-Talking-About stare.) (Great recipe right here.)

I've also have been reading travel websites (good one here) about all sorts of things like the realities of seeing India's poverty as well as how to ease yourself into Indian food. Now if I only had multiple thousands of extra dollars to get there...

I guess that's why we have the internet, right?