In the past week, I have already accomplished three things on my baking list of resolutions. Yay! I've been fairly attentive to the news, using Time magazine as a way to catch up in detail on various big issues. I'm almost to my limit of NYTimes online articles for the month- :(. I am honestly considering accessing the daily paper through the archives, which I can get into via my school's research resources. A little bit backwards, but hey, I gotta get my news. I've applied for two jobs so far, apparently my parents hooked me up with a babysitting gig in the neighborhood (yay cash job!), and I'm still looking for something that will get me big tips. I started reading The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen again. I'm almost halfway through it, but it is so dense. But I guess without having a job to speak of, I have plenty of time on my hands. I've also been going to bed early and getting up early. It feels great to have the whole day ahead of you. And I've more or less kicked my morning caffeine habit! My parents switched to decaf coffee in the house and I didn't even know it, so I think it had a placebo effect, and bam- no more headaches. Haven't gotten around to learning the piano yet, and the brothers are still in school, so haven't quite gotten to those resolutions yet. But everything else is more or less in progress.
So, now I'd like to detail some of my baking adventures. Last week, I made chocolate chip cookies, bread, and an incredibly delicious thing called blueberry buckle. The chocolate chip cookies are from a recipe that my mother got from a friend. The catch with these cookies is that you use instant pudding mix in the batter. If you'd like the recipe, please let me know. Somehow it makes them super-soft and chewy or something. Also, the trick to keeping the bottoms from burning and getting all hard is to cover the cookie sheets with undone brown paper bags (grocery bags work, as do lunch bags. One undone brown paper lunch bag actually covers one normal-sized cookie sheet) and then drop the dough on top of that. It must help distribute the heat evenly or something. Don't really know why, but it does work! The cookies are incredible, especially when warm. To keep them soft, store them in an airtight container with a piece of bread (it's a great use of the heels of a loaf of bread, if no one in your house eats them). The bread gets hard, but the cookies won't. These cookies are so so SO good. I have a really hard time when I try to stop eating them. And they are NOT good for you (although my dad did say that they are good for your mental health). They are made with a whole pound of butter and a ton of brown and white granulated sugar- trust me, I creamed the two together myself. But the recipe makes 6 dozen- that's 72 cookies. So seriously, share them with people.
Here are some pictures of my cookie adventures:
A couple days later, I baked bread. From scratch. Without a bread machine. WARNING: To all amateur bakers, bread is not something that you can just make when you've got a little bit of time. Maybe it was because I'm a first-timer, but it took me the better part of an afternoon. But if you don't screw anything up too badly, it is well worth it. I thought I may have horribly screwed it up when I didn't mix the shortening and the dry ingredients together before adding the yeast and very warm water. But, no way was I wasting 3 1/2 cups of flour plus two packets of yeast and 2 tablespoons of shortening and starting over. So I just mixed it all up with an electric mixer, and it turned out just fine. I love the smell of yeast- a local freeway went right by a yeast factory for a long time, and that smell means I'm headed into my city and going home. Unfortunately, the yeast factory closed, so now I am left with baking bread to get my kicks. Anyways, you should know that kneading is a pretty big effort- ten minutes solid. You have to knead a lot to activate the gluten. And you have to let the dough rise twice- once after kneading, and once after you've let the loaves rise in their pans unbaked. And then you finally bake it up. And boy, is it good. One loaf and probably 3/4 of the other are gone. Which is a good thing, because unless you're storing it, homemade bread will not last long because it has no preservatives. So eat it up and enjoy it!
More photos:
Mmm. Crusty, buttery, thick goodness. It makes great toast. It's just a Betty Crocker recipe, so if you have either the red or the really old orange Betty Crocker cookbook, it should be in there.
Bread was probably the crowning achievement of my week because yeast is a little fussy to work with (they're not kidding when they say the water must be between 120 and 130 degrees Fahrenheit, by the way- too cold, the yeast won't activate; too hot, you'll kill it. You'll know when your dough doesn't rise.) and it was so time consuming. Also, the house smelled incredible. But a very special thing I made was a blueberry buckle. I first made one last summer with one of my best friends when we went to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan together for a week. Since she's going to El Salvador for the summer and starting to save the world, we had to get together before she left to make this together. It's a Martha Stewart recipe (you can find it online), and it's actually not that hard. It does seem helpful to have extra hands though, so try making it with a friend! It's a very dense dessert, a cross between a cake and a cobbler. It's packed with blueberries, which are a superfood, so rationalize it that way when you want a slice with every meal.
Photo time:
Oh yeah. :)
I would love to tell you that I've been a Superwoman when it comes to making delicious food AND controlling my impulses to eat said food AND work off the delicious but more or less unhealthy food. But that has not been the case. Last week was a pretty bad week as far as exercising and food went. As the food intake and production went up, my exercise output went down. Waaayyy down. I like to blame it on the weather. My beautiful Midwestern state cannot decide if it wants to be summer or the bummer that is the early Midwestern spring (i.e., forty to fifty degrees and rainy). I honestly will go running if it is sunny and between 55- all right, 60- to 85 degrees, with not much wind. Yeah yeah yeah, I'm fussy that way. But I'm detoxing this week (see one of my early posts for a definition of my detox- little to no processed foods and a lot of water), and hoping that the weather holds out or that I can find a suitable alternative to running. Maybe I'll just have to suck it up and wear gloves when I bike in the cool weather. The most important thing is just doing something, especially on the days where you really have no motivation. You'll be very happy that you did afterwards, even if you weren't very happy while you were doing it.
Well, my darlings, I hope that you are having a lovely almost-summer and that you have set goals for yourself this summer- even if it's just to do something nice and relaxing for yourself. Keep in touch!
Love,
Imara
P.S. On deck this week for food: tilapia and pasta with pesto sauce. Also, HEALTHY pumpkin cookies and maybe cream cheese brownies. :)
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