Monday, April 26, 2010

Continuation of the whammie rolls...

Yes, yes, it's oh-so-sad, but kind of expected at this point. The rolls failed. We got cake yeast, instead of active dry yeast and didn't look at the measurement conversion. I put 1/4 of the cake yeast block into the bowl and wondered later why it failed.

I needed 2 whole blocks of cake yeast.

So, I went back and added the rest of the block into a bowl of warm water, milk, and beer to give the little buggers something to nom on, and A. worked part of it into the previously ruined, dry dough. Well. Now we had REALLY ruined wet dough. But we decided to stick it in the oven at 100 degrees in the event that it would miraculously turn into a monster. Cuz that would be something to write about.

To no avail.

So, we trashed the little buggers' happy nom fest in favor of some actual dinner. Green beans and steak. Not bad.
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Hmm...I just tried to explain the 1, 2 step from Ciara's "1, 2 Step" to A. Poor A. And what's this I hear about it being the grapevine??

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Double Whammie Yeast Rolls

Well, we're trying Southern Living magazine's Double Whammie Yeast Rolls with only page 112 of the recipe, instead of pgs 112 AND 113. 'Cause we're smart like that. (Double Whammie = beer & potato buds)

I'll let you know if we get through it...

Thursday, April 15, 2010

You know it's bad when...

You know it's bad when Chinese food seems to be getting more and more expensive, but really it's just your bank account getting smaller and smaller. The prices were the same the whole time.

SO. I know it's been a while, but I just finished helping with a production of Grease. I finally have free time again, though that's not necessarily a good thing. It is exactly 1 month and 1 day until I graduate, and still no job offers. Not even a call. You know what I do in the face of no future prospects? Watch movies online, try more recipes, battle the cats for control of the house - and - tell you guys about it.

1) Don't ever put a Magnolia tree where you'll need to walk under it. It poops.
2) Try to get a tight cover for your pool, otherwise rain and leaves accumulate in it and great, big herons start hanging around like it's their own private watering hole.
3) If a neighbor cuts down his trees, which were the private screens between his house and yours, it is perfectly within your rights to plant trees on your side of the property line. Bwa.ha.ha.

Here's a recipe for the books. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream Pie. Quite literally a mouthful. This bad boy takes 10 minutes, if that, to prepare and 2 hours to harden in the freezer (if you don't accidentally leave it behind a bolt of fabric in the car to melt first). This is mostly because you use someone else's ice cream.
Link:  http://cakebatterandbowl.com/chocolate-chip-cookie-dough-ice-cream-pie.html

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As for the cats. Good lord, the cats. There's 4 of them, and 3 of them hate the 4th. The 4th is a female cat named LuLu, who has half-lidded eyes, a drippy nose, and a habit of darting out the back door whenever somebody opens it. If this sounds like your kind of creature, we would almost assuredly ship her to you, if not for the fact that she belongs to a mean old woman who's moving back shortly.

Gabby is Queen of the House, with beautiful fur and an equally opposite disposition. Not her fault really. She's definitely the smartest of the felines and has taken up the rather interesting sport of trying to train me. Every time I shoo her off the kitchen counter or tabletop or clean laundry pile, she promptly travels to the litter box and takes a dump right beside it. On any other occasion her aim is fine. But seeing as I clean the house every morning, it's an ingenious plan. It's gotten me to think twice about disturbing her reign of terror, but then there's that inevitable feeling of, "This is ridiculous."

Bruce is like the Bruce Willis of cats in terms of thug-ish-ness. If Gabby is the Queen, then Bruce is the Usurper to the throne. I've seen the two in several stare downs, and while Bruce has a bit of an attention problem with flying dust, he doesn't back off.

Butters was formally known as Sputnik, but I think it gravitated over time to a fatty spread because he's just not bright enough for satellites. And he huffs. What cat huffs? Did he learn this from people? Or is it just misguided sneezing?