and now, back to our regularly scheduled programming

My brother is here to visit until Sunday, and today we’ll be making our giant Thanksgiving dinner for three, since everyone else is out of town. We’re going to make:

delicata squash stuffed with field roast and mushrooms

scalloped potatoes

roasted brussels sprouts

cranberry sauce

chocolate pecan pie

This may be a bit much for three people, but I rarely have reason to cook a big, elaborate meal, and I love leftovers. 

In other food-related news, cookie package number two didn’t make it to its recipient either! I think that something fishy is going on. I’m not sending a package number three to the same address, because clearly something is intercepting its arrival. I guess I can always send it to a work address. Bleh. So many cookies wasted.

And I made a Thanksgiving apple pie for someone in the neighborhood; hopefully they’ll like it and buy baked goods from me again! I used the pie dough recipe and step-by-step instructions from http://eggbeater.typepad.com

I’ll be using the same pie dough for my pecan pie today. In fact, I need to get started!

Yet another non-food related post

But at least this time it’s not me whining about being unemployed!

In a few weeks it will have been a year since I went home for Christmas. I’ve been feeling strangely depressed about this. It’s like, I don’t go home for three years at a time, and then I do and it’s the most disappointing experience ever, and there’s always something to regret when I come back. I can’t even count the number of times I’ve regretted only going to Saba for one day last Christmas. I really wish I had stayed longer, but I can’t go back in time and change that. All I can do is go back another time, for more time. It’s still a really, really hard place for me to be. Every time I’ve gone home in the past ten years, I’ve had to worry about totally losing my shit while I’m there, which makes for a stressful trip.

This last visit was pretty good though; I got to see the relatives I hadn’t seen in 9(!!!) years, hike the rainforest, and swim in the ocean with Adam and Yoni. I even saw the first boy I ever kissed (oh, Mikey! I was 13! You were 18! Shit ain’t right.) Oh, and I went ziplining, despite my fear. (Thanks ziplining guy; I’ve never been called princess so many times in one day.)

But sometimes I’m still really angry about how my family life turned out, and there’s nothing I can do about it. It just sucks that my dad can never come to the U.S. to visit me. And even if he could, I’m not sure I’d want him to; I can’t help but still feel a lot of hate and anger about all the really awful stuff that went down when I was a kid/teenager. Maybe I should go to a therapist. Oy. 

Um, so, ANYWAY. (like Mavado, this is my favorite way to begin and end a sentence.)

I’m gonna go make an apple pie for some lady in the neighborhood now. Maybe I’ll even take pictures!

I need to get out of the house. Really.

I’ve spent all day alternately trolling craigslist for jobs, sweeping my floors, and obsessively checking my email to see if any jobs have gotten back to me. In this frenzy of internet madness, I forgot about a job interview I had today. Which is probably a good thing, because I REALLY did not want to work at this place; a glorified deli with pricy food. I know I might have to find a job outside of baking, but wearing a uniform and making people sandwiches would really just break my spirit. 

Not that I really believe in souls, or a spirit, but how else can I phrase that?

So, yes. I need so very desperately to get out of my house, find something to do, and stop staring at the computer, but it’s hard. Nothing is really walking distance, it’s cold out, and I don’t have a whole lot of motivation, cause there’s really nowhere you can go and not spend money. Except the library. At least I got something really really exciting in the mail today:

Yeah, in case you couldn’t tell from that photo, I already busted that shit open.

Close up:

To the young (har, har) man who sent me this delightful package: thanks! This was the best thing to happen all day! And I know you’re reading this, so you know you’re getting a package soon. Hooray for mail!

Cookie package, take 2

A  mediocre photo essay by me.

I needed to make cookies for my friend who never got the first package of cookies I mailed him. (WTF, postal service? A man’s cat AND half brother both die and you can’t get his damn cookies to him?) Looking around my kitchen, I realized I didn’t have a TON of stuff to work with, but I wanted to make something interesting and fall-like. At least I had the best eggs in town:

I know everyone LOVES Fickle Creek eggs, but I actually like these much better. We used Fickle Creek at my (former) job and one problem I always had with them was the inconsistency in size. Little Tree Farm eggs are always relatively same-sized, and they are always really fresh; no breaking yolks, no pale yolks either. 

So, I wanted to make something relatively simple. I decided to use orange, milk chocolate and cardamom as the flavors. 

 

Please ignore dirty towel and jar. Just.....squint. Or something.

 Milk chocolate not pictured, probably cause I was busy pouring it directly from the bag into my mouth. Hey, I got laid off, I’ll do what I want, okay?

Anyway. I discovered that one can buy Guittard milk chocolate at the Target here. Yes, it’s a strange world we live in. So, with those three ingredients in mind, I started with my basic cookie recipe and my best friend, K.A:

 

I love you, baby. I'll clean you soon, really.

 

Butter, sugar, zest

 

I did a little experiment with this cookie recipe that I decided to call “two cookies, one cup” – why would I call it that? BECAUSE I CAN. Also, some science person apparently managed to publish a paper whose title referenced two girls one cup. I can’t remember exactly what the object was, though. Two sciences? Two brains? Two parietal lobes? ANYWAY. I held back some of the flour, baked a batch of cookies, then added the remaining flour and baked the rest. I wanted to see which cookies I liked better; the thinner, crispier cookies, or the thick, chewy cookies. I liked the thin crispy ones best, but made more of the other version because I know they’ll be better liked by the recipients of cookie packages.

Finally, cookies all lined up and ready to mail:

 

I hope these don't break!

Also, yes, that is a pint of ice cream in my sink. DO NOT buy Mountain Jim’s ice cream. You will regret it.

 

milk chocolate cardamom orange cookies:

2 sticks butter, unsalted

1 1/2 cups sugar, unbleached if you can help it

1 egg

1 teaspoon cardamom

zest of one orange, plus juice from half

one teaspoon vanilla

2 cups plus 4 tb flour (add another 1/2 cup flour for the thick chewy version)

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 to 2 cups good quality milk chocolate chips 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a stand mixer, combine the butter and sugar on medium low speed until combined. Add orange juice, zest, vanilla, and egg, and mix on medium speed for a couple of minutes, stopping to scrape down the bowl if necessary. Add the dry ingredients on low speed until combined, then add chocolate chips. Scoop onto lined baking sheets (I use a silicone mat, and a cookie scoop to portion out the cookies) and bake for 11 minutes. Then rotate cookie sheet and bake 3 more minutes. Remove from cookie sheet to cool. Then fill your cookie jar, mail to friends, bribe your teacher, or just eat while watching What Not to Wear.

When life hands me lemons

I make eggnog pancakes. No photos this time, cause I believe in eating pancakes as soon as they come out of the pan.

ingredients:

2 cups all-purp. flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 cups eggnog

3 tablespoons butter, melted

1 egg

In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients. Separately, beat egg, then add melted butter and eggnog and whisk till combined. Add this to dry and whisk just until combined – do not overmix. Pour 1/4 cup batter into a greased heated skillet, and cook for 2-3 minutes per side. Yay!

BLEGH

I just found out via the North Carolina employment commission that I didn’t work at my job long enough to apply for unemployment. 

Did I mention that there are NO JOBS here?

I’ve applied for four (I think?) jobs since I got laid off; they’re all crappy retail positions, because that’s the only thing that seems to be hiring around here. I hope someone gets back to me SOON because I really just spend all day on the internet trolling craigslist for new job postings. And it might make me lose my mind.

“The internet is for porn.”

That’s why my blog is not destined for greatness.

Well, that and the fact that I’m lazy and don’t update much. And I haven’t quite figured out how to make it look pretty around here. I’ll figure it out.

The last few days have been LONG. I spend part of my day cleaning and trying to keep busy around the house, and part of the day panicking and looking for a new job. It’s also gotten pretty cold, so I haven’t been out and about that much. I also want to avoid the temptation of spending money, so I only go out if I need to walk the dogs, drop off a resume, or buy groceries. This means I’ve been spending a LOT of time at home on the internet. It’s easy to get sucked into reading blogs or looking at my friends’ Flickr accounts or watching bad music videos on Youtube. I need to get better at productive time usage. I could certainly be studying for the personal chef certification test I’m supposed to take, or organizing my recipes, or sewing all my torn up clothes. It’s hard to feel motivated right now, but I just need to stop wasting my time.

In fact, I need to bake some cookies for a friend; he never got the last package I sent him. $10 on postage for nothing! I’m going to take my bleeding eyes away from the internet for a while. I’ll return with a recipe post and some cookie photos later.

i need to remember the recipes from this job

And since they’re just in my head, because I didn’t get to take the giant recipe book with me when I left, I’m gonna write down as many as I remember.

chocolate chip cookie recipe:

2 # butter

4 c brown sugar

4 c white sugar

8 eggs

2 tsp salt

1 tb plus 1 tsp baking soda

vanilla

12 c flour

10 c chocolate chips

teh economy, it is teh suck

I thought I was safe from the recession, but I got laid off today. I don’t really have much to say about it right now, since I’m still kind of trying to process the situation.

Unfortunately, when restaurants are failing, pastry chefs are the first to be cut. I’ve always known this; I’ve read about it on other blogs. I just didn’t think it would happen to me. I had no idea how badly they were doing. It’s been slow, but I just didn’t give it too much thought.

I’m going to give myself a little time to deal with this before I start looking for a job again. But I’ll have to start looking pretty soon; I don’t want to spend the money that I consider “life savings” just yet.

Tonight I’ll be sleeping alone

For the first time in four years! It’s weird. Really weird. And it’s not like I ever really thought about it before; Yoni and I just don’t spend the night apart. We live together, we go on vacation together. It’s not like we’re attached at the hip (and, in fact, we spend precious little time together lately) but we always end up in the same bed. Or floor. Or boat. Or freight train. Or ground on the side of a golf course. (True stories!) 

So, I do wonder if it’ll be hard to sleep tonight. I also wonder how one of my friends is sleeping now that his cat isn’t there to cuddle with him at night. She had to be put to sleep recently after a mysterious terrible illness. I sent him a package with some of these:

I used a Martha Stewart recipe, but made them vegan so I could send some of the cookies to a friend of mine who is vegan. She sent me a dress in the mail! And a letter. It was one of the most exciting things I’ve gotten in the mail in a long time. Most of my other Philly friends besides these two people haven’t really been writing me letters. Which is to be expected in the land of internet, I suppose.

Also, I sent both packages on Monday, and neither person has received theirs yet, so I am a little worried that something happened to them. Should have gotten some kind of delivery confirmation, I guess!

Okay, off to eat Ritter Sport in bed and hope my weird headache goes away.