rainberryblue :: too wet to play ball :: March

"Too wet to go out, too cold to play ball, so we sat in the house and did nothing at all.
And all we could do was to Sit! Sit! Sit! and we did not like it, not one little bit."

We’re not exactly chomping at the bit to play ball today but if we were, the weather is a little less stellar than it has been the rest of the week. Today is damp and flurry-ish, grey and cloudy, the temperature again hovering around zero (Celsius).

This morning produced a few more things from the kitchen as well as a couple pictures of things from yesterday.

For some reason I was a day behind yesterday and thought it was the 19th.

Apples and bananas. Mmmmmm!

Yesterday I cooked and pureed up the equivalent of a bag and a half of frozen brussels sprouts that had been languishing in my freezer for quite some time. I couldn’t stand to throw them out. It was good food, just not in the state it was in. I now have 28 puree ice cubes and seven snack-size baggies containing a half cup of puree each. I have no idea what to do with it but I’m thinking a few cubes in spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, soup, etc. Personally, I don’t mind brussels sprouts but I know not everyone likes them. The flavour seems to be milder while they’re hot though so hopefully I can disguise it somehow.

The muffins are actually cupcakes from allrecipes.com (direct link here). The ingredients to me are muffin-like but I think maybe the "cupcake" part comes from the texture - very fine and moist and light. These are very good. I used three bananas and two apples (chopped instead of the shredding the recipe calls for) and was surprised that the banana flavour wasn’t overpowering. I also subbed sucanat for the sugar and only used half the total sugar called for. I used oil and applesauce instead of the shortening, plain yogurt in place of buttermilk, and replaced one cup of the flour with whole wheat flour. I think these would work well as cupcakes with the right icing, possibly a brown sugar and cream cheese variety?

Today saw the kitchen in use again, this time making flour tortillas and pizza dough. I used the Hillbilly Housewife recipe for the tortillas, replacing the shortening with approximately equal amounts of mayonnaise and sunflower oil to get 1/3 cup. I also replaced half the flour with whole wheat. It was my first time using my new-to-me cast iron frying pan so it did smoke up my house a bit. The pan came from a re-use store and my boyfriend ground it down to bare iron and then I re-seasoned it. This is only my second time making tortillas but these ones came out so much better than the last ones, which turned out a bit oily-looking; not wet oily, just dense. If I make them on any sort of regular basis though, I think a press would come in so handy. Just a simple one like this. It doesn’t look like it would be impossible to make one the same idea.

The pizza dough is another recipe I’ve only made twice before but I love it and plan to reach for it the next time too. It’s the The Benefit of the Dough recipe from Eat, Shrink & Be Merry (Janet and Greta Podleski). The recipe can be found online here. I doubled it so that after the rising stage I could put half in the freezer for another time. And again, I changed it slightly. Instead of adding the yeast directly to the flour mixture, I stirred the honey into the water and sprinkled the yeast on top for a few minutes before stirring the oil into that mixture and then pouring it all into the flour. I also upped the whole wheat flour a little. I rolled out half of the dough and spread it onto the pan and then put it in the oven for a few minutes (maybe five?). Tonight we’ll top it and bake it for another 10 or so and supper will be served just like that.

Uncooked and not yet fully poked. B helped by poking the holes for par-baking.

It’s going to feel strange to go back to work on Wednesday. I’ve enjoyed being all domestic this week and as I blogged yesterday, this is an unfamiliar thing for me, this contentment and even desire to continue this. I was reading a blog post by Donielle over at Raising Peanuts this morning and had to chuckle. I haven’t done all of the things she has in terms of changes but I related to her comment "Seriously, you must know, these things were not me a few years ago!" This is not me. I am not an apron-wearing, house-keeping, home-making, meal-planning, bread-baking, stay-at-home mother and wife. Yet I want to be. Very strange.*

*There is nothing wrong with those things. They just weren’t what I imagined I’d be happy doing on any sort of regular basis.