A Fun Winter Day

     As far as February in Wisconsin goes, today was a beautiful day! Nearly 50 degrees out. Matthew and I started out the day by going to Church. Actually, he went to church but I skipped today to study in a coffee shop next door. I have four nursing school exams in the next two weeks.
     After church Matthew and I grabbed a quick lunch at Subway, and then headed over to Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison. We met up with some friends there and went into the conservatory, which had an orchid show going on. It's around 80 degrees in the conservatory and felt so good! After that we went out to the outdoor area and walked the paths to the Thai temple (which I forgot to take any pictures of). It felt wonderful outside, although we had to watch our step for puddles due to the melting snow! Then we went back inside the building to view an art and craft show. There were lots of booths selling various things.
     Now we're back at home, mostly relaxing. We had some overripe bananas so I made some banana bread. It's currently in the oven and smells great in here!

Lebkuchen

So, John has to make lebkuchen for a school project. He invited his friend Justin over to help.
John is 15, and Justin is 14, so the two of them working on a baking project could get a bit messy. Laura Muetz asked Lizzy and I to supervise the two of them.
It was pretty interesting. John was freaking out at one point because he was convinced a saucepan was too big for boiling molasses and honey. He thought it would burn and ruin it, but Lizzy and I convinced him it would be okay.
I don't think there was a single silent moment the whole time. John and Justin were constantly yelling out worries, or singing, or making jokes, or asking questions. It was a very loud kitchen! John needed to zest a lemon, but he kept knocking around the dish he was zesting it into, so I held it still for him. I hadn't realized I'd cut my thumb, so I had a very unpleasant surprise when some of the lemon zest hit that. Ouch!
So, the whole process was pretty loud and messy, but John has the dough ready for tomorrow.
I'll help with rolling it out and slicing it up if he needs help, but I'm not helping with his next school project, which is pinning insects he's collected to a board. He can see if Luke wants to help with that.

I baked a pan of granola yesterday, and while it seems to be good (both Jeremy and Luke really enjoy it), it's really messy. The recipe called for two cups of mini chocolate chips. I think next time I'm going to add half that, instead. It's just too melty to hold while you eat it.
Now, I have to make one more pan of granola bars, some loose granola, and some brownies.
On to baking!

Well, I decided I won't be able to have my doublet bodice outfit done for Stronghold, but that's okay: I'll wear my upper class garb. I don't get to wear that set of garb very often anyway, so I don't mind!
I put it all on today (I find the best way to make sure I'm packing everything or that I don't need to mend anything is to put the entire outfit on), and everything appears to be in order. There's a spot of trim that I need to tack down for now (I'm going to replace it later), but that's about it.
I was wearing my sneakers when I put the garb on, and it's not really what I recommend with upper class garb...

It's supposed to be cold at Stronghold this weekend (Saturday has a high of 58 with a low of 35, and "patchy frost". I'm going to freeze), so tomorrow I'm going to get my cold weather clothes from the top shelf of my closet and put away some of my summer things. I think I'll be packing many layers of pajamas for Saturday night...

I'll probably also do some baking tomorrow or Thursday. I need to make some granola and some sort of sweet.


And in other news, the dogs were greatly displeased today. They all got baths, which they hate. Odo was starting to have signs of fleas, and she's very, very allergic to fleas, so Jeremy and Luke gave all the dogs flea baths, we washed all the dog beds, and used a flea repelling dust on the carpet and dog beds. We should be flea free, now.

For today's plans....

I think I'll do some baking today. I have a few people I've promised to deliver cookies to, and today seems like it's going to be a slightly cooler day than what we've had lately. It seems like a good day for baking! I think I'll also try to finish cleaning my room (Ha. That's what I say. Lets see if it actually gets done...), and maybe I'll start drafting my doublet bodice pattern. I may not have a sewing machine to work with right now, but I can at least have the pattern ready...
I know at some point today my mom and I have to run to Braidwood and drop things off at the library and go grocery shopping, and we need to drop some things off at our storage unit. My grandma had willed all of her Hallmark Christmas ornaments to my mom and Aunt Kathy, so we went over to my aunt's house yesterday to sort through the ornaments and see who gets what. Now we have a LOT of ornaments. Because we didn't already have too many for our tree.... So, we'll be putting those in the storage unit today.
We also have several ornaments that we already have, so I'll put them in storage for my Christmas tree someday.
Besides the ornaments, my aunt also had a box of other things to go to us. There was a jewelry box my mom had been wanting, my grandma's sewing basket, some jewelry, but most importantly of all is a ring we found in a little Avon box. My mom thinks it may be the ring she had on for her wedding. It was her something old, something borrowed, and something blue. It belonged to her great-grandmother!
Oh, and while we were at my aunt's house going through these things, I managed to convince her I hadn't seen her son's wedding pictures that were on her computer, so she let me go look through them. My plan was to update her Facebook status (every time family comes to her house they manage to update her Facebook for her) while she was in the living room, but her and my Mom followed me into the bedroom. I somehow still managed to update her status with her in the room, and she never noticed! I was happy. It's been my goal to update her status for a while now. I've finally succeeded.

Bagels again...

I'm still working on the bagels I mentioned earlier (they take a while since the dough has to rise twice). I tried out a new recipe (for plain bagels. Not berry bagels), and I kind of wish I hadn't. Along with being a new recipe, there was new instructions, which didn't work out so well. It had me heat the oven to 400*, and the bagels quickly began to burn. I checked my old recipe which said 375*, so I turned down the oven. Only the bottoms of the bagels are burned, so I think they should be fine. Jeremy will do the taste test for me later.
Now I'm making my old recipe, but I added in some raspberries. It made the entire dough a pink color, which Luke and I decided looks like a brain. I was hoping that the raspberries turn out to be a good addition, but I hadn't voiced that, and just said "I hope it tastes good". Luke was immediately concerned that we'd just been talking about how it looked like a brain, and then I said that. I guess he must have been afraid I'd turned into a brain-eating zombie. Luckily I haven't!

Bagels

My favorite recipe website (www.allrecipes.com) has failed me! I decided to make blueberry bagels. Blueberry bagels are fairly common, so you would think that there would be a few recipes for them, but no! I ended up having to Google blueberry bagels to find a recipe. I was also wondering if there was such a thing as raspberry bagels (we have a bag of frozen raspberries that no one has done anything with yet, so I thought I'd use them), and while I found plenty of places that sell raspberry bagels, I didn't find a recipe anywhere(other than this disgusting sounding "Crazay Bagel" with chocolate and raspberries and way too much salt-icky!) . I'm wondering if I could just make regular bagels and just put the raspberries in? I guess there's only one way to find out....

Some sewing, some baking, sounds like a normal week.

Having said nothing for over a week, I feel like I should say something. However, I don't have much in particular to say.
It's been a fairly ordinary week here. I can't believe it's Wednesday night already. That means I pretty much only have tomorrow left for this week. We'll leave for Bristol sometime around noon on Friday, so I won't really have much time on Friday to accomplish anything. I need to sew a new shirt for Jeremy and do some baking. I meant to start on Jeremy's shirt about an hour ago, but I checked my email first to respond to a long neglected email, and I forgot to turn off my gmail chat and a friend popped up to talk to me. He's very long-winded, and takes ages to tell a short story, so I knew the conversation would go on for a long time if I didn't tell him I need to do something. I tried telling him that I had to go sew, and he spent about 10 more minutes telling me to not let Luke have nitroglycerin. I enjoy talking to this friend, but I think he'd start to drive me crazy if I tried to talk to him for too long! He's very enthusiastic about everything he talks about... Oh well, at least he gave me good advice on not letting Luke have nitroglycerin....

I just glanced back to the table and noticed that it's starting to have things piled on it (I just cleared it off for sewing!), so I should get to sewing Jeremy's shirt while I can still see the table!
I don't know if I'll accomplish any other sewing besides his shirt. I'd like to finally finish my kirtle. Well, the portion that needs to be finished on the sewing machine anyway. I'm going to have to put eyelets in the back for lacing, and that will take a while! It may be something I can work on at Bristol though.
Oh eyelets, why do you have to be so time consuming?

Chocolate Custard Meringue Pie

I realized that today is Pi Day (3.14-March 14) and I should have made a Pi Pie.
I saw this pie last year, and wanted to make something similar.
Unfortunately, I forgot all about Pi Day until I saw someone post on Facebook about how they had forgotten to make a Pi Pie.
I realized that I had too, but there was still time to make some sort of pie, just not a Pi Pie (I didn't have the right stuff). So, I combined a couple of recipes and came up with this pie (Jeremy and Luke loved it)

For the crust you'll have to bake chocolate cookies:
Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Ingredients:
1 cup softened butter or margarine
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 TSP vanilla
2 cups flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 TSP baking soda

Preheat oven to 350. In large bowl beat together butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until fluffy.
In a separate bowl combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt; stir into butter mix.
(At this point you can add 2 cups of chocolate chips if you want cookies: omit the chips for a pie crust). Put cookies on ungreased cookie sheet and bake 12 minutes (for just cookies, 8-10 minutes. Pie crust needs longer).

Once you have cookies, crush them until you have 2 cups worth of crumbs. Melt 7 TBS butter and stir into the crumbs. Press the crumbs into a pie plate and chill.

For the custard:
1 cup sugar
2 TBS coca
2 TBS flour
pinch of salt
2 eggs separated
1 cup milk
1 TBS butter
1 TSP vanilla

In a large saucepan combine sugar, cocoa, flour, and salt. Mix well. Stir in egg yolks and milk, whisk all ingredients, cook over medium heat until the mix forms a pudding consistency. Remove from heat, add butter and vanilla. Pour into pie crust.

For the meringue, whisk 2 egg whites until foamy. Slowly add in 1/4 cup white sugar. Beat until white forms stiff peaks, spread over custard, and bake at 400 for 5-6 minutes.

This pie can be served warm or chilled.
It's really yummy!

Baking! Sewing!

I started working on my green wool garb. I thought it might be nice to get a head start on it. Last year I was unable to finish my garb until midnight the night before the Janesville faire. And for my new garb for Stronghold I didn't finish it until the morning of the faire. I'd like to avoid that this time!
So far I've cut out the skirt panels, sewn them together, sewed the edges on the front opening of the skirt, and started cartridge pleating. Cartridge pleating is easy, just time consuming. Especially when you mess it up multiple times, like I did. First, I started on the wrong end of the skirt. Oops! So I pulled out those stitches and put them where they should go. I finally got to the end of the row of stitches (the stitches are 1" apart on a 180" across skirt), and as I was tying it off a very sad thing happened... Apparently the knot on the other end of the skirt was not big enough, and half my stitches came undone. It was very, very sad. I did eventually finish the first row of stitches, but it was very frustrating! Now I need to do a second row of stitches just under that row. That row of stitches should be easier; I can just use the first row of stitches as a guide. On the first row I had to hold a tape measure while I was stitching to insure that each stitch was 1".
After I finish all of those rows of stitching I can finally put the skirt on the waistband.

As for baking...I made a loaf of whole wheat bread last night. It came out a little bit dry, though. I think there was a little too much flour, so I'll cut back on it next time. Other than that it was very nice. I took a picture before it was baked, but I forgot to take a picture of it once it had been baked.
Tonight I made oatmeal cookies. About two dozen are just plain oatmeal cookies, and another two dozen have walnuts.
Since we're going to be low on bread (because I made one loaf instead of two) I'll probably make white bread tomorrow. I might make a double batch (that will be 4 loaves) and freeze some.

Now I'm going to go wash some of the kitchen stuff (my apron, towels, wash cloths, oven mitts, etc) and go through fabric for some of the patterns I bought yesterday.






Oatmeal cookies.
This isn't all of them; there was still two batches being baked.

Whole wheat bread before it was baked.
I forgot to take a picture of it once it was baked.
I always braid my bread, I think it looks nice!

Our Trip to Wisconsin

The trip to Wisconsin was a fun one, as usual (Wisconsin can't be un-fun, it's impossible).
We helped with a book swap and moved a lot of girl scout cookies! Stefanie, our dear friend and hostess, is a girl scout leader and her cookie shipment came in on Saturday, so we helped organize the cookies and break up the orders.

I had my Duck bake on Saturday, we made approximately 152 meat pies. I forgot to take pictures of them, so I'll have to do so next time. I mostly rolled and sliced dough, and then watched and played with the very rambunctious Timothy.
My character's occupation this year is the nurse/nanny to Timothy. My director and his wife are very pleased with this occupation choice as it will help them quite a bit! Especially since they have a new baby. It will not be a difficult job at all, Timothy is my best friend and it will be fun watching him! At the Duck bake he used pillows to build a fort and then tried to find a blanket for the roof, but there was no blankets that were big enough, so I promised to bring some old sheets and blankets to BAPA (Bristol Academy of Performing Arts) and when I have free time I'll help Timothy build one awesome blanket fort!

After the Duck bake I went back to Stefanie's house and looked over some of the books; I found a few that I picked out. In fact, my Mom found a lot too, so we ended up bringing more books home than we meant to! But that's the way it is with books.
After the book swap we were able to visit with friends for a while and had an all around fun evening. Although I seemed to be getting a cold. I was fine when we left home, but once we were at Stefanie's house I got all sniffly. We thought it might be cat allergies, but on Saturday evening I started having a little cough and a scratchy throat. Now that I'm home I still have a cough, but my stuffy, itchy nose and itchy eyes are all better, so it may have been part cat allergies and part cold. I guess we'll find out the next time I'm around a cat!
Anyway, we got home on Sunday, back to boring ol' Custer Park.

We're Going to Wisconsin

My Mom and I will be going up to Wisconsin this weekend. Unfortunately Jeremy and Luke are too sick.
We're going up tonight to stay at our friend's house, and then tomorrow (Saturday) I have a Duck bake*, and our friend will be having a book swap at her house. We're hoping to get rid of more books than we bring home; we have too many books (not that there's such a thing as too many, but we have more books than we have space for)! We still have a lot less than we had moving from Texas to Wisconsin. I think we had over 50 milk crates of books then! That may have included National Geographic magazines, though. But we have a quite a bit less now. We got rid of a lot when we moved from WI to IL. We donated them to our library.

*The term "Duck bake" may seem odd to some of you, so I will explain.
Bristol has several casts and guildes. I'm in the Guilde of St. Lawrence; members of St. Lawrence are called "ducks" or "ducklings" because we work at the Dirty Duck Inn.
St. Lawrence provides reasonably priced food for the cast of Bristol. We serve soup, bread, hard-boiled eggs, pickles, nuts, fruit, muffins, and pies (but not like apple pie, we have meat pies and peanut butter pies and all sorts of other pies, I'll get pictures later). We make the pies before the Bristol season starts. All the ducks get together and make the pies, rehearse, learn Duck dances, discuss characters and upcoming events, etc. And that is what a Duck bake is!

Eggs Galore and Cooking Escapades

So my chickens are laying lots of eggs. With 12 hens I've been getting about 8-10 eggs a day.
I was shocked to find 12 today! Really, that's just crazy!
So, we have a lot of eggs. I decided to try making some meringue to use some up.
Unfortunately I don't think I cared for the recipe I used. It was just egg whites and powdered sugar, and the result was too sweet. I'll have to try some other recipes.

I also made dinner tonight. I made pancakes (from scratch!) with fresh eggs. Yummy!
The kitchen is still kind of a mess from everything, but the dishwasher is going and after that I can clean the counters. That might actually get put off until tomorrow though, I'm watching the figure skating on the Olympics tonight. The figure skating is my favorite part!

I think I'll also bake some bread tomorrow. And maybe cookies...We'll see!