November Daring Bakers: Sans Rival

Catherine of Munchie Musings was our November Daring Bakers’ host and she challenged us to make a traditional Filipino dessert – the delicious Sans Rival cake! And for those of us who wanted to try an additional Filipino dessert, Catherine also gave us a bonus recipe for Bibingka which comes from her friend Jun of Jun-blog.

Hello, my name is Kat, and I'm a prodigal blogger.

Actually, I heard on the radio today, but haven't otherwise verified it yet, that prodigal means to be welcomed back. If they don't take you back with a feast of fatted pig or lamb or whatever, you're not prodigal, you're just back.

Anywho...

We moved.

The internets came on just last night.

My job, after the move was complete, was decreased by 75%.

Things are, shall we say, up in the air?

Oh, and we got a dog.

So tonight, I thought I could just eke out the November challenge. I did the October challenge, and I'll post about that later. I couldn't at the time because all my internet accounts were hacked. That was fun. Don't use one password, no matter how strong, for multiple (or all) your accounts. One site gets hacked, evil people get your password, and they have fun playing with all your other accounts.

Anywho...

I thought I could just eke out the November challenge tonight after a full day's worth of moving. And an oven that doesn't work. I had my ten eggs, I had my almonds, I had a couple of hours before I could justify crashing into bed...

I whipped up my meringue to perfection. Then I added the nuts. Instead of folding the nuts into my beautiful bowl of my last ten eggwhites, I spaced out and turned the mixer back on. Faster than you can say "oh heck," or something similar, the entire bowl deflated into a puddle of liquid.

Did I mention our new house is out in the country? Yeah. No way to convince my little hens to squeeze out another ten eggs, and no way to get back into town to buy any to repeat the challenge.

I poured the slop into a greased cake pan, instead of spreading fluffy layers of meringue onto my carefully drawn circles on parchment paper. I threw it in the oven and walked away. About an hour and a half later, Mr. Boom appeared and asked about the cake.

The cake?

Oh heck! The cake!

(again, the word heck may have been replaced by another, stronger, and perhaps whole string of other words)

I took it out of the oven, tipped it over a cooling rack, and out thumped something that looked surprisingly tasty, if not that pretty.

I added some leftover cranberry sauce (homemade, of course) and called it a dessert.

People, it may be a wreck, but it's tasty.

Hopefully, this wreck of a house and my wrecked job will be at least as tasty. Or whatever.

Oh. To see what a Sans Rival is supposed to look like, and to get the wonderful recipe for yourself, go here.

September 2011 Daring Bakers Challenge: Croissants

Mandatory Blog-checking lines: The Daring Bakers go retro this month! Thanks to one of our very talented non-blogging members, Sarah, the Daring Bakers were challenged to make Croissants using a recipe from the Queen of French Cooking, none other than Julia Child!

Ummmm.  Has it really been two whole weeks since I posted?
Has it really been ONLY two weeks since I posted?
Wait, first I need to swear you to secrecy. 
I am NOT on the internet, m-kay?
I am packing up the piles and piles of junk on my desk.  The tapping Mr. Boom thinks he might be hearing is simply the clacking of items falling into boxes.  That's my story and you have to help me stick with it!
You see, we've made an offer on a house, and that offer has been accepted.  It's a foreclosure, so we couldn't make the sale contingent on selling our current house.  Ergo, we really must get this one cleaned up and sold ASAP.  No time for blogging.
Or baking.
BUT!!!!
I had already made this month's Daring Baker's Challenge before we ever lay eyes on the new house. That's the good news.  The bad news is that my attempt failed.  It sucked.  It was awful.  It needed to be redone but I never did it.
I'm sure if YOU tried it, though, you'd meet with great success.  Please please please don't let my failure sway your own judgement about whether or not to try.
You can find the recipe we used right here.

 

Now, I know the recipe is from good ol' Julia herself.  But honestly?  While I was going to give it one more attempt for the sake of the challenge, in the future I'll undoubtedly use the recipe I've used before from Julie at Willow Bird Baking.  That recipe is here.  And you can see my results on her blog here.
Excuse me a  moment, gentle reader!
(Yes dear, I'm most certainly packing!  Things are flying into boxes!  Honey, how do you spell croissant?  No reason!  Just curious!!!)
I'm back. 
For my definitive croissant post, go here.
For the world's most definitivest croissant post ever, go talk to Audax.
I'm outta here!

Another year gone by

Make new friends, but keep the old

One is silver and the other is gold.

Do you know this song? As a young Girl Scout we sang it all the time as a round. Some would say the tune is old and worn out, but I've never fallen out of love with it's simplicity and straightforward message.

Today I broke a beautiful new mug that I purchased only last Sunday. It was a porcelain travel mug with blue swirls and brown dragonflies. Sitting on the shelf of the kitchen shop it sparkled, it called to me, I was instantly enamored and smitten and head over heels. It was expensive, but resistance was futile and the purchase was made.

But today, after using it twice, I dropped it on the sidewalk outside my office. The pretty mug shattered into a jillion buhzillion little pieces.

I'm sitting here now, in front of my computer at home, drinking a mug of tea. This mug is old. It's practically from another lifetime. It was one of two that my dear friend Bet (Hi Bet!) sent as part of a care package when my first husband came out of remission from cancer. This mug isn't pretty, but it's solid. I've had it and used it excessively for nearly twenty years. I love this mug.

Today Mr. Boom and I looked at a house. I'm pretty sure the house was designed and built by Mr. Brady. Planters are built into the stairs on the inside of the house. The wallpaper in the laundry room is bright! and yellow! with flowers! and ribbons! that blind! It's kinda like this.

We're making an offer on the house, and I hope we get it. At the same time, a brick sided split level is quite a change from a 1910 Victorian. But who can argue with acres, and a pond, and a pasture, and a totally huge woodshop? Be still my heart, but there are ducks on the pond that the realtor assured me would come with the house. Did I mention the realtor has known me since I was eight years old? She patted me on the arm as she assured me the wild mallards would definitely want to live with me! Of course, she winked at Mr. Boom at the same time...

All day long I've been racking my brain, looking for something to say or do to celebrate another blog-o-versary--our 2nd! I might come up with something later on in the week, but don't hold your breath since we have all kinds of ducks to get in a row (get it?) to make the offer and get things straight with the bank.

All I have is this: thanks friends, old and new. Some are near, some are far, but I think of all of you as gold. True gold.