Creative baking in my office

But not by me, heh.
I hate it when I'm too busy at work to read my favorite blogs, or do a blog post.....and come home too tired and cranky to even think about blogging. In other words, spending all day at the office (including my lunch hour) staring at my computer screen -- for work purposes only -- is NO FUN!

A couple of co-workers have found the time to be creative with baking, though, so that's been fun to see. Someone made a "hamburger cake", or maybe a "black bean cake", since the baker is a vegetarian. Anyway, the filling is made of crushed Oreo cookies. I was waiting till lunch time to have a piece, but by noon, the ravenous piggies in our office had already eaten it all. (We blame our appetites on stress eating.)

 Someone spent a lot of time on these cupcake spiders. I couldn't bring myself to put something in my mouth that looked like a spider. How do the rest of you bakers feel about Halloween baking? I love the creativity, but the eating of spiders and skeletons and eyeballs is just too eww for me.

I found the energy to make Monet's Pumpkin Coffee Cake.

I have had four pieces already. I believe I should go steam some veggies or eat an autumn apple now.....

Who misses the good old days of television?

Oh, this has been a bad month for technology in Casa de la Wheel. On October 1st, our satellite TV provider, Dish Network, dropped some channels, including one of our favorites, FX.

Meester has been calling every cable and satellite TV provider in the free world...trying to find something to replace Dish Network. Good grief, there are a million options of bundling TV with internet access, or cell phone service, or whatever. Meester can do calculus in his head, but even he had to grab a pen to write down every convoluted detail of each offer. I am staying out of it...that leaves me the option to bitch that it's Meester's fault if we don't like the services that we end up with.....

Meester is in charge of home technology, and it was his idea to switch our TV reception from cable to satellite a few years ago. Holy Hamsters, that was a nightmare of programming multiple remote controls! I bitched and whined about how I just wanted to watch TV, not launch the space shuttle, until Meester came up with a single remote that would work for the TV, VCR, etc.

So the worst part of this mess is that -- if we change TV providers -- WE WILL HAVE TO PROGRAM NEW REMOTE CONTROLS! All I want to do is watch a little TV now and then...I'm not a big TV watcher...so why does it have to be so hard? I'm old enough to remember when TV sets only had two controls - a knob that you pushed or pulled for ON or OFF, and a dial that you rotated to get 3 channels. I think there was an adjustment for color, but when I was a kid only grownups were allowed to adjust the colors on the tv set. Children were forced allowed to get up and change the channels only.

image courtesy of flickr

So please, just let me go back to the old days of TV...with the simple controls. I could use the exercise getting up to change channels...and I miss Sunday nights with a bowl of popcorn and the whole family watching Bonanza.....

It's been 30 years since I did this?

I love baking my own cookies and quick breads...and do that fairly often. I remember how much I enjoyed my mother and grandmother's home baking. I still think homemade baked goods are the best.

But I just hadn't given a thought to taking the time for a good old-fashioned yeast bread. I mean the kind where you have to knead the dough and wait for it to rise and it takes all afternoon and who has the time? The last time I kneaded bread dough was when I was a young stay-at-home mom and did things the "homemade way" because we had no money.

I just didn't realize how much time had gone by since those "homemade" days...although maybe my graying hair should have been a clue. Recently I discovered Monet Moutrie's blog anecdotes and apple cores. (Thanks to namely Marly for introducing her.)

Monet has a charming blog that blends creative writing with recipes and delightful pictures. I just find Monet inspirational. Maybe because she looks somewhat like two of our daughters who live in Texas and whom we don't get to see often enough and maybe they could call us more often. Heh.

I know Monet has the kind of recipes I prefer; nothing that requires expensive or exotic ingredients, or a specialty food store that we don't have around here anyway. I love the easy elegance that she adds to a finished baked good with a simple swirl of piped icing...a touch that even I can accomplish. Every recipe of Monet's that I've tried has turned out perfectly, and has been a "keeper" that I will make again. I rarely say that about any of the recipes I have tried from all the professional food icons and stars out there.

Meester was skeptical about Monet's "Ginger Pumpkin Bread". But he was all smiles after eating a warm fragrant chunk of bread fresh out of the oven...and he went right back for more. Few of us really desire to be the "Next Food Network Star". We just want the satisfaction of seeing happy, contented smiles on the faces of friends and family when they taste foods made by us with love...and this is where Monet is a star.

Sweet seduction by squash

I love the squashes of Autumn - their bold colors, their voluptuous curves, their rich flavors. A squash baked with a bit of butter and sweetener is heavenly.

I stumbled on a recipe for Butternut Squash and Vanilla Risotto and I had to try it. I adjusted the recipe a little - don't we all? The recipe calls for a vanilla bean and its seeds. I had saved a left-over vanilla bean after I scraped out the seeds to make vanilla sugar, so I just cooked the vanilla bean in the broth and added a little Madagascar vanilla extract. Instead of cooking the butternut squash in broth, I cut my squash in half, wrapped the halves in foil, and put them in the oven to bake before I started the risotto. The risotto was absolutely creamy deliciousness and I GOT TO EAT IT ALL MYSELF while watching tv shows on my laptop because Meester was out of town. It doesn't get any better than that.

Don't really have a recipe for this, but a few days later I made a sauce of about 4 Tbs. butter, about 1/4 C. maple syrup, about 1/4 tsp. dried rosemary from my garden, a dash salt & pepper. I poured the sauce over 2-3? Cups of cubed butternut squash and chopped tart apple and put it all in a covered casserole dish. I baked it covered for about 40 minutes at 350 degrees, then uncovered it and baked about 20 minutes more. I don't have a picture either, but it was a lovely fragrant dish and this time Meester got to enjoy it.  :)

Wish we were all here

A perfect fall day in Iowa is rare. The day we went to the orchard was one perfect day.

Remember the Holodeck concept from the Star Trek television series? The Holodeck was a room with computer programming that could simulate various "realities" of your choosing...sights, sounds, smells...just as if you were there. I'd like to program this fall day so that I could step into the Holodeck and enjoy sunlight on a running stream - ALL WINTER. Wouldn't you rather have a Holodeck in your house than a media room where you just watch reruns and faux reality shows on tv?

little green frog hiding in the mud