11/11/11 Silliness and Stevie has a new hobby
Feast your eyes on this tasty morsel! Believe it or not, this is the final, cooked, product of Stevie’s new hobby: Baking.
This really has nothing to do with 11/11/11 but I thought it was a good way to work in a post about it AND talk about my daughters new love of baking things. We can use this date as the starting point of a new, potential career choice or as the date we can tell the ER that we first started having the symptoms of food poisoning. Either way it’s a memory immortalized on a historic date in time that I will never live to see again.
The way she starts a project is by looking up something she wants to make on the internet. Then she gathers ingredients, measures, stirs, mixes, combines and then cooks. This particular recipe is her 6th attempt at it. First off, let me clarify that this was supposed to be a cupcake recipe. That’s what she looked up but this is what she created: The brown lump you see above.
It was only at the very end, after the batter was in the liners, in the muffin tray, that she realized something was not right. The batter was way too thick and sitting in the cups like dough balls. Like, cookie dough balls. Then she looked back at the internet and saw that her recipe was NOT for cupcakes, but actually for chocolate chip cake cookies. Not chocolate chip cup cakes. See, it’s those words that can be confusing! You see cake, you automatically think cupcake! Her only other fleeting clue was that there was only enough “batter” to fill 4 cupcake liners. She even had her brother in the kitchen wondering what the heck they were looking at. I can just imagine both of them staring at those lumpy “cupcakes” and trying to figure out what went wrong. Then they scraped all the dough out of the liners and put them on a baking tray to cook. Her finished recipe made this many cookies, plus two, that we ate for quality control purposes:
They are not pretty. They are not really good either. They kind of taste like brownie bites with lots of edge. They do have chocolate chips in them though! The problem, besides following the wrong recipe all together, is that when she does find a recipe, she reads it off the internet and doesn’t follow the order of ingredients. She tends to measure and mix things out of order and then loses track of what’s in the bowl already and what is not. Her last cookie attempt, deliberate cookies, may have had salt as an ingredient at least 3 or 4 times. Her motto is: “If you can’t remember, add it again! Then double the recipe!” What you end up with is twice as many salty, chewy cookies to feed to the big, fat squirrels we have growing outside. I swear they gather near the backdoor like they’re having a company meeting when we turn our oven on.
Since I was actually at a job fair for most of this, (2 fairly good interviews I think!! Cross your fingers please!! I really need a job. If anything, just to be able to afford more butter and flour and sugar) I walked in on the turds just coming out of the oven. And heard the story while she was already preparing her next assault on my kitchen and baking supplies. Before she got too deep, I suggested she might consider printing the recipe and then using a pen to check off each item as she used it. She did. She carefully checked to be sure it was really a cupcake recipe. It was. And then she put them together. Obviously baking is a skill that takes time and practice. I was mostly in the room when she mixed and measured, but for some reason, something goes wrong somewhere in the process and the finished product ends up just slightly “off.” These are her vanilla cupcakes with chocolate frosting:
They are not the worst cupcakes you have ever eaten by any means. They look pretty good. Mostly “risen”. A lot are flat, but that’s ok. The chocolate frosting is good. The problem is that they taste like corn bread muffins and not vanilla cupcakes. We can’t figure out why. It’s a basic recipe. The only difference is that it asked for egg whites instead of whole eggs. It’s weird. Either she is completely missing something or reading the teaspoon/tablespoon/½ and ¾ type measurements wrong. So they can just sit there for a few days and I’ll throw them at the squirrels on Monday. Keep them off my bird feeders for a few minutes. Totally off subject…but I have a red-headed woodpecker that I have been trying to take a picture of for the last few weeks. He was here today so I have to think he’ll be back regularly if I keep the bird seed out and full. I don’t know why it’s exciting to see new and different birds eating in my backyard but it is!! Yay winter!
Anyway, she is done for the night now and I will wrap this up and clean the kitchen. Again. Despite this posting, which she fully read and can appreciate the humor behind (because my kids are cool like that!), she will try again soon, and I will let her. How else is she going to learn?? Send her some love and encouragement so she doesn’t give up because, heads up!, she’s planning on baking ALL the Christmas cookies this year. And unless you want to break a tooth or outright lie, and shatter the holiday dreams of an overly ambitious teenage girl, you all better hope she gets really good at this super FAST! Later!
When last you heard from me, I was on my way to school…
…with high hopes for the rest of the evening. When suddenly…Tequila! (And that was TWO days ago.)
I did go to school. I got the “pre-heads-up” to the actual “heads-up” classes I have next week. Signed some paperwork. Got some questions answered. Payed for classes. Bought more books. Drove home excited as hell, but unaware of the complicated nature of what I am about to embark upon.
I have three books and a syllabus right now, and I have three more books to buy. Definitely the most I have needed so far. When I trained for EMT I was on an adrenaline rush for hours after every single class, for like 4-6 months. It was crazy. And I have that same crazy feeling just looking at these books. Two years and god knows how many hours are about to go into this program, but I am ready. I’m not sure my body can take the intensity. I had trouble sleeping before, but I guess that will just help me on the job! I talked so much on the phone to the BF just driving home from a pre-class class, that I, “low-battery-powered-off”, the cell phone. The damn thing drained out good. First time I talked to the cut-off. Even after I plugged it back in it wouldn’t turn on for a little while.
So I take a closer look at this new book. Calculating With Confidence. Drug calculations, measurements, math conversions…OMG, it looks hard. Drug labels, syringes, pills, liquids, fractions, decimals, cc. mL. mg. oz. You need: Aspirin gr 10 p.o. q4h p.r.n. for pain. You have: Drug label, that suddenly makes no sense whatsoever. And tell me how much, with how much diluent, time of day, route of administration, but don’t forget who you are giving it to, how much they weigh, what else they are taking; now mark it on the drawing, and don’t “F” it up because you could kill someone…. I’m paraphrasing…but that’s the idea. Once you take off the plastic shrink wrap, the front cover has a skull and crossbones on it. They don’t want you to see that until it’s too late. And you thought that the nurse handing you two Tylenol in the hospital after dinner didn’t require any skill. HA!
The amazing thing is, that in 2 months, that book is going to make perfect sense, and I’ll be calculating in my sleep (not literally), but for now…we better go to Pepe’s and think about the future.
So the guy that has been working there since he was a child, really, (I know, because we as a family, collectively have been going there for his whole life basically, I even remember a time when he was out in the parking lot trying to drive off in his older brothers car…he got in trouble for that…) anypepestoryway…this kid/adult now (Ricky? The name would not come to me, don’t judge, I’m approaching 40, but Mason and Stevie both agree, yes, on the name) made me a killer, and I mean KILLER margarita. I took 4 drinks and I was feeling the heat. By one third gone, I was TWO thirds gone. I wish I could say I was joking, because I was getting “altered” and fast. (My teeth were numb and I tried to walk out of the clear glass panel NEXT to the door, when I left the restaurant) I ate some chips and salsa and some shrimp cocktail on crackers and a tamale and a chili rellano but food was failing me fast, so I concentrated on finishing the medium margarita that, based on my morning calculations of how-long-it-takes-my-body-to-filter-out-the-alcohol (years of research have perfected this system) there must have been at least, 5 shots of tequila in my drink. I can say that with confidence because I was still slightly drunk at 7:30 in the morning. And I even tried to move the alcohol along with activity and oxygen before I fell into dreamy-drunky sleep the night before but sometimes you can’t keep a good buzz down, or up, or whatever. End of story.
I dragged myself up, took out the garbage, diluted my remaining blood level of tequila with coffee, and watched Regis & Kelly with Pat Tomasulo subbing for Regis (!!) I wrote it on the calendar! Busy schedule, yeah yeah, I’ll be working soon enough and you’ll miss these long, rambling posts. (More Pat Stuff)
The Pat Down. For your enjoyment. And since this is Chicago, we have 2 newspapers…here’s the Trib version. Ok, I think I’m done now.
Then I really pushed the limit with a five mile run. Five point one something something, to be exact. I ran the water bill to the Village Hall, which maps out at 5+ miles. MapMy Run.com. 30 minutes there. 34 minutes back. One hour, four minutes. I will take it. I ran on the sidewalks. Concrete, hard on the shins with lots of hills, (dang Park Forest doesn’t have a completely flat spot 10 steps in a row), and chock full of tripping hazards. Broken cement, uneven, crooked, weeds, rocks…I’m not sure what the village is doing all the time. It seems like they dig holes in random spots all around town just so there’s something for the kids to fall into. At any rate. I was done for the day. Kids got home about 3 ish and we ate ice cream and talked about all they did last week. Stevie made cupcakes! First time on her own and no crunchy ones from egg shells! (So far) So proud. Then dinner and a movie. (Burgers on the grill and Smokey and the Bandit from Netflix) unpack the bags, go to bed and poof! Here we are. Today.
I’m going to skip the run today, maybe go take a walk at the nature trail if I can get the kids out there. Mason has grass to finish and we are open. I have the pictures you have been waiting for…I didn’t forget, it’s just time and energy and getting them off the cell phone. I even have video! The kids wanted to play in the water, but we don’t have a pool. We have a hose. So they filled up larger, plastic, Tupperware bowls and put their faces in them or dumped them over their heads. They would swim in a wet sponge if they could. Then they played water-hose-jump-rope, which is actually pretty funny. So that’s coming too! And all that other stuff I said I had…Remember my theme: Everything is always two days ago!
Cupcakes!
Half with sprinkles, half without! Tasty!
just shy of pretty 