21
Dec, 2005

a happy gift for you, my readers

last year, i began a tradition of sharing with friends and family our new favorite recipes of the year. i like to try new recipes and if it’s good enough for a repeat performance, it becomes a contender for “favorite new recipe of the year.” this year was a little more slim on fantastic recipes than last year (last year’s winners were chicken verde (made in a crockpot and exceedingly simple and delicious–if you didn’t get the recipe last year, let me know and i’ll post it here) and pecan crusted pork tenderloin). this year… we tried many forgettable recipes. nothing too tragic, but nothing really worth repeating. except for this bread recipe from our pastor which i love. i’ve had to bake it a few times to fine tune it to my taste and my oven’s quirks and i’ve learned that a half recipe (one loaf) is a bit easier on my mixer. mr. h-s isn’t as fond of the bread as i am, but this is my blog, not his, so here it is, this year’s gift to all:

pastor tonya’s whole wheat flax bread
2 1/4 cups warm water
2 tbsp yeast
1 egg (optional)
1/2 cup honey or sugar
2/3 cup canola oil
1 tbsp salt
2 tbsp toasted sesame seeds
1/2 cup (or more) wheat bran
1/2 cup (or more) milled flax seed
7-8 cups whole wheat flour

other options: rolled oats, oat bran, wheat flakes, ground walnuts or almonds, wheat germ

dissolve yeast in the warm water. add egg, oil, sugar, salt, sesame seeds, wheat bran, milled flax seed (and any of the other options), 3-4 cups of the flour (I often use 1-2 cups of white flour and the rest whole wheat) and mix well. i use my dough hook from start to finish. mix
in enough flour to make a slightly sticky yet firm dough and knead for about 10 minutes. let dough raise until double. form two loaves, place in bread pans and let raise again until double. bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes, or until done (well browned, and sounds hollow when you tap it). remove from pans and cool.

*those were pastor tonya’s instructions as she gave them to me. if you’d like to know my tweaks, i add wheat germ from the “optional” list (about 1/2 cup) and i’ve adjusted the baking time to about 30-35 minutes or the loaves burn in my oven. when i do just one loaf, i leave out the egg (because it’s hard to add half an egg) and it turns out just fine. unlike most homemade breads, i find that this one seems to taste better the day after it’s made.

if you bake it, let me know what you think!

Posted in yum | 1 Comment
21
Dec, 2005

swans

a few days ago, on the way into a friends house, i heard honking and looked up and saw a beautiful line of white swans flying in a v formation against a perfectly blue sky.

Posted in stuff that makes me smile | Comments Off on swans
21
Dec, 2005

making my list, checking it…about fifty times

i am a list maker. it is the only way that i can stop the hamster wheel in my brain. this time of year is particularly listy, but i’m pleased to say that many of the major to-do’s are now have-done’s! the big one i checked off this morning was paying the property tax bill! woo hoo! many of you who know me might remember my lament last april when i realized that i had made a mistake never to be lived down. somehow, when i received last year’s property tax bill and the escrow check, i saw “tax” on them and immediately filed them away in the “deal with this by april 14” stack. right. if you don’t realize the implications of this mistake, go and talk to your tax guy and find out why this was a problem for me. so, this morning, i discovered that mr. h-s had helpfully filed the tax check and bill in the “bills” basket when they arrived in the mail (he normally just throws all of the mail into a stack in the living room). but of course, since this was unexpected behavior, i hadn’t seen them yet. upon discovering both the bill and the check this morning, i rushed over to town hall on my way to work and gleefully handed them the money, received my receipt (and a promise that the refund for the overage would be mailed to me in two weeks) and mentally made a large check mark on my list.

i also now have all of the crucial christmas presents made, mailed, and wrapped (ok, i think i have a few things left to wrap, but no one is gift-less at this point). now, i just have to pack, cook a few more food gifts, find someone to feed the cats while we’re gone, do another load of laundry, clean the house and find some way to get this friggin’ large chalkboard home from work… (but that’s another story.)

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on making my list, checking it…about fifty times
21
Dec, 2005

green eggs

my mom called this morning to announce that her arucana chickens (very young) laid their first lovely blue-green eggs!

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment
20
Dec, 2005

postal karmic alignment

so… yesterday, all of the christmas packages from mr. h-s’s family showed up. all in one day. from 4 different sources. some via the u.s. postal service, some via some delivery service that dropped them at the door. it was kind of exciting to get them all at once! haven’t opened any yet…. mr. h-s accidentally opened one. he thought it would be wrapped, but it was shipped directly from the store and so… surprise! maybe i’ll open one of mine tonight so we’re even.

Posted in winter | Comments Off on postal karmic alignment
19
Dec, 2005

surprising sensory pleasure

today’s suprising sensory pleasure was reaching my hand into a bucket of pom-poms to transfer them from one container to another. try it sometime. fluffy little multicolored balls of softness surrounding your hand feels… really nice!

Posted in stuff that makes me smile | Comments Off on surprising sensory pleasure
19
Dec, 2005

noggin’

this morning, i had egg nog on my steel-cut oatmeal for breakfast. oh, yum.

Posted in winter, yum | 1 Comment
18
Dec, 2005

pond hockey!

today i went out to play pond hockey for the first time this season. hooray! this is why i love winter. i got in about an hour of exercise and it felt like playing. i love the feel of moving on the ice in skates. i love that you don’t have to wear tons of clothing because just moving around warms you up. i love that my friends are generous enough to shoot the puck to me occasionally in the hopes that it might connect with my stick and that i might then have some idea of what to do with it. i love that i now have knee pads so that falling is almost fun and definitely less painful (assuming that i fall on my knees and not some other, less well padded parts). i love how frost forms on my eyelashes and the brim of my knitted cap. i love the feel of support when i put my skates on and snug up the laces. i love being that much taller when i’m on my skates. it took me awhile to convince myself to go out today–it had been awhile since i’d had the chance to remind myself of how much i enjoyed this activity and… it was 10 degrees… and i had presents to wrap… but i’m so glad i went.

Posted in sporty stuff, winter | Comments Off on pond hockey!
15
Dec, 2005

follow your nose down memory lane

it’s true. scent may be the secret to travelling back in time. yesterday morning during my shower, i noticed that the new conditioner that i was using smelled a lot like my favorite green apple shampoo from my childhood. immediately, i had vivid recall of my longtime childhood home and the linen closet/supply cupboard right across the hall from the bathroom. the kind of memory that you feel in your body rather than just see pictures in your head. it’s like i was back in my kid body. a three-dimensional flashback. (or would that be fourth since it involved time?) could smell be the fifth dimension?

thinking of that closet always reminds me of the time that i couldn’t go to sleep and i was all bent out of shape about it and so i told my parents that i had a sore throat so that i could use the cloraseptic throat spray. i think they caught me playing with it with my sister one time too and yelled at me. i’m not sure why i liked it–it always made me jump when the spray hit my mouth (kind of like that awful “puff of air” eye test–ugh.) but maybe i liked the taste. or the weird numbing sensation. or maybe just the fact that it was a pump spray bottle.

i also remember taking forever to clean the bathroom because i always got distracted and did “commercials” in the mirror, comparing the glass cleaning properties of, say, windex vs. soft scrub. (“look at how streaky this product is! while this product leaves a clean, streak-free shine.”) did anyone else (besides me and my wacky sister) do this sort of thing?

someone should really look into this smell-travel theory. i mean, you couldn’t travel physically that way of course, but hey, they didn’t physically travel in the matrix and it felt pretty real to them!

Posted in trip down memory lane | 5 Comments
15
Dec, 2005

beautiful, peaceful snow

it’s been snowing here for awhile now. you’d think i would groan and be sick of snow. but… today’s snow is gorgeous. it’s the big, fat, fluffy flakes that gently float straight down. no biting wind. no pebbly sleet. just loveliness.

on my drive in to work, i admired the silhouettes of the trees and grasses each coated with a layer of white. winter beauty is all about shapes. just like decorating with white is all about texture–i guess god was the first one to develop that technique. :)

Posted in winter | Comments Off on beautiful, peaceful snow