Here's the very short three sentence story for this last week's Flash Fiction Challenge from terribleminds.com The challenge was to make a three sentence story about a variety of animals, and I decided to use the bear. It's not a serious story, but a funny one.
I'm'a bear, I'm'a bear, I'm'a big dancing happy bear! I like berries, yes I do, yes I do like berries and I'm stuffing all the berries into my mouf as fast as I can because I'm'a bear and I like berries, oh yes I do, I dance for berries, look at my berry dance, dance, dance, I'm'a bear, nom nom nom!
Great, you're a bear Frank, we all know that because we're all bears, not stop doing your stupid berry dance and get to eating, we have a long winter ahead of us, which makes me so happy you're in another gorram den than I am because I can't stand your stupid hibernate dance either.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Monday, January 9, 2012
Perfect Pie Crust
New pie crust!
All butter pie crust from the Best of Fine Cooking Pies, Crisps and Cobblers
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp. sugar
3/8 tsp. salt
1/2 c cold butter, cut into cubes
3 - 4 Tbs cold water
Put the dry ingredients together, then put the butter in the bowl. Hand squish the butter in with the flour until it's all just mixed. This is fun! The butter should stay as cold as you can keep it, and don't over mix. The magazine says that it should become small disks of butter overlaid with flour.
I didn't know this, but the pie crust becomes flakey when the butter melts, then steams. The little pockets of air between the flour becomes the flaky crust. Pretty cool! But in order to do this, the butter and water have to be cold enough so they don't melt. Once it all melts, the pockets of butter aren't there anymore.
Once the flour and butter are mixed to be a crumbly mix, add the water a little bit at a time until it all mixes into a slightly sticky dough. Don't over mix. That's usually my biggest problem with baked goods. It should be a shaggy dough that holds shape when you press it together.
Form the dough into a disk and cover in plastic. Chill for at least an hour in the fridge. When it's ready to be rolled take it out and let it rest until it's just cold enough to depress the dough, but not so cold that it cracks under the finger imprint.
Roll it out, I actually took out my pie cloth to do this. I normally don't bother but I was really determined to make a good crust.
When I rolled this out I was suitably amazed. It was a great dough! I have a terrible time with pie crust usually, when it rolls out it's always crumbly and the rolling pin pulls it into all kinds of mangled shapes. This time it rolled out and was stretchy! I've never made a stretchy crust myself before! It rolled out smooth and I hate to keep harping it, but it was fantastic!
It was like a pie-crust-making-dream.
Anyways, the rest of the pie making was pretty typical. I made a mix of thawed strawberries, cornstarch and sugar (should have used more sugar) and a touch of cinnamon and since the crust turned out so beautifully I cut up the rest of the apple I had left, heated up the carmel I made with the previous pies, and made a couple apple pies too.
The crust, though, was defiantly the shining point. The all butter crusts I've made before have all been soggy and just tasted like liquid butter. This time the crust was delicate and didn't scream of butter. Next time I think I'll add a little vanilla to the mix in place of a little of the water, or at least some cinnamon or something. If I make strawberry filling, I think I'd add some sugar or maybe some honey.
I also learned with electric pie makers to let the pies cook about twice as long as they suggest, until the filling starts really bubbling and the crust stops having any wet looking spots on it.
It was fabulous! A great second try and I'm going to try the crust again. I'm pretty excited about the pie magazine.
All butter pie crust from the Best of Fine Cooking Pies, Crisps and Cobblers
 |
| Awesome magazine! |
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp. sugar
3/8 tsp. salt
1/2 c cold butter, cut into cubes
3 - 4 Tbs cold water
Put the dry ingredients together, then put the butter in the bowl. Hand squish the butter in with the flour until it's all just mixed. This is fun! The butter should stay as cold as you can keep it, and don't over mix. The magazine says that it should become small disks of butter overlaid with flour.
I didn't know this, but the pie crust becomes flakey when the butter melts, then steams. The little pockets of air between the flour becomes the flaky crust. Pretty cool! But in order to do this, the butter and water have to be cold enough so they don't melt. Once it all melts, the pockets of butter aren't there anymore.
Once the flour and butter are mixed to be a crumbly mix, add the water a little bit at a time until it all mixes into a slightly sticky dough. Don't over mix. That's usually my biggest problem with baked goods. It should be a shaggy dough that holds shape when you press it together.
Form the dough into a disk and cover in plastic. Chill for at least an hour in the fridge. When it's ready to be rolled take it out and let it rest until it's just cold enough to depress the dough, but not so cold that it cracks under the finger imprint.
 |
| Bethany Pastry Cloth. I usually keep the cloth in the freezer. |
When I rolled this out I was suitably amazed. It was a great dough! I have a terrible time with pie crust usually, when it rolls out it's always crumbly and the rolling pin pulls it into all kinds of mangled shapes. This time it rolled out and was stretchy! I've never made a stretchy crust myself before! It rolled out smooth and I hate to keep harping it, but it was fantastic!
 |
| The crust, rolled out. So beautiful! |
It was like a pie-crust-making-dream.
Anyways, the rest of the pie making was pretty typical. I made a mix of thawed strawberries, cornstarch and sugar (should have used more sugar) and a touch of cinnamon and since the crust turned out so beautifully I cut up the rest of the apple I had left, heated up the carmel I made with the previous pies, and made a couple apple pies too.
The crust, though, was defiantly the shining point. The all butter crusts I've made before have all been soggy and just tasted like liquid butter. This time the crust was delicate and didn't scream of butter. Next time I think I'll add a little vanilla to the mix in place of a little of the water, or at least some cinnamon or something. If I make strawberry filling, I think I'd add some sugar or maybe some honey.
I also learned with electric pie makers to let the pies cook about twice as long as they suggest, until the filling starts really bubbling and the crust stops having any wet looking spots on it.
 |
| The pies, I'm getting better at them! |
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Apple pies! How Electric!
So I got this to play around with. It's an electric mini-pie maker!
When we bought the laptop, we got reward points on it, which ended up being enough for a hefty gift certificate. Hubby insisted I buy this pie maker. Apple pies to make from points from my Apple computer!
I was really excited so I decided to whip up some pies to see how it worked last night.
I had some apples left from the holidays along with some store bought pie crust.
It asked to mix up sugar, brown sugar, but I added spices. It's just not apple pie without cinnamon, nutmeg, and some cloves! I use Penzey's spices, they are so good! The vanilla bottle in the picture is theirs and has a whole vanilla bean in it, which I save to make vanilla sugar once the bottle is empty.
There wasn't nearly enough dough with the store bought brand, so I had to mix up my own, I used the pastry pie dough recipe with the book, I've never made crust with vinegar and eggs before, so it was a treat to make it. You can see my pie cutter here, it's old school and I love it. Cuts the shortening so well!
You can also see the rolling pin behind the bowl there. That's my great-grandma's (I think) and I love it. Old fashioned wood rolling pin, it even has a slight lopsided side because it was hand made.
The recipe called for me to make basically a carmel sauce to pour over the apples once the apples were put into the bottom part of the pies. I've made carmel a couple of times before, I really love the smell of it! With the brown sugar it had a really nice brown butter smell.
One of the things about electric made pies is the filling needs to be cooked before it's put into the machine, so I made sure to keep the sauce nice and hot so the apples would cook once the sauce was poured on them.
Here's everything all ready! The darker pie crust circles are the ones I made, and I did make two pies with the store bought crust. You can't really tell from the picture, but the crusts I made really had a lot of crumble to them, which was very frustrating.
I have gotten some tips from my friends on G+ and they advised me to use a little more water and have the shortening at room temp next time. Hopefully I can make a good sugar pie crust! The crust really does need to taste good, it's a big part of the mini-pie.
This is the mini-pies baking. The two two are the store bought crusts, they brown nicely. The bottom two are my crusts, which didn't brown as much, but were still nicely golden. Next time I'll put an egg wash on them.
This was actually my second batch. I found you can really stuff the pies silly with the apples and pour a ton of the carmel sauce on top. The carmel stuck to the top of the pie machine just wiped off like a dream, I'm really happy with the non-stick surface. I like easy clean machines!
And here's the finished pies! The first one fell apart terribly because the crust split when I put the apples in. It wasn't until after I made the pies that I watched a youtube on making them and found that you can use the pie crust cutter that comes with the machine to push the crusts into their bowls, which will make it a lot easier to make these later.
They were super tasty! The apples were nicely cooked and the carmel was a good sweet. Next time I'll add more caramel to each pie, layer it with the apples more instead of just pouring it over the top.
All in all I'm really happy I got this. I'm going to try to make an egg pie next, I think. I like breakfast pies a whole bunch! I found a recipe that uses bacon in the crust, which sounds fabulous!
Sunday, December 11, 2011
My Daddy by John Hawley
The following was written by my husband, and I liked the story so much I had to put in on the blog. I think he's a lot better at writing than he gives himself credit. It's a sweet story, I hope you enjoy and feel free to leave comments if you like it.
My Daddy
It was long ago, but she still remembered. A time when her owner was full of life and joy, a time when she was young and spry. He used to play with her all day, scratch her chin, and she'd sleep between his left arm and his chest, snuggling as close as she possibly could. Times like those made her one happy kitty. She never thought of him as her owner, but as her Daddy.
Life had changed a lot since those days, her Daddy had gotten sick and was very weak, she had reached her final years. There was no longer a spring to her step and her joints ached, her Daddy wasn't feeling much better. She didn't know what was wrong with him, he just slept all day, he had little motivation and had lost a lot of weight.
There were however, the memories. Memories of all they had been through together A time when she needed a very expensive surgery and her Daddy had paid for it. Others would have put their pet down, but Daddy thought she was worth all the money in the world. She loved him so much for this display of loyalty and affection.
Sometimes he would get a bad cold and was bedridden for days. She would lay in that particular spot between his left arm and chest and purr, purr, purr just to comfort him. It would seem, at least to her, that cuddling next to her Daddy would help him get better faster.
On her birthday he would always get her canned kitty food, her favorite thing in the whole world... besides her Daddy. He'd play for what seemed like forever with her favorite string and shower her in catnip. She recalls when she was just a baby kitten that he'd give her warm milk.
With these thoughts in her head she slowly, painfully, crawled into bed with him, nestling herself in her favorite spot between his left arm and chest. She purred a deep, contented purr, seemingly at peace with all that had come their way. Her Daddy's pulse began to weaken as well as hers, but she still purred just as loudly and proud as she could, she did after all, love her Daddy.
As the life and light began to leave her eyes and their pulses stopped, all was not lost, they were not gone, but instead together again in Heaven, just as happy as they'd ever been.
My Daddy
It was long ago, but she still remembered. A time when her owner was full of life and joy, a time when she was young and spry. He used to play with her all day, scratch her chin, and she'd sleep between his left arm and his chest, snuggling as close as she possibly could. Times like those made her one happy kitty. She never thought of him as her owner, but as her Daddy.
Life had changed a lot since those days, her Daddy had gotten sick and was very weak, she had reached her final years. There was no longer a spring to her step and her joints ached, her Daddy wasn't feeling much better. She didn't know what was wrong with him, he just slept all day, he had little motivation and had lost a lot of weight.
There were however, the memories. Memories of all they had been through together A time when she needed a very expensive surgery and her Daddy had paid for it. Others would have put their pet down, but Daddy thought she was worth all the money in the world. She loved him so much for this display of loyalty and affection.
Sometimes he would get a bad cold and was bedridden for days. She would lay in that particular spot between his left arm and chest and purr, purr, purr just to comfort him. It would seem, at least to her, that cuddling next to her Daddy would help him get better faster.
On her birthday he would always get her canned kitty food, her favorite thing in the whole world... besides her Daddy. He'd play for what seemed like forever with her favorite string and shower her in catnip. She recalls when she was just a baby kitten that he'd give her warm milk.
With these thoughts in her head she slowly, painfully, crawled into bed with him, nestling herself in her favorite spot between his left arm and chest. She purred a deep, contented purr, seemingly at peace with all that had come their way. Her Daddy's pulse began to weaken as well as hers, but she still purred just as loudly and proud as she could, she did after all, love her Daddy.
As the life and light began to leave her eyes and their pulses stopped, all was not lost, they were not gone, but instead together again in Heaven, just as happy as they'd ever been.
Monday, December 5, 2011
Kendall the Diva Kitty
We're going to do a cat post today! Today is all about our Diva kitty, Kendall.
Her full name is Weinekendall Drinkwise Boozewalker on account that when she was a kitten she used to run into walls a lot. I didn't know her back then, so I go on hubby's word for her seeming drunkenness.
She is also known as the Great Kendallfini because she likes to put on a show. When she is dancing, she likes to be known as Disco Kendall.
Now, you may ask, why is she our diva kitty?
It all started when we gave her a summer shave. Back story time! See, Kendall didn't take the best of care of her fur. When we were in the apartment her teeth went bad. She doesn't have most of them now, nearly all her back teeth had to be taken out as a result of how bad the infection in her mouth had spread. We did the best we could to help her fur become healthy again while she got used to not being able to break big bits of kibble. Turns out, by the way, cats don't chew their food, at best they break hard food into smaller bits and swallow it all whole. That's why most cat puke has whole bits of kibble in it. Anyway. We moved into the house and Kendall seemed to be taking great care of her fur, horray!
The fast forward a year and again her fur is getting a little dirty, she has a hard time keeping up with it. It shows dirt easy and gets clumped up really fast. So we borrowed the fur shaver from my sister in law and proceeded last summer to give her a buzz cut to end all buzz cuts. (Ara also got one, but she gets buzzed every summer, her long hair is hard for her to keep up in her elderly years and gets matted every spring)
Well, when Kendall was shaved down we realized how incredibly soft her under fur is, and what a lovely light orange color! It was really beautiful! We had to leave her legs long, and her face and tail. So it looked like she was wearing a tight gold dress and her leg fur was sticking out like she was wearing some kind of fuzzy gloves. The effect was striking and looked really cute! And, most importantly, she loved it. She perked up without all that fur and demanded we pet her short stubble all the time.
"Mommy, daddy! Look at my beautiful dress!" she seemed to meow, "pay attention to my pretty self and pet me! Give me lots of attention because I am beautiful!"
We, being the consummate spoilers of kitties, obliged.
Then we started to notice other diva behavior.
She would snub her brother, he wasn't good enough for her pretty self. She got picky about her food. She got even more picky about her water. Every morning she would meow at me until I put a fresh bowl of water down in the kitchen and then guard it like it was the fountain of youth from any other kitty that dared to want to drink her fresh water. We started putting bottled water in the big water bowl and she eventually did start drinking from there, but only if the water had been bottled and fresh.
Now she's got us trained. She will trot in front of us when we're walking through the house, meowing in her strange whine (which is where the Weine came from, she's always had this meow that sounds really pathetic and cute) and directing us to the kitchen where she wants gooshy food, or the litter box which she wants changed. We don't always give the gooshy food, but when we do, she refuses to eat it from a plate or the can. Hers must be served from a real bowl or she snubs it and meows at us until we put it in a bowl. This cat can tuck into her gooshy food, too, so it's really funny that she won't eat it from a plate or can.
We also have this little doll's bed from when I was a kid, and she's determined that is her blue rainbow bed and to heck with the other kitties! We have it set up near a heat vent and she loves to sit in it and preen. She gets this smug expression and gloats that she's got the bed, the warm bed.
She also demands that hubby leave the pillow or his left side free in case she wants to lay on his head, or in the crook of his arm at night. She isn't satisfied until he tucks the blanket around her if she's in his arm, and will drape her paw across his arm so he can't move it.
It's really cute. Sometimes frustrating, but mostly cute and we indulge her diva behavior to a point. She doesn't always get what she wants, but she gets this spring in her step when she does that's so cute. It's like she floats across the floor with tiny ballerina steps, playing the part of the swan princess, the main part that only the best of dancers get.
So that's Kendall, our diva kitty. Some day I'll post about Kendall's great rivalry with Vivi, her arch nemesis. They have a long standing feud with each other that spans from the couch in the living room all the way to the litter box by the bedroom.
 |
| Diva Kitty strikes a dramatic pose! |
She is also known as the Great Kendallfini because she likes to put on a show. When she is dancing, she likes to be known as Disco Kendall.
Now, you may ask, why is she our diva kitty?
It all started when we gave her a summer shave. Back story time! See, Kendall didn't take the best of care of her fur. When we were in the apartment her teeth went bad. She doesn't have most of them now, nearly all her back teeth had to be taken out as a result of how bad the infection in her mouth had spread. We did the best we could to help her fur become healthy again while she got used to not being able to break big bits of kibble. Turns out, by the way, cats don't chew their food, at best they break hard food into smaller bits and swallow it all whole. That's why most cat puke has whole bits of kibble in it. Anyway. We moved into the house and Kendall seemed to be taking great care of her fur, horray!
 |
| "Dis my laptop. Now pet me" |
The fast forward a year and again her fur is getting a little dirty, she has a hard time keeping up with it. It shows dirt easy and gets clumped up really fast. So we borrowed the fur shaver from my sister in law and proceeded last summer to give her a buzz cut to end all buzz cuts. (Ara also got one, but she gets buzzed every summer, her long hair is hard for her to keep up in her elderly years and gets matted every spring)
Well, when Kendall was shaved down we realized how incredibly soft her under fur is, and what a lovely light orange color! It was really beautiful! We had to leave her legs long, and her face and tail. So it looked like she was wearing a tight gold dress and her leg fur was sticking out like she was wearing some kind of fuzzy gloves. The effect was striking and looked really cute! And, most importantly, she loved it. She perked up without all that fur and demanded we pet her short stubble all the time.
"Mommy, daddy! Look at my beautiful dress!" she seemed to meow, "pay attention to my pretty self and pet me! Give me lots of attention because I am beautiful!"
We, being the consummate spoilers of kitties, obliged.
 |
| "I look down on you, silly humans" |
Then we started to notice other diva behavior.
She would snub her brother, he wasn't good enough for her pretty self. She got picky about her food. She got even more picky about her water. Every morning she would meow at me until I put a fresh bowl of water down in the kitchen and then guard it like it was the fountain of youth from any other kitty that dared to want to drink her fresh water. We started putting bottled water in the big water bowl and she eventually did start drinking from there, but only if the water had been bottled and fresh.
Now she's got us trained. She will trot in front of us when we're walking through the house, meowing in her strange whine (which is where the Weine came from, she's always had this meow that sounds really pathetic and cute) and directing us to the kitchen where she wants gooshy food, or the litter box which she wants changed. We don't always give the gooshy food, but when we do, she refuses to eat it from a plate or the can. Hers must be served from a real bowl or she snubs it and meows at us until we put it in a bowl. This cat can tuck into her gooshy food, too, so it's really funny that she won't eat it from a plate or can.
 |
| "I'm so cute!" |
She also demands that hubby leave the pillow or his left side free in case she wants to lay on his head, or in the crook of his arm at night. She isn't satisfied until he tucks the blanket around her if she's in his arm, and will drape her paw across his arm so he can't move it.
 |
| "I'm on your heat vent, stealing your heat" |
So that's Kendall, our diva kitty. Some day I'll post about Kendall's great rivalry with Vivi, her arch nemesis. They have a long standing feud with each other that spans from the couch in the living room all the way to the litter box by the bedroom.
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