"From scratch"

I am tired of cooking from boxes. Not only is it all dyed and preserved, but pre-packaged is just plain boring. So this is my new project: I want to make at least one thing, every day, entirely from scratch. I don't care if it's a three course meal or just eggs and toast, but it isn't allowed to use any premade ingredients.

Day one was Yorkshire puddings. (A recipe from one of my beloved European cookbooks, so plenty of measurement conversion went on beforehand... I know, I need a scale. I'll get to it eventually.) I've always been a little confused about why they are referred to as "puddings" though. They seem more like dumplings to me. But whatever they are, they're delicious even when served with something that doesn't properly go with them. Like tuna salad. It was all I had.

Day two was banana bread, from the best banana bread recipe I've ever made. (It's this one. For me it has the perfect banana to cinnamon ratio.) I love this, and the funny thing is that I hate bananas. 

And then I got ambitious and decided that my little bread needed something fancy. Something like caramel lace. 

Fancy has a price though. Cleaning that pot was not fun.

Some were dramatically prettier than others.

Day three was french toast and scrambled eggs, but you shall have to take my word for it. The pictures were all blurry.

I'm going to plan on doing posts like this every week or so, to hold me accountable. Hopefully there will be improvement.

Slán go fóill, 
Giselle

On paperwork, and other disasters

Time management is not one of my strong suits. No matter how hard I work at it, it seems as if I'm constantly trying to fit something in at the last minute. Currently I'm trying to get my paperwork sorted before registration for classes opens at the college. Sounds fun, doesn't it? It wouldn't be a problem if everyone else had their stuff together, but they don't. Therefore I've spent the past several days in a flurry of trying to get things from one person/place to another person/place.

A similar situation arose regarding a trip I am going on at the end of the month. I paid to overnight my registration, only to find out that I had been given an incorrect zip code on the address where it was supposed to go. Because of that I missed the workshop choice deadline and had to do the form over.

On Monday poor Mishka had a run-in with a wall that resulted in four stitches above his eye. He looks like Frankenbaby now, but it's surprisingly adorable. Given his tendency toward wild recklessness it's a wonder it took so long for something like this to happen, but it was stressful at the time. His mother had to come home early because I'm not his parent, and apparently that trumps having a child with a gashed forehead. But at any rate he's much better now. (Actually he recovered from the injury itself quite well; I cleaned him up and he was chipper as a lark. I, on the other hand, may be paranoid forever.)

I have to apologise for such a quantity of glumness, but having a bit of a rant has made me feel much better. And I promise to be back over the next few days with things that are decidedly less whiny and more cheerful.

As a sidenote, the rain wasn't a disaster. We just happened to have a tropical strom (or something, I think it might be a hurricane now) brush past us, so we had quite a bit of it this past week. Which was rather lovely; I enjoy rain. Besides that, I didn't have any relevant pictures for this post- probably a fortunate circumstance- so I decided to use them instead.

Slán go fóill, 
Giselle