2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,500 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

A little different “no-knead” bread…

Around 9:00pm, grab yourself a big bowl. Dump in 2 Cups of Whole Wheat flour, 4 Cups of regular flour (I use King Arthur flour, I’ve preferred it for bread baking, but never really use bread flour. I leave that up to you). Dump in some raw cashews, raw sun flour seeds, raw pepitas, some flax meal, 1/2 teaspoon of yeast, 2&1/2 teaspoons of salt (Kosher salt is fine), and then mix it all up with a spoon. Add in 3&1/2 Cups of water, and mix it up. Cover with seran wrap, and walk away for 18 hours.

It will look like this once you’ve mixed it up:

And then, 18 hours later:

Note the gluten-y goodness happening,

all from a scant 1/2 teaspoon of yeast! It’s all about time, baby.

Sprinkle a bit of flour on your counter, and dump out dough. Grab a dough scraper, (or just put some flour on your hands), and flop the dough over two or three times. Sprinkle it with a touch of flour, cover with the used Saran wrap, and let it rest for fifteen minutes. During this time, take two loaf pans (your fave ones, I like the Chicago Metalics brand personally) and wipe down with olive oil, or spray it on, and then douse the pans with corse corn meal. Really get it in there!

Take your dough scraper, and chop the blob in half. Sure, you could weigh and measure to get exact amounts, but seriously? You don’t need to. Just eye ball it. Shape the 1/2 blob into a rectangle with the heel of your (slightly floured) hand, and then fold the top to the middle, and fold the bottom to the middle. Grab the folded blob, and stretching it slightly as you turn it over, plunk it into the prepped pan. Do the same with the second half. Place the pans on a draft-free spot (I use the two back burners of the stove, and turn the microwave’s overhead light on), and cover it with more corse corn meal,

and then cover the pans with a cotton dish towel.

Walk away for ninety minutes. At the ninety minute mark, pre-heat oven to 500 degrees, and move the pans to the counter. When the oven is pre-heated (about thirty minutes, depending on your stove), and your dough has a nice “poof” to it:

Open the oven and put the pans in. Set the kitchen timer for twenty minutes, and turn the oven down to 480.

At the end of twenty minutes, open the stove, and flick, yes, flick the center of the loaves with your middle finger and thumb, listening for that “hollow” sound. If hollow sounding, turn off oven, and leave them in for 5 minutes more. If more “thuddy” than hollow sounding, reset timer for about 5-8 minutes, and test again. A nice golden crust should also help you out.

When loaves are done
, take out of oven, and turn loaves out onto wire racks to cool. You may want to use pot holders to help you handle the bread, it will be HAWT! This is also where the copious amounts of cornmeal will have come in handy. The loaves should just slide out. Like buttah.

Now here’s the hard part. Wait. DO NOT cut into the loaves for about twenty minutes. You CAN listen to the loverly sound of the crust cooling, it will sometimes snap, crackle and pop. A cool sound.

While waiting, go ahead and prep a small bowl with olive oil and some spices. After about twenty minutes (you did wait, didn’t you?) cut into that baby and enjoy.

Once completely cool, you can bag one up and stick it in the freezer, for later use, and put the current one (if any left) into the plastic bag of your choice. If you want to maintain the harder crust, then stick it in a paper bag; but if you plan in using it for sandwiches all week like we do, a softer crust is fine, and even preferred.

I also enjoy a slice or two in the am, toasted, with butter and jam. A perfect accompaniment to a nice, strong cup of Joe…

Here’s what I wrote…

http://hydrangeasarepretty.blogspot.com/2005/09/it-was-beautiful-day-kind-of-like.html

Brisketgasm!

Just so I don’t forget…

I picked up a kosher brisket at Trader Joe’s, as I wanted to cook it up to use for sandwiches through the weekend (if it can last that long!)

Here’s what I did:

I grabbed a bowl, tossed in some paprika, zatar, Lawry’s seasoned salt, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper. I mixed it up, rubbed it on, and seared all sides in a pan.  I tossed some cut up onion on the bottom of the slow cooker, & turned it on low. I put the seared brisket in the slow cooker, and tossed some left over Cabernet in the pan, to “deglaze” (to get the yummy, gacky stuff off of the bottom of the pan).  After a brief (45 seconds or so) simmer, I added some water (a wine glass full), and swished it all around in the pan. I turned off the burner, and dumped the contents from the pan into the slow cooker.  Lid on, walk away.

About two hours later, I checked the temp, and it was a perfect 140. So I pulled the brisket out onto the cutting board and let it rest while I put the kids to bed.

About 20 minutes later, out comes the electric knife, and OH.MY.YUM! It’s SO good. I sliced as thinly as I could, and well, we’ll see how long it lasts!

A Picture’s worth…?

http://www.ghkrealty.com/Listing_2068

We are listed!  The picture taking was Heelarious!  Quincy was thrilled to have his cat castle (usually in the living room by the window) moved about as photos were taken.  I followed the photographer around with my own camera, and grabbed a few shots, which are up on flickr.  Quincy saw my camera, however, and just insinuated himself in almost every shot.  (koffkoffwhorekoffkoff).

There’s a lot of mixed feelings about leaving NY – It’s been my home for over 20 years – I moved here at 19 years old, and am now almost 41. I “grew up” in NY, I found my b’sheret in NY, I made wonderful friends, and the most blessed gift of all, our children’s birth mothers both live here.  So we’ll be back, at least once a year, to spend some time with people that simply can’t leave our hearts that fast, and probably never will.

But in the meantime, anyone wanna buy an apartment? We think it’s pretty nifty!

My Kind Of Town….

Life with two small children, and two working moms, one of whom works 7 days a week can be taxing on a family.  And can lead to all kinds of craziness.  For a number of years, we’ve been saying that we wanted a simpler life, with more time to be a family, and to actually enjoy Shabbat together, instead of rushing to have an early Shabbes dinner, so mommy can get to work…

Narda has always loved teaching, and has been very good at it, and has always thought that being at the helm of a stage management program would be a dream come true.

That dream has just come true for us.  Narda is the new Head of Stage Management at DePaul University, in Chicago.  We move August 1st.  It is terrifying and exciting all at once!

There is a FLURRY of decluttering going on around here, and hey!  If any of you want to buy a gorgeous 2 bedroom, 2 bath apartment in NYC, talk to me!

More to come as things progress….

A Day in the Life

For all of you fellow perfect parents….

Inspired by my good internet buddy over at Jive Turkey, I wrote this as an entire reply, and realized that it might make for a good post, and to explain my somewhat absence from blogging…..

How does your day compare?

In my not so perfect world, I let a lot of shit slide.

I *COULD* go to bed before midnight, but the damn internets!

Sigh – but srsly?  Here’s what a typical day looks like:

-5:45am – alarm goes off
-6:30am – stumble out of bed, thank the good Lord above that we have two bathrooms
-Plug in coffee maker (PREPPED THE NIGHT BEFORE – THIS IS THE KEY TO PARENTAL SURVIVAL); make morning sippys – milk for one, watered down OJ for the other
-Drag kids off their sorry sleeping asses, and out of bed
-6:45 – turn on the fucking purple dinosaur, while everyone gets that glorious “first sip”
-7:00am – Breakfast – yogurt and toast, from home made bread (yes, I make my own bread, I can sneak shit into it)
-7:15am – Narda bathes Malka, I chase a poopy-diapered Smoosh around the living room, as he LOATHES diaper changes, and will scream NO! DIAPAH! at me, while hiding his teeny-tiny body in places i can’t get to.
-7:25 or so – I finally trick him out of hiding, and toss him down on the changing table, where we play a round or two of octopus wrestling, and he emerges, poop-free, lotioned up and dressed by 7:45 or so.
-Play socks and shoes and aquaphor on their faces, and then realize we have 10 minutes to leave the house, and both kids are dressed, but neither one of us are.  DUDE CANNOT BE LEFT ALONE, so we take turns throwing clothes on, and attempting to shower, or just look presentable.
-8:00am – Begin getting the two year old into the stroller.
-8:10am – Succeed in getting two year old in stroller
-8:15am – drop a few choice words we are always shocked to hear the children utter later as we scramble to walk out of the door.
-8:20am – get down to lobby, inevitably remember the one thing we forgot, return upstairs, realize thing we forgot was keys.
-8:30am – get wonderful Super to let us in, get keys, drop a few more choice words, do the speed-walk to daycare, where Noah Matan proceeds to wander OH SO FUCKING SLOWLY into each room and hug all of his lady friends.
-9:15am – Get Malka to school.  (she needs to be there by 9:00am)
-9:17am – head to either the home office, or the Riverdale office, depending on the day.
-1:00pm – realize I need to leave to go get Malka in 15 minutes.
-1:30pm – throw on bra, RUN out door, miss bus across town.
-1:35pm – text fellow “perpetually late mom” and ask if she’s ahead of me, and if she can grab Malka, I just missed the bus.
-2:10pm – get to Malka’s school, she would rather hang w/ friend and friend’s mom, and “could you please leave, eemah?”
-2:30pm – jointly walk to respective subways, waving goodbye, with multiple thank yous, and head north to get Mister Smoosh.
-3:00-5:30pm – (depending on Malka’s after school schedule – we either have a playdate, or shopping, or what have you) arrive at daycare, do the reverse of the morning’s arrival – he must go into each room to give his girls a hug goodbye – if it weren’t so damn cute, I’d put a stop to this malarky!
-6:00pm – arrive home, rush to put up the baby gate before Smoosh heads into the bathrooms to see what exciting things are flushable.
-6:10pm – leave children to fight, erm, I mean play peacefully together while I MICROWAVE WHATEVER LEFTOVERS WE HAD FROM EARLIER. – A protein, a veg, a carb – (I try to do a big cook on Sunday, or have easily prepped meals, which saves me time)
-6:45pm – attempt to clear table, throw everything in sink, read a book or two, go get on jammies.
-7:30pm – leave cherubs to fend for themselves as I prep their room for bed – sippy of milk, night light, humidifier on.
-7:40pm – “bussateef” – potty, teeth brush, sippy, 3 songs, GOODNIGHT.
-8:00pm – Think about doing dishes in order to allow an earlier bedtime, laugh, pour wine, go to computer.
-10:30pm – wonder where the FUCK did the evening go?  Rush to go do dishes before Narda gets home.
-11:15pm – Narda gets home, usually finding me at the kitchen sink
-11:30pm – promptly get tired, get caught up in a random discussion that makes no sense at all.
-1:00pm – drag sorry ass to bed.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

And please note that the cherubs who need to be DRAGGED out of bed on weekdays? Get up like CLOCKWORK at 6:30am on weekends.

But would I have it any other way? No.

I DO look forward to puberty, if for nothing else than sleeping in again….

I’m not an economist…

But, I DO own a bank account, and have been taught since early childhood to be “responsible with my money.”  My bank allows me to “go over,” aka, pay $25.00 per transaction, up to $750.00 in overdraft protection.  This a wonderful tool, and assures that we’ll never bounce a check on the first of the month!

However – I am expected to pay it back.  To return the money, essentially loaned to me, by my Credit Union.  If I don’t? I am assessed fees, and I start the next month with an even bigger hole than previously.

Also? Children learn by example.  So we are trying to be good examples for Malka and Noah Matan with our money.  (emphasis on trying!)

So here’s my dilemma. And what I’m not sure I understand.  Americans are being told to be frugal, and NOT to use credit cards, and to “pay down their debt.” YET AT THE SAME TIME, the people that should be “leading by example” have just passed (or promised to pass) a bill that would take this country a few more BILLION into debt.

So to WHOM does congress owe this money? To me?  To you?  How does this work? And what would YOU cut to reduce the budget? Wouldn’t it make more sense to start at the core?  When we needed to “tighten our financial belts,” the first thing that went was cable.  We saved about $75.00 per month.  I made my 2 week dinner menu rotation plan, which saves us quite a bit each month. We are trying to use less paper towels, more rags, etc. If you look at the money that congress is spending, it seems that a LOT of the money they are spending is going to “Defense.”  Now I totally support our troops, even if I’m not a fan of war.  But I support the troops (aka, PEOPLE) that are overseas risking their lives, and I think that they should be given all of the protections they can.  So to tighten that little (bajillion) line on America’s spreadsheet, could we hurry up and finish what we started, bring everyone home, and stop sticking our nose where it doesn’t belong? That’d save a BUNCH, I bet!  And while we’re at it, before cutting the money from Social Security (that people currently getting it have already PAID INTO it), how about we cut electricity bills?  Make everyone turn off their dang lights.  Start small, and chip away at it – don’t cut what’s vital to many of our parents living and surviving.

Here’s a link to the Whitehouse budget page.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget

I still don’t get it.  Can someone explain it to me in layman’s terms – why are we TRILLIONS of dollars in debt, and how do we fix it?  And to WHOM is the interest being paid?

Fifty Percent Off

Today.

 

Unique Thrift Store. 50% off sale!

 

ALL of this.

 

Grand total? $10.15

 

 

Red shirt for moi, jeans and HANNAH ANDERSSON dress for Cheeky, new quilting hoop for moi, TAP SHOES for Malka for Chanukah, crafty clothes pins, crochet hooks, and some wooden spoons for Malka’s play food bin.  All in all? A TOTAL SCORE!

please consider…

Please consider using alternatives to plastic…

A SEA of plastic.

I’m working on getting some of my hand made snack bags and sandwich wraps up on my etsy site, but until then, please consider buying them from someone else, or buying baggies made from unbleached wax paper.