The Audacity of Hope

For some reason I have been fantasizing about planting strawberries all winter long.

























Today being a perfectly beautiful day I was inspired to go to OSH hoping to find some idiot proof strawberry planting kit that attracts gnomes or garden sprites who magically drop perfect plump red berries into my backyard just after twilight. Meh, no such luck.

I wandered around a bit more and found this mosaic planter that I just fell in LOVE with!! Look!!!!
































I grabbed it and a bag of potting mix (I'm pretty sure its the wrong one) and a 6 pack of strawberry plants. Woot!
The tag said they like drainage so I threw some rocks in the bottom of the planter. I really have NO CLUE what I'm doing it just seemed like a good idea.
So I pinched and ruffled the roots like Ive seen people do and stuck them in my new pretty planter with my potting mix and a few random rocks. Again, this seemed like a good idea.
The planter fit three plants and I had three left. Hmmm Do I even own another pot?
I went on a hunt and found three clay pots under my kitchen sink. Isn't that where you keep them?
I brought them outside and hosed off any potential under sink crud they had on them and one of them started foaming like it was full of soap.



Evan after quite a bit of rinsing it was still foaming.
I'm sure this could be potentially harmful to my little berry plant but knowing what I have done to plants in the past this could be seen as a kind of mercy killing really.



I pushed forth and planted the rest of them in one pot each.





If you look close you can see more damn bubbles!
I bought the wrong soil, huh Nancy?












I got my little babies set up on two tables where they will get loads of sun. That tag told me to do this and I will follow where ever tag leads me.

I love this sticker on the table too.






.57 cents with of plastic? Yeah there's a pretty safe bet I won't be trusting my ass on this, but thank's for the warning anyway.










So yay! All done!! Look how sweet they look!!


Maybe I should have pulled my broom out of the shot. Its not very pretty but it gets me where I wanna go... bad dum bum I'll be here all week folks, try the veal.

If you look really close in that clump of weeds on the right you can see Buddha peeking through. I believe our yard art can best be described as 'disturbing.'




This was our kitty that Jim accidentally shot in the eye with a paintball. He has promised to make him an eye patch.



What's that? It looks like he's sitting next to a microwave?
Nonsense. Who would leave a microwave in their back yard like that? Pfft







So yeah Fingers crossed I don't kill these ones and hopefully there will be berries soon!!! I will post updates on their progress.



















Happy Spring everyone!!!

Killarney Irish Oatmeal Bread (rolls)

1.5 cups water
2 cups rolled oats
2 TBSP molasses
Cook this in saucepan over med heat 8-10 minutes- stirring occasionally

Transfer cooked oats to regular mixing bowl or bowl of electric mixer and let cool.
Add 1/2 cup room temp milk and
2 tsp active dry yeast
Combine and let sit for 2 minutes.



















Add
2 cups bread flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2.5 tsp salt


You will also need an additional 1/4 cup oats and some flour for sprinkling on the baking sheets.
Mix by hand or with dough hook on electric mixer for 8-10 minutes or til dough is silky and resilient.

Transfer to lightly oiled bowl and cover with cling film. Let rise in warm place for 1.5 hrs or til doubled in size.
Punch down and let rise another 30 min.
Here it is after I punched it














At this point you will form them into 2 loaves or a dozen plus rolls and place them on baking sheets that have been sprayed with cooking spray and sprinkled generously with flour either AP or whole wheat or rye whatever you have.

I made mine into 15- 2 oz rolls. You will then need to cover them with lightly oiled plastic and allow them another 30 minutes to rise before baking.



















After the last rise you will spritz the tops of the rolls or loaves with water and sprinkle then press the oats into the the bread.




















Just as you are putting the bread into the over spritz the walls with water and shut the over door as quickly as possible. This will help make a nice chewy crust on your bread. mmmm

My rolls took about 20 minutes to cook. They will be lightly brown and they will sound hollow when you tap the bottoms.

Recent Goodies

Tee's Treats is picking up!

I made a white cake with caramel butter cream for a co-workers dad's birthday. Cakes aren't really my thing but I can do them. Look! I did one:

Check out my tiny edge piping. Woot woot!

Also I had an order for my (and Smitten Kitchen's) now infamous Irish Car Bomb cupcakes for a friends 40th b-day:


They were a big hit and I LOVE these shamrock sprinkles my sister found for me on the King Arthur Flour website. These were super tasty and I made half of these with whiskey ganache at the request of the birthday girl.

So I made...

these.

I didn't do the whiskey ganache cause I'm a lazy ass, plain and simple.
I'll hopefully post pics soon but, again, I'm a lazy ass so there ya go.
Thanks for checkin in!

UPDATE:
A picture!

What would you have done?

Our phone rang at 4:30 this morning. The caller ID said "Pay Phone" and seeing as how not all of Jim's extra special relatives have kicked off, he answered.

A mans voice said "I want to report a girl is being sexually molested at such and such address El Camino Real... in Tustin." I could hear him, he sounded serious but not urgent. Jim replied after a pause, "OK... uh..." and then the guy hung up.
We sat there in silence for a few second. our fuzzy brains still trying to wake up and process what we had just heard. Was that real?

Part of me didn't believe him at all, sad that I'm such a cynic. I wondered if he was just making a simple prank call. But then my brain started to crank. He gave a very specific address, he obviously wanted to draw attention to something that was happening there at that moment. But was it really what he said? Was someone being victimized right at that moment?

My brain next thought, ok if I call my local police dept and tell them what I just heard, are they going to doubt me like I doubt the guy who called me? Where they going to do anything about something that may or may not be happening in a city 15 miles away?

If I had made a call like that I would have been panicked and talking very fast, the man was very calm almost emotionless from what I could hear.
After Jim's disbelieving and seemingly disinterested response he hung up, so I'm wondering if he realized he didn't reach the police department or whoever else he was trying to reach.

Did he try to call another police dept after that?
Why the hell didn't he just call 911?

All of these things rolled through my head over and over after he called and through the day today.

In the end ur cynic/tired sides won out and we did nothing.

So what do you think?

What would you have done?

One a penny two a penny - Hot cross buns

Hot cross buns! Hot cross buns!
One a penny two a penny - Hot cross buns
If you have no daughters, give them to your sons
One a penny two a penny - Hot cross buns
I had this damn rhyme in my head the WHOLE time I was making these!


One perfect Hot Cross Bun.







Just a bit of spice and a tiny drizzle of powdered sugar icing. MMM These are one of my dad's faves and I had a bit of free time over the turkey day weekend so I thought I'd whip up a batch.

I got the recipe from Recipe Zaar but of course I had to make a few modifications- for me and for dad.

Ingredients

• 2 (1/4 ounce) packages active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup water (110 to 115 degrees)
• 1 cup warm milk (, 110 to 115 degrees)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 6 1/2-7 cups all-purpose flour
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup dried currant
• 1/2 cup raisins

GLAZE AND ICING

• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 4 teaspoons milk
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

First of all- no nutmeg in the kitchen where I was baking so I used pumpkin pie spice. Which my mom was cool with since she hates nutmeg. How can you hate nutmeg? No idea, feel free to ask her.
Second change was to blow off the currents and go 100% raisins, GOLDEN raisins. My dad is a golden raisin junkie. He was a good boy and left the box alone until I measured out what I needed =)
Since I am a functional idiot I had the bread all oiled and resting before I realize I forgot to add the f&#ing eggs. So out of its nice warm oiled bowl to mix in those eggs- by hand of course. That was fun. I only added 3 of the 4 eggs cause I was over it! They came out just fine anyway.
No other major changes but they did take a LONG time to rise for some reason. Maybe it was in protest to my disturbing its original rest period with the eggs? Who knows. They did rise nicely and then their pretty little round and cut buns got a nice slathering of egg wash. I love the color a nice egg wash gives a bread, don't you?


I forgot the one last change- to make the icing I used half n half instead of milk and extra vanilla and a squeeze of lemon juice.
How could you not ADORE a baked good designed with custom icing grooves??
























Food is love, guys. Don't let anyone tell ya different. Watching people enjoy what I make is seriously the BEST part.

Enjoy Dad!! xoxo

The dead horse, I’m beating it.

You know how I feel. You know what I'm going to say. Despite the fact that I still distinctly remember being sad when Regan was voted into office the first time, this is the most important election in my life time. I hope I have a lot of years left, but I know this year will always be a BIGGIE no matter how long I live. They are expecting record numbers which is GOOD. People should be excited to speak their minds EVERY election. But times are hard and this year we have more on our minds than ever. We want our voices to be heard loud and clear. We want to stand up and take our futures by the hand, to guide them in a better direction, for those who came before and those who will come after. I know no matter where you live, there are important decisions to be made that will effect how we live, will effect the reality our children will grow up in. Your voice matters, for us and for them. I will use my voice tomorrow to make my future better. Will you join me? California polls open at 7am and close at 8. If you are in line by 8 you will still be allowed to vote.