Month: August 2010

Baking

Oh the Things that Happen…

Emerald Thunder

I’ve been breaking in my kitchen by making some of the few things I have ingredients for. The other day when a friend was staying with me, I desperately wanted to bake, and what resulted was snickerdoodles. Unfortunately, I remembered that my wonderful cooling rack was 250 miles away, which meant I had to find a different way to cool my cookies so that the bottoms would not either overcook by being put directly on foil after they were out of the oven or become soggy because of condensation due to a hot cookie being put on a cool surface. What resulted was something that I can only describe as being epic, ingenious, and hilarious. Because my friend happens to enjoy an Asian lifestyle and thus has many such accouterments for her own kitchen, we employed none other than chopsticks to cool my cookies, and they worked wonderfully. 

I never thought I’d see anything like this happen in my kitchen, but it was a brilliant idea that really worked in a pinch, resulting in deliciously perfect snickerdoodles

Baking

The Return of Baking!!

Emerald Thunder

I’m happy now. My kitchen is fully functional, my room is finally organized for the most part, and I’m spending today inside because it’s perfect rainy weather for that kind of thing.

In celebration of finally having salt and other basic baking ingredients, I made scones this morning. I’m so glad to have a kitchen again and to be able to create things. May I present, SCONE MOUNTAIN!

Uncategorized

Not What I Expected.

Emerald Thunder

I’m all moved into my academic year housing, which means that I’m finally reunited with a kitchen in which to create delicious treats and actual meals. Or so I thought. . . . I really wanted to make some scrambled eggs in a skillet today, because really, microwave eggs don’t even compare when they’re being eaten alone. Happy me turned on the stove, mixed up my eggs and milk, and waited for the pan to heat up. To my dismay, it never did. I checked to make sure the burner was on: it was. I tried turning it off and then on again, thinking maybe I had to push down on the dial more: nothing happened. I tried all the other burners, and they were ALL DEAD. The oven appears to work, but I don’t have anything to make in the oven, since I haven’t gone grocery shopping, nor do I have much of my kitchen cookware. I didn’t think I would have to rely on the microwave for my meals once I got here, but boy was I wrong. I submitted a work request, so hopefully someone will come soon and fix this stupid stove so I can eat real food again, since that’s been somewhat of a rarity since the dining halls closed on the 6th and I was living without a kitchen until now.

Come on stove, behave yourself and work like you’re supposed to. You’re really not giving off a good first impression with these shenanigans, now are you? I didn’t think so. Please start working so I can make delicious things with you.

Crafting

It’s a Robot Invasion!

Emerald Thunder

When I went home, I was able to go to the store and buy stuffing, as well as five skeins of yarn in colors I desperately (in my own opinion) needed. I had been itching to make this girl robot ever since I saw the pattern in a crochet book I bought, but I needed gray yarn, which I didn’t have. Now that I have the colors I need, I can crank out a little (well, rather big) army of boy and girl robots. This first one measures about nine inches tall, which is slightly larger than I anticipated, and as a result, I’ll probably go down a hook size, which will also help to keep the stitches much tighter and with fewer unsightly gaps.