Sticky Buns

Relax, I’m talking about food.

Last night, I decided I wanted something sweet, maybe some Chelsea Buns, and I was too lazy to look up the recipe, so I think I got it right, but who knows?

Ever since I bought ARTISAN BREAD IN 5 MINUTES A DAY, I’ve kept a container of bread dough in the refrigerator. So last night I ripped off a wad, formed it into a rough oval, put it on a sugared board, sprinkled sugar on the top, and rolled it into a rectangle. I melted some butter and stirred in some brown sugar and some chopped pecans and spread that over the rectangle, rolled it up and sliced it into rounds. I buttered a square pan and put the buns in. I wish I had sliced a LITTLE thinner, so the buns would have been snug and would have been all square, but I didn’t. Anyway, I let them rise for about 20 minutes while the oven heated to 375F. Meanwhile, I melted some MORE butter and mixed in some honey (local–from a friend who keeps bees) and cinnamon and spooned that over the buns. Baked for about half an hour, until the buns were puffed up and browned on top.

They were gooooooood. Next time, I might actually read the directions.

MA

Writing prompt: Go to a local honey producer and ask about beekeeping. Better yet, see if they’ll take you on a tour of the hives. It’s amazing. Bees lead lives full of adventure and danger.

I Freakin’ LOVE This Town!

So I went into Butt Drugs to get my Epi-Pen refilled. I was sure I had a prescription on file, but they couldn’t turn one up. Woe was me.

Then, who should walk in but my doctor. They gave her a scrip form, she wrote it up, and they filled it. She even took my old one with her, to dispose of safely.

I remember one time my husband went to the store to get some groceries and I found something else we needed after he had left. I called the store, told them my name and his name, described him, and told them what we needed. They saw him coming in and gave him the message. He was like, “That’s just scary.”

My kids certainly hated it when they were teens. Tell you the truth–so did I. I was like, “Dear God, can’t you let them get away with JUST ONE THING without my knowing about it before they’re finished doing it?”

Oh, and about those cupcakes–In addition to equal amounts of butter, eggs, sugar and flour, I like to add about 1/4 tsp of grated dried orange peel and 1/4 tsp of vanilla.

MA

writing prompt: If a person reaches across the spigot to turn on the faucet and accidentally gets her pajama sleeve caught under the spigot and doesn’t notice, and turns on the faucet and the cold water pours down her sleeve into her armpit, is that REALLY funny?

Dinner and Dessert

I got home last night RIGHT in time to start supper, which meant I needed something I could make without much time or effort. So I made this:

PASTA WITH CHICKEN SAUCE

• pasta (I used wide egg noodles)
• frozen chicken breast
• canned or frozen peas
• mushrooms (I did not have any, alas, but I thought of them and would use them if I had them)
• butter
• flour
• milk
• Parmesan or mixed Italian cheeses

Slap the frozen chicken onto a low-fat grill and cook for about 7-10 minutes. Remove chicken and cut into small pieces. Cook the pasta, drain it and toss it with a little garlic-flavored olive oil. In the same pan, with no butter or oil, dry-cook chopped mushrooms until they’re browned and nutty-scented. For each cup of sauce, add a little more than one Tablespoon butter. Add salt, pepper, and any other herbs or spices you like. For each Tb of butter you added, add one Tb of flour. Stir until all the flour is coated and cook for a minute or two. For each Tb of flour, add a little less than one cup of milk. Add peas and chicken and stir until sauce is thickened. Divide noodles into bowls or plates and top with sauce. Grate Parmesan over the top or sprinkle with mixed Italian cheeses.

Then I wanted dessert to take to tea with Mom, so I made these. Back in the day, cupcakes were called Cup Cakes because you measured the ingredients in a cup. This proportion makes a denser product than you may be used to–kind of a cross between cake and sweet bread. Needs no icing.

INSANELY EASY CUPCAKES

one cup of everything makes one dozen cupcakes

• eggs
• flour
• solftened butter
• sugar

Mix and divide into 12 greased or lined cupcake … thingies. Bake at 375 for about 20-25 minutes or until puffed up and golden brown on top.

MA

writing prompt: Do your characters eat dessert? What do they like? What do they hate? What do they do when confronted at a friend’s house with something they hate?

Following Directions is Over-rated

I wanted to make a loaf of bread, and I wanted to make it fairly quickly. I have a recipe for beer batter bread, so I decided to make that.

Problem: no beer. My husband has been on a pickled herring binge, and you MUST drink beer with pickled herring. He only does a half-bottle at a go, but we only had three bottles to begin with, so I needed 12 ounces and only had 6.

So. Here is the recipe, and what I did with it.

Butter-Beer Batter Bread

• 2 1/2 – 3 cups self-rising flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 12-ounce can beer
• 1/2 cup finely chopped fresh oregano leaves (or any herb you like)
• 1/2 cup butter, melted (I use a little less)

Grease 1 medium (8 1/2 X 4 1/2) loaf pan. Preheat oven to 350. Measure flour, sugar, and salt into a mixing bowl. Stir to blend. Pour in the beer and add the oregano leaves. With a wooden spoon or a beater, work the batter for a few moments to be certain all of the ingredients are thoroughly blended. Add more flour, if the batter is really runny.

Pour or spoon the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Pour the warm butter carefully over the top of the batter. It will not be absorbed into the batter until baking begins.

Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until golden brown. A skewer stuck into the center of the loaf will come out clean when the loaf is done.

Remove the pan from the oven but don’t turn out the loaf for 15 minutes. Hold a baking rack against the top of the loaf and quickly but carefully turn upside down, so the top of the loaf is on the bottom.

Put it aside to cool, and to allow the butter to drift back into the loaf.

—————

So I didn’t put any herbs in it, because I didn’t want to, okay? Instead of the beer, I put in 1 1/2 cups of lukewarm water and a teaspoon of yeast. Let it sit for half an hour while the oven heated up all the way. 1/2 cup of butter? That’s just crazy talk! I used about 3 Tablespoons and it was plenty.

The bread turned out sweet. It probably calls for so much sugar to offset the bitterness of the beer, but I didn’t use beer so the sweetness was pronounced. It was REALLY GOOD BREAD–especially for breakfast or dessert. It was really really good lightly toasted with a little butter on it. Charlie raved about it, so I’m going to try to make it again.

MA

writing prompt: A character plans on a dish but lacks an essential ingredient. Does he/she run to the store? Decide on another dish? Make substitutions? How does that play out?

Okay, What?

Now my feelings are hurt. I post about God and my stats tank? What’s up with that? I have like four people who read this blog and you all ditch me at once? Boo hoo for me. huh

Anyway, I’ve just traded Twitter following with M.R.Sellars. He writes about serial killers and stuff so dark it scares me just to look at his dimples. But he also has all kinds of witches, good ones as well as bad ones, and I like that. I know there are bad ones, but all the witches I know personally are great folks. It was one of my dear witch friends who sent me back to Christianity, telling me that there was nothing lacking in it, the lack was in me, and that I would find everything I needed in Christianity if I dug deeper and became a better practitioner.

Darryl just came into the coffee shop wearing several strings of Mardi Gras beads. He said he’d been trying to give them away, but nobody was willing to earn them. heh

Went to a GREAT Mardi Gras dinner at the Corydon Presbyterian Church yesterday and posted about it today on Fatal Foodies.

Hungry. Must…eat…. Otherwise… no… good….

MA

writing prompt: Read something about a religion you consider wrong or bad. Let some of what you read be written by someone in favor of that religion or at least impartial about it.

Yes, I Do

You’re like, “MomGoth–YOU go to CHURCH?”

I’m like, “Yeah. So?”

Or maybe I’m like, “Yea, verily, my beloved child. Hast thou a request for enlightenment upon this practice?”

Or maybe something somewhere in between….

Anyway, yesterday the minister called Jesus “the Son of Mystery.” I had never heard that one. That is the Best. Name. Ever. I mean, God IS Mystery. Like–Who knows? Who really knows if God exists, much less what God is. Lots of us THINK we know one way or the other, and lots of people THINK they know all about God, right down to the details. I mean like Boxers or Briefs. That’s just crazy talk, but oh well. I think Son of Mystery is my favorite non-descriptive of all time. If I were God, Son of Mystery is what I would want to be called. I mean, have some respect. The Tao that can be explained is not the true Tao, right?

So last week, we had a hymn that was about how God comes to us in communion through the forms of fruit crushed and bread broken. I mean, most of the world LIVES on the corner of Crushed and Broken, so how can a church that sees that and acknowledges that NOT appeal to MomGoth? That’s what Christianity should be all about: A God who volunteered to be crushed and broken to prove that the prophets were right who kept SAYING God was the God of the crushed and broken.

Anyway, I feel at home with that.

MA

writing prompt: Do any or all of your characters go to church? If so, where? If not, did they ever? Or create a bad guy and a good guy and flip a coin to see which one goes to church and which one doesn’t, and write a scene with the two of them together.

Takin da Day Orf

As if.

Church this morning, hoping last night’s wet snow hasn’t made the roads icy. Then we have a birthday party for 4-yr-old grandson. His mom was going to have it at their house, but she has a water leak so I got the call last night–It’s at my house. That means I have to freakin’ dust and vacuum, and it isn’t even spring. I also want to bake something. #3 daughter is bringing a grocery  store bakery cake, but that’s so yuck.

#4 daughter is coming to visit, too, which is always a delight, but a busy one–I don’t think we would run out of things to talk about in… well… ever.

So it’s another busy day, lala.

MA

Writing prompt: If you had a surprise birthday party — I mean, it’s a surprise to you that you’re GIVING it — would you cut church to get ready?

Three Happy Things

Three happy things happened yesterday:

1. I got a refund from a hospital I had overpaid by $20 about nine years ago.
2. I got an email from a reader of World Wide Recipes who said he loved my Culinary Chronicles.
3. Tony Burton, editor at Wolfmont Press, sent this:

DYING IN A WINTER WONDERLAND made the Top Ten bestsellers for 2008 for the IMBA (Independent Mystery Booksellers Association)!
1 – Lisa Lutz, The Spellman Files, Simon & Schuster
2 – Tana French, In the Woods, Penguin
3 – Brent Ghelfi, Volk’s Game, Picador
4 – Lorna Garrett, Murder is Binding, Berkley
5 – Louise Penny, Still Life, St. Martin’s
6 – tie
Christopher Fowler, Full Dark House, Bantam
Leonie Swann, Three Bags Full, Flying Dolphin
8 – Tony Burton, ed., Dying in a Winter Wonderland, Wolfmont
9 – Clare Langley-Hawthorne, Consequences of Sin, Penguin
10 – Jacqueline Winspear, Masie Dobbs, Penguin

Note position #8!!!

That, my friends, is the IMBA’s list of bestselling titles for 2008,
for softcover books.

It’s SOOOOOO cool to see a book from Wolfmont in there with
books from Simon & Schuster, Penguin, Berkley, Bantam…
and not at the end of the list, either!

Here’s the link to the page:
http://www.mysterybooksellers.com/AnnualBestsellers.htm

Wheeeeee! Today, it’s worth being alive!

MA

writing prompt: Go to a bookstore, real or online, and pick out ten books at random. Create a character with that list as his/her top ten favorite books.

I DO Cook, Sometimes

My #3 daughter gave me a recipe out of the paper, marked “looks good”. I thought so, too, so I made it last night. I didn’t do it exactly the way they said to, of course, because what’s the fun of that?

I got a good price on kale and potatoes this week, which were two of the ingredients, and on mushrooms, which were not in the recipe but I used them anyway because…I had them, right? I had some Navy beans and some smoked sausage from a sale last week, so there you go.

KALE STEW

• garlic-flavored olive oil or smooshed garlic softened in olive oil
• onion cut in rings
• 6 oz mushrooms
• potato, diced
• kale, torn in bits and ribs discarded or chopped
• can of white beans
• chopped smoked sausage or ham or leave it out if you’re VEGETARIAN
• water
• bouillon powder
• pepper

  

Heat the oil and cook the onion rings (and garlic, if using) low and slow until softened. This sweetens the onion. Cooking too fast doesn’t do the job. Tear up the kale and add it to the pot. Use a BIG bunch, because kale cooks down to nothing, and this stew is all about the kale. Dice as much potato as you want. I used one medium one. More would have been okay, but not necessary. Add potato to the pot. Open the beans and dump them in; if they have sugar added, drain and rinse them. Add a couple cans-full of water. Add the raw mushrooms. Add pepper (freshly-grated, and plenty of it, for my taste) bouillon powder and chopped sausage or ham (or no meat, if you’re a VEGETARIAN). I used ham bouillon, but vegetable would have been good. Bring to a boil, then turn down and simmer for 20 minutes or so, stirring occasionally, until potatoes and beans start to break up.

Charlie complimented this, and he very seldom pays much attention to what he eats.

MA

Writing prompt: Bring two people together over a newspaper recipe. Are they shopping for the same ingredients? Or was the recipe published years ago, and one just read it in an archive and the other was the child or spouse of the originator?

At Long Last Lunch

Jane and I planned to meet for lunch the first week of February, but the ice storm nixed that. So we were going to meet the second week of February, but there were thunderstorms and high winds; with so many trees still ready to fall or shed limbs, we decided not to chance it. More thunderstorms were predicted for yesterday, but we were like, “Enough, already! We’re hungry!”

Jane and I have been friends since the summer between junior and senior high school. We’ve fallen out of contact but have always fallen back in. A few years ago, we established this happy habit of meeting once a month for lunch. It’s pulled me through many hard times, I’ll tell you. Being able to look forward to one bright spot a month, no matter how unhappy everything else might be, has meant the world to me. Even in good times, lunch with Jane is a refreshment that goes beyond the food (and sometimes the drink). You know what I mean, gurlfrien’s. Talking with somebody who understands what you mean when YOU don’t understand what you mean is something everybody needs.

Anyway, we went to Clifton’s Pizza on Frankfort Avenue. It has live music sometimes–not while we were there, alas. It’s all decorated inside with clocks. Why? I don’t know. I guess there were some that told the time, but I didn’t spot them. Pretty cool, anyway. There’s a big poster of Young Elvis behind the toilet in the ladies’ room. I’m like, “How am I supposed to pee in front of Elvis?” But I managed. It didn’t feel right, mooning the King, but needs must.

We ordered a large 4-topping pizza, and it wasn’t cheap, but it was value for money, let me tell you. I should have taken a picture, but I was too busy eating. So you know the Marx Brothers’ movie, THE COCONUTS? You know the costume party scene? You know Harpo’s sombrero? Well, that’s how big this pizza was. Jane and I each had two pieces and each took two pieces home, and Charlie and I each had one piece for supper and were satisfied, so we definitely got our money’s worth.

Oh–the coolest thing! I went to Google maps to make sure I knew exactly where this place was, and I saw this little person icon on the “go-closer-go-farther” bar and I pulled him down to the spot on the map where Clifton’s Pizza was marked, and I got a street-level photographic view! I could rotate the view and see what was next door, what was down the street, what was higher…. I had never used that before and it blew me away!

Before I met Jane, I went to #3 daughter’s house and met my newest grandkitty. This is Ragamuffin. She’s pretty well fully grown, but she’s TINY. As #3 daughter used to say of #4 daughter when #4 was a baby, “SO cute-n-little!”

MA

Writing prompt: Type in a random city at Google maps and pick a point in it at random. Look at a street-level view and write about what you see.