what you didn't miss while I was gone

Despite the paucity of posting, this past week has been filled with activity. I had good intentions on a few of the days of putting something up, but whatever it was turned sour in some way, shape, or form. Let's have a re-cap, shall we?


Our weekend of fun in the snow was really more graceful than this pose indicates, however, it is this one that comes to mind when I look through the lens of hindsight at my past week. Something was askew in nearly every situation involving either food or the monkey, from Sunday afternoon, straight through to Friday morning. Well, maybe more like starting on Saturday afternoon, where my steering abilities while sledding were completely lacking, leaving me at the bootom of a small hill with my body doing the work for the sled.

Take Monday's dinner for example. It is the partial remains of a honey whole wheat crust pizza with an Ajvar sauce (thanks callipygia), cheddar, parmesan, horseradish jack and mozzarella cheeses, with black olives and artichoke hearts. The crust was a bit off, being as though the dough was really made with the intention of sandwich bread, of which three quarters of it became so. But we had alot of cheese in the house and I was jonesin' for a hot pizza pie. I just had to. It was spicey and nice, but really, it wasn't very photogenic and you really didn't miss anything. I will make a note for the future: try Zergut as sauce again, like this upcoming week.

And this picture.....ugh! Tuesday afternoon, eating stuffed squash leftovers did not go well. The lighting sucked, and the angles were all wrong, and re-heated stuffed squash, on second thought, is NOT all that appetizing sounding. The bread positioning was a failed attempt at best, and with the monkey going into hyper-drive, I really didn't have much time for the shot. No surprise there. I tried a shot the night before, but the squash came apart while trying to serve and looked horrific. I reserved myself to a shot when it was cool, the following day. Good thing I waited huh? (and yes, that would be a hint of sarcasm there)

Even though this picture ain't all that, it does document (poorly) how silently and precisely plants can maneuver....in an afternoon! Our beans in our bedroom are in want of something to climb. The drawcord for the blinds spent no more than 5 hours in close proximity to the green grapler. This is apparently enough time for the tip of the vine to go at least once completely around the string. When I saw this, I got the impression that if the plant could talk, it would have been muttering lowly "nothing to see here, do-de-doodle-doo.......what, y o u ' r e not using this anymore are you?

Funny, that most of the time they were silently growing and twisting inside, I was outside noisily building a coldframe for them to twist and grow into.

Keep movin'. Nothin' to see here. Nothing exciting that is. Just some plain whole wheat oatmeal sandwich loaves and a few english muffins. These have been standards around here for a while. What was cool was that it was my first time making either successfully while using all whole wheat. I've been working on my gluten addition proportions and I think I'm making some progress.

Uhhh....yeah. What this photo is lacking in composition or focus, it made up for in flavor and aroma. This was my first adventure into making cheesecake using quark as the cream cheese component. It was fluffy and light, more akin to a sweet souffle than a dense cheesecake. If only the chef had bothered to pre-bake the crusts before filling, they might have been easy to pop out of the muffin pan and keep the crust intact. I'm really gonna have to have a few words with that chump.

Instead, we had the equivalent of pineapple upside-down cake, only it wasn't pineapple flavored, or upside-down for that matter. When removing the individual servings, it was a challenge since the crust was a crumbly gooey mess and the cheesecake portion didn't have much strength. In general, they split apart and managed to really be two tasty pieces atop a sugary gravel mess. After this pic, I gave up, and ate the rest upside-down with the crusty bits sprinkled on top.

So after making it to the aquarium on Thursday morning, with kid in tow and at least an hour late, the clownfish set us straight. They did their comical dance among the anemones and managed to pull me out of my funk for a bit. Thanks Nemo. It's a good thing you're small, and behind a few inches of acrylic, because despite their portion size, the little bastages looked mighty tasty and given the chance, I would be attempting some sort of tropical cioppino soon.

Friday, everyone's attitude was much improved, the day was clear and beautiful, and I felt once again that I had the confidence to post something. But while drafting this one, I realized I got tagged and have since been contemplating what to reveal to my small group of pals. That's right folks! The next post is all about mememememe.........catch you soon!