Preserving the Harvest

The last half bushel of apples were taken care of this weekend. We decided to give canning a try as a strategy for preserving the rest of the apples until a later date. The canning kit came Friday, so we got down to work making applesauce and apple butter. (Recipes below the photos).

I discovered that I really like canning. It's rewarding to know that we've managed to put away a bunch of the apples we picked at the beginning of fall into little jars of spicy apple delicacies that we can pull out in the dead of winter. I'm sure that we'll enjoy the apples much more then than we would if we'd eaten them all right now. It'll be fun to pull out on of these jars on a frosty day in February and remember the fun we had picking apples in the sun as the leaves had just started to turn.

I'm also pleased knowing that these treats are free of fake preservatives and extra sugars. The more I think about it, the more additives in food bug me. Please, just let my food taste natural! I'm thrilled with canning as a way of preserving foods. I'm looking forward to eventually getting a pressure canner so that we will be able to can less acidic things, too. It'll be nice to have a shelf full of home-canned pasta sauces and soups to reach for as convenience foods instead of the store-bought varieties. That'll have to wait for a bigger kitchen, though!

All in all, the proceedure is very gratifying. I find myself sitting and looking at all of the jars with a miser's satisfaction. I know logically that these few jars of apple products aren't going to keep us alive all winter, and that we could easily stop by the store and grab any of these year round - but somehow looking at the jars does make me feel a little bit more ready for the coming cold. It must be some sort of primal instinct. I can't help but think that if I had been a pioneer, I would have stood in my root cellar at the end of harvest, looking around at all the stored and preserved foods feeling secure and knowing that my family would be prepared for one more season.

Our apple sauce recipe was pretty standard (basically a combination of a bunch of recipes I read):

1. Fill large pot with cored and sliced apples
2. Add about 1/2 cup water, heat on high until water is boiling
3. Reduce heat to medium, and cook covered until apples are mushy (about 30 minutes)
4. Fish out all peels (or push through strainer)
5. add cinnamon to taste
6. Blend with hand blender until desired consistency
   

I decided to try cooking the apple butter in the crock pot. This meant it had to cook longer, but due to the low temperature we didn't need to sit over it stirring the whole time. I based it on this recipe, but decided as I went along that I didn't like their proportions, so I changed it up. I used less sugar (6 cups seemed excessive, so I only used 3), and it was still too sweet for my liking. Next time I'll use much less sugar. I also used more spices because this recipe wasn't spicy enough. In the end, we had:

• 3 quarts unsweetened applesauce
• 2 cups white sugar
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup apple cider
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg1
• 1 teaspoon ground allspice1
• 1 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 tablespoon cinnamon

1. Add applesauce, sugars, and cider together in crock pot.
2. Cover and cook on low for 3 hours.
3. Add spices and cook on low, covered, for 3.5 more hours.
4. Uncover and continue cooking on low for 4 hours or until sufficiently thickened. May take longer, depends on how thick you like it and your crock pot.
5. Ladle hot apple butter into 1/4 pint or 1/2 pint size canning jars and process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Makes about 5 pints.

Apples, apples, apples...

I love the smell in the air as it starts changing to fall weather. Regrettably, it took awhile for that season to get to us this year, but mornings are finally starting to be crisp. One of my favorite fall activities is apple picking. Two weekends ago, we went apple picking with some friends, and then last weekend we had the opportunity to go apple picking again with Matt's company.
As you can imagine, this resulted in a lot of apples. Almost a bushel of them, to be precise. What on EARTH does one do with a bushel of apples?

Well, first one takes fresh apples for lunch daily. To vary things a bit, sometimes one's fiance cuts the apple slices into anteater shapes.

Next, one makes three and a half apple crisps. One to be enjoyed immediately, half of one (made in individual tins) to pack in lunches, and two to be packaged up and stored in the freezer (we're set if we need to do any surprise entertaining!).

After the apple crisps and fresh apples, you need to start looking further afield for ideas. So, you make a pot of applesauce, eat several bowls of it hot, and take applesauce in your lunch for a week.
After all that, you still have half a bushel of apples. At this point, you really need to get creative. You'll see what we did with the second half-bushel of apples in my next post!

Labor Day Domesticity

I spent today lazing around the house, since the social calendar has been sort of full the past few weeks to allow for much sitting around the house in sweatpants, cooking-for-fun, etc.

I made a batch of pretzels following a combination of this recipe, this one, and this one. I mixed together:

• 2 tsp instant yeast
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 4-5 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 cups warm milk

Mixed thoroughly, then kneaded for about 8 minutes. I put them in a covered bowl to rise for an hour while I cleaned up the kitchen and did some knitting. Then I punched down the dough, cut it into 12 pieces, and rolled them into short, fat snakes. I covered them with a towel and let the dough relax for about 5 minutes while I put a pot of water with a couple tablespoons of baking soda on the stove. Then I rolled the dough out into long skinny snakes, folded into pretzel shapes, greased two cookie sheets and turned the oven on to 425. Once the baking soda water had boiled, I dunked each pretzel in it for a few seconds, fished them out, and lined them up on the baking sheets. Popped them into the 425 degree oven for about 12 minutes. In retrospect, I should have cooked one pan at a time so I could center them in the oven better - the bottoms are a bit burnt - and done an egg wash so they'd be shinier (I discovered I didn't have a pastry brush to brush the egg on with).

Lunch at the Container Store

While on a trip to exchange a broken drill (don't ask), I decided to stop by the Container Store yesterday to look for lunch supplies. I had one lunchbox, but life would sure be easier if I didn't have to wash and dry it every night, and not all kinds of lunch are well suited to it.

Soon, I found myself standing around in the kitchen section contemplating the tupperware with Matt (who graciously agreed to come along, despite his suspicion of a store that purports to be the "Container" store and sells many things that aren't "containers").

See, Sheila and I suffer from the human condition...that is to say, a whole slew of mis-matched tupperware, missing tupperware lids, and a tupperware cabinet that spews plastic lids and boxes at us every time we peek in the door. I was examining a tupperware set at the Container Store that sits on a lazy susan, and all of the types of box take the same lid. Genius!

A Container Store employee approached us to talk about this set, and asked why I was so interested in it. I explained the missing lids, cascading tupperware dilemma to her, and we conferenced for a few minutes exploring several options. After much discussion of our problem, she suggested that we might be better off buying a basket to keep all the tupperware contained in one place, that we could easily pull off the shelf, select the needed items, and stick back on the shelf. Clearly, a woman who knows her job! I love going to stores, having them talk to me, and then talk me into buying a better, cheaper thing than I had originally intended to purchase rather than trying to get me to spend more money. (The original set I was looking at - $20. The box we ended up buying - $6.) As we left, Matt laughingly said, "I can't believe we got a consult at the Container Store!" I explained that it's just what they do...and part of why I love the store!

Of course, I was not content simply to buy a box to house my tupperware. We'd been in there to find new lunch-packing options, and that we did! I picked up a half dozen tiny tupperware-style boxes to package condiments, dips, desserts, etc. However, my favorite find of the day is a small lunchbox with a liquid-tight snap on lid. The lid is clear, so you can see the food presentation inside, and there's a movable divider inside so that you can keep your food from leaking into other food, but you can change the portion sizes.

So, now my renewed goal is to get back in the habit of packing cheap and healthy lunches in my nifty new container-organization system. Today's a good start!

Bag is an insulated lunch tote from The Paper Store.
Box is my new bento from The Container Store. (I apparently only shop at places with very obvious names.)

Lunch is a salad of mixed greens, Craisins, walnuts and cucumber with an oil and vinegar pig bottle, wheat thins, and a couple Japanese mochi candies.

Friendly neighborhood oil and vinegar pig:

Knights of the Round Danish

This weekend Matt and I are in Vermont to take a couple baking classes at the King Arthur Four Baking Education Center. One of my professors recommended it to me as a great website to buy gourmet baking goods, but when we saw that they had some classes coming up, we decided to make a weekend out of it.

Today's class was "Laminated Dough." Contrary to popular belief, this does not refer to a glazing process, but rather to the process of layering dough and fat to make flaky pastries like croissants. The class itself was from 9-5, and after all of that laminating I'm a little overwhelmed (and exhausted!) to go into any detail, but I have a lot of photos to share!

Matt modeling the class apron.

Our chef, showing us how to roll the layers and layers of dough we'd be using. Every step was followed by, "But of course, you will be doing this by hand with a rolling pin..."

Our favorite implement...this is only used for marking dough in equal increments, not for super slicing, but it's still great fun.

The classroom. We had 11 people in our class.

Giant Wall o' Mixers. Mine was the green one!

The Baking Education Center.

We were inside all day, but the weather is gorgeous this weekend. We didn't mind being inside once things started coming out of the oven...

I'm not an expert pistachio chopper, but I play one on the internet.

Pastries!
top is hazelnut, chocolate, pastry cream and crumb topping
next down is cheese and apple (I think?)
3rd from top is boursin cheese, pesto, carmelized onion, and some bell pepper with asiago
I don't remember the bottom one

I love kitchen power tools. We didn't get to use this, but it's still mighty fine!

A Healthy Alternative

Lest you get the impression that all I do is hobnob around eating dessert for dinner and making cupcakes by the dozen, I thought I'd post about another one of my recent eating habits. This is actually sort of a hybrid from several sources.

The first is Japanese-inspired Bento boxes. Traditionally, these are either bought "to-go" at train stations or convenience stores, or hand prepared by the woman of the household. Sometimes the food is prepared to look like animals or flowers or other artistic impressions. Lately, they've become quite popular in the US for either moms to prepare for their kids or for young adults to make for themselves. Key to this new interpretation are miniature servings of food, cute compartmentalized lunchboxes, and any food that's been shaped to look like something else.

The second, is my passion for reading food blogs. I love to cook, and I'm always interested in seeing new foods, techniques, tools, recipes, you name it. So when I don't have time to cook myself, I live vicariously through food bloggers. These inspired bloggers will blog at long length and with many pictures about recipes, ingredients, and foods that they love. I've made a habit of reading through these delicious blogs for inspiration when I don't feel like having spaghetti or cereal for the 5th day in a row. Some favorites are:

* Smitten Kitchen
* Homesick Texan
* FatFree Vegan Kitchen
* TasteSpotting
* Brownie Points
* Vegan Lunch Box

The important one I'm focusing on today is Vegan Lunch Box. It's written by the mother in a vegan family who prepares a cute and tasty vegan lunch for her son (Shmoo is his internet alias) every day. Her reasoning is that he won't feel as awkward about having to explain his family's vegan lifestyle or not having the cool juice boxes and string cheese everyone else has if he has the coolest lunch. Seems reasonable to me!

I love reading this blog and getting ideas for things that I can bring with me to eat for lunch at work or school. I like that bringing my lunch is cheaper, and usually healthier, than buying my lunch every day, but I run out of inspiration frequently.

Matt has been watching my enthusiasm for reading about bento lunches and recipes and cute foods for awhile with some degree of amusement. For my birthday, he searched all over the internet, and put together a package of great and exciting bento supplies! Among these are miniature cookie cutters for cutting vegetables, cheese (and cookie dough) into star and animal shapes, a sesame seed grinder, rice molds to make Japanese onigiri, and the piece de resistance...the same lunchbox that Shmoo from Vegan Lunch Box has.

Since then, I've been striving to use my lunchbox in creative and tasty ways to keep my budget and my eating habits healthy. My coworkers in particular are always greatly entertained by my "very organized" lunches. Below are photos of a couple of the lunches I've made recently.


I had this one a week or two ago; using up leftovers!
green box: Winter Vegetable Hash with major substitutions to use up things we had on hand and not have to buy things we didn't. Sweet potatoes instead of regular potatoes, spinach instead of kale, butternut instead of acorn squash, and no mushrooms because I hate them.
blue small box: smoked cheese cubes
pink box: green peeps marshmallow candies
blue large box: strawberries
black furry body in the upper right corner: Tabi decided to help me make lunch.

This is today's lunch:
green box: sliced peach
pink box: little sweet japanese crackers
blue small box: nested inside this is an orange box with sun dried tomato and feta for my wrap, as well as a handful of Trader Joe's fat peanut butter cups.
blue large box: wrap made with vegetable cream cheese, cucumber, tomato and spinach wrap bread. (I know this is strange; I need to hit the store soon, the kitchen is looking bare)

Invasion of the Miniature Cupcakes

I got a really cute lunchbox for my birthday, partly because I've become a big fan of bento-style lunches.

Basically, anything miniature or cute and food-related might be found in a bento. So I had this great idea. Last week I wanted to make cupcakes, but I can't put full sized cupcakes in my lunchbox to take to work. But if I made miniature cupcakes, they would fit in my bento lunchbox! As an added benefit, I could eat just one or two cupcakes at a time, and it wouldn't be as unhealthy as eating an entire cupcake...just enough to satisfy a craving, if you will. When I discovered that Target had adorable miniature easter-print cupcake wrappers for sale, it seemed like fate! Right? Right?

So I bustled around in the kitchen mixing up my cupcake batter, and set to work pouring cupcakes in my single 12-cupcake mini-tin. I figured it would make more cupcakes than if I were making normally sized ones, but I was ok with that. What's, say, twice as many cupcakes as usual when they're so little and cute? So I started baking.

There were 12 cupcakes...they were adorable.

Then there were 12 more...still pretty cute.

Then, 12 more. Wow...that's a lot of cupcakes...

until...

Oh gosh, there were 72 cupcakes on my table that needed to be iced.


Luckily, two were "helpfully" snatched up by Matt before I got around to icing, but that still left 70 cupcakes sitting on my table. I ate some. I gave some away. I ate some more. I gave some to Matt too take to his game night with the guys. I ate some more...

One box of Funfetti cake mix
One jar of sprinkle frosting

72 mini cupcakes.

January, in quick review

Perhaps this quick rundown will help you to forgive me for the lack of recent posts. You'll notice that the last week of this calendar is still blank. I'll update it as we go through those days. :)

1: Matt flies in from Prague at a late hour, New Year's Party hosted by friends
2: work
3: work
4: work, Indian food for dinner with friends
5: drop Matt at airport for trip to CA, work, game night with friends
6: sleep
7: run errands

8: work, Sheila returns from Holiday Break, bringing her large marshmallowy cat, Lucky, with her. A minor War of the Cats is waged in the apartment as Lucky and Tabi debate who is Top Cat.

9: work
10: work
11: work

12: work, pick Matt up from airport (get majorly lost in Winthrop, MA after a wrong turn at the airport. GPS wants me to drive through the harbor to get back from airport, evening is saved by my brilliant navigational skills and cursing at the GPS like a sailor)

13: My office holiday party, at F1 Boston, in which we learn that I am quite terrible at driving race cars, Matt takes second place in our heat, one of my office friends places 3rd overall in the company, and we have an enjoyable dinner with coworkers.

14: sleep
15: MLK Day - everyone I know has this off except for me, so I go to work.

16: First day of classes for Sheila and I, Matt starts his new job in Boston. We all go out to Margarita's to celebrate making it through the day. Classes to be elaborated on shortly. After class on Tuesdays, I go to work. My new computer is delivered!

17: work, met Matt and Jon for ice cream to celebrate that Lizzy's is now open again.

18: work, Matt and I go with some friends to hear Howard Zinn talk about his new book and the state of the country. This is both depressing and empowering at the same time. I resolve to donate a sum of money to the Democracy for America campaign founded by Howard Dean in order to put some support behind my talk.

19: Classes - four of them. Sheila has her first round of qualifying exams, and aces them. Followed by picking mom up from the airport. She and I have a nice drive back to my apartment, where we talked to the cats, had a cheese and crackers dinner, knit on some socks, and were eventually joined by a handful of friends for desserts and chatting. Mom and Matt and I sit up long into the night making plans for Saturday. A lot of things in New England inconveniently close for the winter.

20: Mom, Matt and I tour local museums. First, Larz Anderson Auto Museum. Next, Museum of Bad Art and greek food for lunch in Dedham. Finally, the DeCordova Museum (modern art and sculpture garden, but it was too cold for the sculpture garden this time). All museums were fantastic, but I've decided that the DeCordova Museum is one of my favorites, particularly among art museums. Can't wait for it to get a little warmer so we can go back and see the sculptures. After this, Matt and I made dinner at his house (spicy black bean cakes; Matt was in charge, I was just there to chop things), we ate leisurely and chatted, I was introduced to port (which I liked once the raisiny flavor was pointed out so I could place the strange taste), we introduced mom to mochi ice cream, and we watched several episodes of Scrubs.

21: Mom and I went to Trader Joe's in the morning, for the experience. Bought way too much good food. After that, we drove to Alewife, parked next to Matt's car in the parking garage because it's so easily recognisable, headed into Harvard Square where we did some shopping, mild sight seeing, had coffee at Peet's, did some more shopping, had a light dinner, met Matt for dessert at Finale (Matt and I selected the Hot Chocolate Flight, mom had an Armadillo, and we split a creme brulee, a "seasonal sampler" and another dessert I don't remember), and then stopped off at his place to watch the end of the Patriot's game (they lost).

22: Dropped mom off at the airport, got slightly lost (the GPS redeemed itself by getting me to work in one piece), work. Lucky and Tabi seem to have resolved their differences (and you don't get much different than Tabi and Lucky without being different species!). I resolve to restructure my life so that I have more time for people and things that I like, rather than wasting time as much as I usually do. Begin slow transition to the "Getting Things Done" lifestyle, and commit myself to working with more focus when I work so that when I'm not working, I can completely take my mind off work.

23: Third day of class. This semester I'm taking Computer Mediated Group Work, a small self-guided class I'm putting together with a professor based on classical readings in computer science (we started with Alan Turing's Computing Machinery and Intelligence), and independent study based loosely on continuing my thesis research, and a Machine Learning class. Followed by work.

24: work; in the evening, Sheila and I get the brilliant idea to make cookie dough just to eat. Make a large batch, leave out the eggs since we're not baking it anyway, and have a lovely evening of watching Law and Order and eating cookie dough.

25: Leftover cookie dough for breakfast because, hey, I can. Wouldn't want it every morning, but once in awhile it's good to live on the edge.

26: classes, catching an evening train to New York. Train was running a little late, so we got into Long Island at a pretty late hour. The train was fun, though. I managed to read a paper for class and knit a bunch on my sock.

27: Went to the New York Aquarium in Coney Island with Matt and parents. The aquarium was pretty fun; lots of cute fish and several enormous walruses (walrai?), plus an intelligent octopus and a game in which you try to guide your jellyfish colony to greatness (it turns out that I'm really bad at being a jellyfish). After the aquarium, we stopped off for pizza at Totonnos, since it had ranked in the New York Time's Time Out New York's top 10 pizza places in NY (according to their website, "Only God Makes Better Pizza"). I highly recommend the garlic pizza. Tried beer from the Brooklyn Brewery because it seemed the thing to do. Turns out that it's pretty good as well. In the evening, we went to see Matt's brother as Geronte in Scapino, (formerly known as "Les Fourberies de Scapin"). The show was great, and we all enjoyed watching Matt's brother being stuffed in a sack and beaten with a sausage. Later in the evening, Matt and I had a brief video conference with Dad, in which we mainly made faces at each other and tried to figure out how to make the TX based wireless connection not die.

28: Be forewarned: I am probably going to murder the following account of our foray into The City with touristy observations and language. I'm not apologetic. Met several friends for brunch in what I was told was the Hell's Kitchen area of NY (I'm really at a loss when it comes to this socio-geographic stuff). Ate at HK (they don't seem to have a website, so the best I can do is this review that happens to have a photo). I had french toast made with french bread and what we believe to be cardamom and cloves, which turned out to be pretty tasty if a little strange, alongside a vanilla honey latte. If I did it again, I would stir said latte well...I wondered the whole time why it wasn't tasting like honey and then found all the honey in the bottom of the glass. After we finished, we stopped by Burgers & Cupcakes, mostly because we couldn't resist walking into a place with that name. Ended up taking a box of 1/2 dozen cupcakes home with us because we really couldn't decide (2 marble cake w/chocolate frosting, 1 chocolate w/buttercream frosting, 1 vanilla w/buttercream frosting, 1 chocolate w/peanut butter frosting, 1 vanilla with pink/white swirled frosting and a heart candy on the top). Caught the train home, where I finished my sock, showed Matt how to wind a ball of yarn from a skein (I'm not sure why this was so interesting), started sock #2, read Real Simple's February issue cover-to-cover, and sampled the (very tasty) cupcakes.

29: work, made pesto with a side of cubed drunken goat cheese and cherry tomatoes for dinner. (Pesto with peppermint and cayenne pepper added is actually pretty good). Read a paper for class, cleaned the kitchen, and talked to several friends I've been too busy to speak with all month.

30: Six months ago today, I met "that guy Matt, from my cosi class" in Cambridge to check out the MIT museum 'cause it was summer, and we were bored. :) The museum turned into walking around Cambridge, turned into looking for somewhere to have dinner, turned into grabbing ice cream, turned into watching a movie, turned into "What are you doing this weekend?"...and there you have it.

31:

Busy, busy

Now that school is over, and things have started to fall into more or less of a routine, I had somewhat expected to be less busy. Not so! What does a girl who doesn't have homework do with herself after work is done for the day? She knits socks which don't flatter ankles:

She reads books on the bus:

She learns to cold brew coffee (best iced coffee in the world, by the way. Don't believe me? Come over and I'll make you some...): She goes apartment hunting and secures a lease (geese not included):

Cinco de Mayo

My roommates and I decided to have a Cinco de Mayo party. Well, rather, a Cinco de Mayo party had us. We had decided to have a party last Friday because it would be the last weekend before graduation during which we'd all be around at the same time, so we wanted to celebrate. Instantly and accidentally, as usually happens, brilliance struck when I just happened to remember by chance that Friday would also be Cinco de Mayo. Suddenly, a party theme was born.

An invitation was sent. Drinks and snacks were bought as we deliberated over the details. One roommate wanted to try a mixed drink, but doesn't like carbonation or the taste of alcohol. What to make? Anywhere between 10 and 40 people could show up. What snacks? Slowly, plans began to come together.

In the end, roughly 20 people crammed themselves into our living room (and if you've seen it, you know that's a feat unto itself). After a few delightful moments talking to one of my closest friends who beat the crowd by a bit, crowds of smiling people began knocking at the door. The room filled with the sounds of virtual mariachi from my iPod and the chatter of a roomful of people who are enjoying themselves to the fullest. Occasionally the blender roared to life, grinding out a round of margaritas.

Velveeta queso continued to be a crowd pleaser, even with the New England crowd I was serving, most of whom had never even heard of queso. The drink of the night turned out to be Tequila Sunrise (tequila and orange juice are poured over ice, then a shot of grenedine is poured down the inside edge of the glass so that it sinks to the bottom. The drink is served with this layered look, and the grenedine slowly filters up through the glass, making a sunrise effect. I was astounded that it worked just as the directions claimed, and the friend who doesn't like the taste of alcohol was suitably impressed by the drink. Victory on two fronts.).

Somehow, throughout the course of the semester, I've earned the reputation as a great bartender. I'm not sure how this came about, it's not like it's something I do often. I know how to make maybe 3 drinks. And yet people come to me continuously asking for drink suggestions. I consider telling them that anyone can splash a few things in a glass or pull a malt beverage out of the fridge, but I enjoy the process even if I don't know what I'm doing. Bartending gives me a few private moments with the guest at hand.

Usually I have no idea what "real" drinks might entail, so I get a rough idea of what my subject wants and make it up as I go along. "What do you like to drink? Do you like sweet drinks, or drinks with some zing to them? Hmmmm, I see. Do you like cranberries? No? Ok, chocolate? Right, I have an idea." I look the bar over and consider my options. Once I have my inspiration, I return my attention to the guest while I mix. "How has life been treating you? I haven't seen you for months! How did your bio class turn out?" It's an age old ritual, but one I'm happy to take part in. The drink is finished. I hand it to the guest, sneak another handful of chex mix from the table and head back into the fray until the next person comes looking for a suggestion...

Everyone appeared to have a marvelous time, and the hosts went to bed tired and pleased by the accomplishments of the evening. Yes, it turns out that even Physics and Computer Science majors know how to throw a good party.

Happy Cinco de Mayo, I'll see you later in the week!

(I moonlight as a vampire)

A Big Mistake

Let me just say this: I am NEVER going to decide to make cinnamon rolls at 11 o'clock at night again.

Last week, I had plans to have dinner with my friend Cyanna. Plans fell through, but we agreed to meet at her place for coffee the next morning. That evening I started thinking, "Hm, I really ought to take something for brunch. What do I have handy?" Well, nothing pre-made, that was certain.

After some searching, I found a cinnamon roll recipe that I had all the ingredients for. After reading through the recipe, I thought to myself, "Hmmm, this looks pretty easy, I can do this." I forgot to account for the TIME listed in each step of the recipe.

An hour later found me struggling to mix a very floury dough by hand. Now, I know this is how ALL dough used to be made. But this got me started wondering what on earth possessed me to decide to make dough by hand. When I finally got the dough finished, I learned that it then needed to rise for an hour.

So, another hour passed quietly. I went to poke at the dough, and it didn't SEEM to have doubled, but it WAS getting pretty late. So I preservered, hoping that they would turn out alright. Except, in addition to the absence of an electric mixer in my kitchen, I next discovered that I did not actually own a rolling pin either. After a couple experimental pokes at the dough hoping that I could prod it into a 10 by 14 rectangle by sheer willpower, I decided that I was going to have to get creative if I was going to have anything except a huge cinnamon clod.

I recalled reading in my handy Real Simple tips and tricks magazine that one could use a wax paper covered wine bottle as a makeshift rolling pin. Great! I had wax paper...but no wine. So I grabbed the wax paper, and went in search of a cylindrical object. Hm. None to be found. BUT! I learned that there was only about a foot of waxed paper left. So, I taped the edge of the waxed paper to the roll to keep it from unrolling, and just used the cardboard tube from the package as my rolling pin. It squashed a bit, and certainly wasn't reusable, but it did the job.

After rolling out the dough, I dutifully sprinkled it with brown sugar and cinnamon, rolled it up, and attempted to "seal the seam." What. On. Earth. Let's just say that the seam stubbornly refused to seal. So, I pinched it a lot half out of spite and set about slicing up the cinnamon rolls. I don't honestly know what kind of knife you're supposed to use for this task, so I settled on using the biggest one. "Sliced" my cinnamon rolls, if you can call it that...they looked more smooshed and torn than sliced, and arranged them in a baking pan to rise "overnight," then fell into bed at 2 am after setting the alarm for 8 so that I could mix the glaze and bake the rolls.

I don't think 6 hours is enough time for cinnamon rolls to rise. I baked them, and they obliged me by LOOKING enticing and sticky sweet. However. They were pretty much as hard as rocks. Cyanna and several other friends obligingly ate them and acted very pleased that they had cinnamon rolls to eat for breakfast, but I think they easily could have doubled as hockey pucks. Susan commented that perhaps they were just cinnamon hard rolls, and I had created a new delicacy.

All I have to say on the matter, is that NEXT time I am sticking to the can with the Pillsbury dough boy on it and calling it good.