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10/15/2005 Weekend
All in all, it was a pretty nice weekend, I have to say.
Of course it rained heavily all day Saturday, but that was pretty much to be expected. Sebastian begged me to take him out to breakfast at Coffee & Cream, but we're particularly poor right now, and it was simply impossible.
So I made some hot chocolate the way my father used to, with powdered baking cocoa, sugar, vanilla, and milk; Sebastian liked that a lot. And I made toast out of stale hamburger buns, since that's all the bread we had left. If you butter the bread before you toast it, and then top-brown it, it tastes really good. Teri woke up, and between the three of us we polished off quite a few buns. Fortunately the buns are three 8-packs for a dollar at Price Rite.
The buns were a little bit sweet, and quite delicious. Not the healthiest meal, I suppose, but beggars can't be choosers. And our money situation should improve soon.
We dropped Teri off at the animal shelter, and went to Price Rite for some essential groceries. I splurged a little on a 5-bag of flour, some baking soda, and butter; I had a plan in mind.
We went home, had lunch, and then headed back to the shleter to pick up Teri. Once we got home again, Sebastian and I started a new project: cookies.
Rewind: A while back we'd picked up some delicious chocolate chip cookies from a Mennonite store.
Hmm. Does that sound "religionist" somehow? I wouldn't say a "Jewish" store, or a "Catholic" store, would I? But I don't know the name of the store, and to be honest, the fact that the people running it are wearing those old-fashioned clothes is the thing that sticks out most about the place in my mind. Oh well.
Anyway, I'd been curious about those cookies. They were considerably softer than the cookies that I bake; I like soft, underdone cookies that are a bit gooey, and these were just right. My own sometimes end up being harder and drier than my ideal. I use the Toll House recipe, by the way, using real butter and replacing 1/4 cup of the white sugar with an additional portion of brown sugar.
(Just to clarify, chocolate chip cookies - or, more often, chocolate chip cookie bars - are one of the key items in my repertoire of cooking. Other items include grilled burgers, chili, meat sauce for pasta, and calzones (without cheese).)
I'd read the ingredients (even Mennonites have to label their baked goods), and one thing that leapt out at me was "instant vanilla pudding". I'd never heard of that being used in chocolate chip cookies!
(If you're wondering why Mennonites would use something as worldly as instant pudding mix in their baked goods, I don't really have an answer for you - except to point out that Mennonites are NOT Amish, and are allowed to drive cars, for example. I think of them as "reform" Amish.
)
So I resorted to the web, of course, and found that instant pudding mix is recommended by quite a few people. In fact, some of them said that it didn't even matter what kind of pudding mix it was. That was good, because the only instant pudding mix in the house was devil's food flavor.
So I dumped that in, along with some leftover light cream from Wright's Dairy (because, what the hell). Sebastian helped throughout the process, of course, but added only a little to the mess. We used our KitchenAid mixer to mix the dough; let me tell you, that thing is a lifesaver. For years I used to break my arms stirring the dry mixture into the butter/sugar/egg/vanilla mixture, but the KitchenAid handled it well.
Oh, I almost forgot: I tripled the amount of vanilla. I usually add extra vanilla anyway - it's always good - and I'd read confirmation of my opinion online, so again, what the hell.
But the devil's food pudding mix surprised me. It soon became clear that it DID, in fact, matter what sort of mix you used. Because we produced a large batch of devil's food chocolate chip cookies.
And they were goooood.
Soft and chewy, just like the Mennonite cookies. Kind of flat, as usual, but next time I'll replace some or all of the butter with butter-flavored shortening; I think that will make the difference.
Sunday
Sunday it finally stopped raining, and it was a beautiful day. My previous entry has a video of the spectacular effect that all that rainfall had on the Woonsocket waterfall near us, but I got some other pictures and video too.
We went to two other waterfalls in the area. They were both pretty interesting, but for one of them I couldn't get a good shot; I was shooting from the above, on the bridge, and the change in the waterfall wouldn't be obvious to someone who didn't already know it. I got an interesting shot of a house that was clearly a bit threatened by the high waters, and another one that showed a woman standing on a raised deck downriver from the falls, but they weren't that impressive.
The other waterfall was near Teri's uncle Dom's apartment. I thought I'd written about it before, but apparently that's anther imaginary entry (no, wait, I'm wrong: here it is). Anyway, the waterfall is quite pretty, a large artificial one with four or five large "steps". Normally it's very quiet; the water is just a glassy-smooth curtain that gently runs over the concrete.
Not this time. Check it out!
Yes, that's a rainbow. And the water was roaring down the falls. I don't know if you can see it, but the water itself looked magical, sparkling like diamonds in the sun; it was full of bubbles, probably due to toxic chemicals. At the base of the falls the water level was very high. Normally I could have climbed up alongside the falls, but that was impossible this time due to the flooding. That's a pity, because I'd probably have gotten some great shots.
We drove home. Sebastian was full of energy, so the three of us played out back with him for a while, and then went to the playground to play some more. It was windy and cold, so we only stayed for an hour.
Here's a photo of Sebastian on the swing in our back yard. Our camera has an annoying lag when you snap a picture, so I had to guesstimate when he'd be centered in the image.
That night we went upstairs, and he had me read him two books: The Little Engine That Could, which he hasn't read for a long time, and The Three Little Horses by Piet Worm, one of my own favorites as a child. Then he asked me to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" to him. He rolled over on his side and fell asleep just as I finished.
The perfect end to the weekend.
Of course it rained heavily all day Saturday, but that was pretty much to be expected. Sebastian begged me to take him out to breakfast at Coffee & Cream, but we're particularly poor right now, and it was simply impossible.
So I made some hot chocolate the way my father used to, with powdered baking cocoa, sugar, vanilla, and milk; Sebastian liked that a lot. And I made toast out of stale hamburger buns, since that's all the bread we had left. If you butter the bread before you toast it, and then top-brown it, it tastes really good. Teri woke up, and between the three of us we polished off quite a few buns. Fortunately the buns are three 8-packs for a dollar at Price Rite.
The buns were a little bit sweet, and quite delicious. Not the healthiest meal, I suppose, but beggars can't be choosers. And our money situation should improve soon.
We dropped Teri off at the animal shelter, and went to Price Rite for some essential groceries. I splurged a little on a 5-bag of flour, some baking soda, and butter; I had a plan in mind.
We went home, had lunch, and then headed back to the shleter to pick up Teri. Once we got home again, Sebastian and I started a new project: cookies.
Rewind: A while back we'd picked up some delicious chocolate chip cookies from a Mennonite store.
Hmm. Does that sound "religionist" somehow? I wouldn't say a "Jewish" store, or a "Catholic" store, would I? But I don't know the name of the store, and to be honest, the fact that the people running it are wearing those old-fashioned clothes is the thing that sticks out most about the place in my mind. Oh well.
Anyway, I'd been curious about those cookies. They were considerably softer than the cookies that I bake; I like soft, underdone cookies that are a bit gooey, and these were just right. My own sometimes end up being harder and drier than my ideal. I use the Toll House recipe, by the way, using real butter and replacing 1/4 cup of the white sugar with an additional portion of brown sugar.
(Just to clarify, chocolate chip cookies - or, more often, chocolate chip cookie bars - are one of the key items in my repertoire of cooking. Other items include grilled burgers, chili, meat sauce for pasta, and calzones (without cheese).)
I'd read the ingredients (even Mennonites have to label their baked goods), and one thing that leapt out at me was "instant vanilla pudding". I'd never heard of that being used in chocolate chip cookies!
(If you're wondering why Mennonites would use something as worldly as instant pudding mix in their baked goods, I don't really have an answer for you - except to point out that Mennonites are NOT Amish, and are allowed to drive cars, for example. I think of them as "reform" Amish.
)So I resorted to the web, of course, and found that instant pudding mix is recommended by quite a few people. In fact, some of them said that it didn't even matter what kind of pudding mix it was. That was good, because the only instant pudding mix in the house was devil's food flavor.
So I dumped that in, along with some leftover light cream from Wright's Dairy (because, what the hell). Sebastian helped throughout the process, of course, but added only a little to the mess. We used our KitchenAid mixer to mix the dough; let me tell you, that thing is a lifesaver. For years I used to break my arms stirring the dry mixture into the butter/sugar/egg/vanilla mixture, but the KitchenAid handled it well.
Oh, I almost forgot: I tripled the amount of vanilla. I usually add extra vanilla anyway - it's always good - and I'd read confirmation of my opinion online, so again, what the hell.
But the devil's food pudding mix surprised me. It soon became clear that it DID, in fact, matter what sort of mix you used. Because we produced a large batch of devil's food chocolate chip cookies.
And they were goooood.
Soft and chewy, just like the Mennonite cookies. Kind of flat, as usual, but next time I'll replace some or all of the butter with butter-flavored shortening; I think that will make the difference.
Sunday
Sunday it finally stopped raining, and it was a beautiful day. My previous entry has a video of the spectacular effect that all that rainfall had on the Woonsocket waterfall near us, but I got some other pictures and video too.
We went to two other waterfalls in the area. They were both pretty interesting, but for one of them I couldn't get a good shot; I was shooting from the above, on the bridge, and the change in the waterfall wouldn't be obvious to someone who didn't already know it. I got an interesting shot of a house that was clearly a bit threatened by the high waters, and another one that showed a woman standing on a raised deck downriver from the falls, but they weren't that impressive.
The other waterfall was near Teri's uncle Dom's apartment. I thought I'd written about it before, but apparently that's anther imaginary entry (no, wait, I'm wrong: here it is). Anyway, the waterfall is quite pretty, a large artificial one with four or five large "steps". Normally it's very quiet; the water is just a glassy-smooth curtain that gently runs over the concrete.
Not this time. Check it out!
Yes, that's a rainbow. And the water was roaring down the falls. I don't know if you can see it, but the water itself looked magical, sparkling like diamonds in the sun; it was full of bubbles, probably due to toxic chemicals. At the base of the falls the water level was very high. Normally I could have climbed up alongside the falls, but that was impossible this time due to the flooding. That's a pity, because I'd probably have gotten some great shots.
We drove home. Sebastian was full of energy, so the three of us played out back with him for a while, and then went to the playground to play some more. It was windy and cold, so we only stayed for an hour.
Here's a photo of Sebastian on the swing in our back yard. Our camera has an annoying lag when you snap a picture, so I had to guesstimate when he'd be centered in the image.
That night we went upstairs, and he had me read him two books: The Little Engine That Could, which he hasn't read for a long time, and The Three Little Horses by Piet Worm, one of my own favorites as a child. Then he asked me to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" to him. He rolled over on his side and fell asleep just as I finished.
The perfect end to the weekend.