the spanish rolls that weren't meant to be

Occasionally, my dad would bring these delicious things home when he had time to bake on the ship. These made for an absolute breakfast delight, and while my parents ate them with coffee, I usually had them with milk or guava juice. I had never been able to find a recipe until I visited this delightful page. I immediately got a pencil out and started writing this recipe down, triple checking and making sure I had every step written word for word.

Unfortunately, due to my excitement, I didn't take the same care in making sure I had enough flour, nor bread crumbs to make this recipe. So, after burning a loaf of bread, and trying to figure out how to flour my work area, the hulagirl version of spanish rolls came to be. I will serve this recipe justice and redo them later on today, after a very long nap, and after my mess is cleaned up. But, take a peek, they will make for awesome future meriendas (afternoon snack, usually with coffee).

cherry stained hands

I will forever be envious to people who own cherry pitters. I just got through reading a book called Seeing Me Naked by Liza Palmer and she writes about an amazing cherry clafouti; she even provides a recipe at the end of the book. Coincidentally, I was walking through my local grocery store when they had bags and bags of them on sale. Upon, getting home and popping one in my mouth, they were one of the best on sale cherry batches I had ever bought. I was so excited. Cherry clafouti is a French dessert, a cross between a pancake and custard. I hear that, traditionally, you keep the pits in. I found this recipe through foodnetwork.com by the man, Alton Brown.

I found several ways via the world wide web on how to pit a cherry beyond using a paring knife, like the paper clip method. Four cherries later, and many more curse words, contemplating just a leaving the pits in or dumping out the cherry halves that had the pits, I found the best way is to split the cherry in half, grab a pointy end, and pull the pit out. To the right, my pitiful pitting job.

After making the recipe (not in a dutch oven), instead of dumping the cherries in the pan and shaking them in a flat layer (mostly out of impatience and frustration), I would probably face all of them, with the open side down, in a single layer. I would probably also add some almond extract for some depth. Over all though, this would make an awesome brunch or dessert dish. I tried the dish with a serving of whipped cream, then, a dusting of powdered sugar. Go with the powdered sugar. And every cherry season from here on out, I vow to make cherry clafouti.

baking to soothe my mind

Eleven hours and thirty minutes into my last shift of the week, I did something wrong. I was judgmental. In that moment, I became a bad nurse. As I clocked out, I said a prayer, for her, her unborn child fighting to live, for myself. I thanked God she wasn't around while I was being judgmental and because God knew my sin well enough, I was lucky I was not her nurse. I have never felt more horrible doing my job than this exact time. My eyes were wide open as I clocked out and I decided that I would go grocery shopping. As I perused through the final aisles, my eye lids began to feel heavy. Just as I was standing in line getting all of my fabric grocery bags ready (so the person behind me wouldn't have to wait while I was trying to be green and not using the convenient plastic bags), I got yelled at for not moving 2 feet ahead of me by the very person I was trying to be considerate of. It really would not have made a difference, there were two people in front of me with carts as full as mine. I admit my mind was occupied. I kept seeing her blood clots in my hands, her pale face just wouldn't leave my vision, I could not stop hearing her baby's heart beat drop as I held her hand and told her to take deep breaths. I kept repeating my coworker said in my head, "you could have not prevented this." Yes, but, maybe if I hadn't...didn't...I felt like I was being punished for my previous thoughts, which I happened to say aloud to my coworkers, before the trauma.

My face red as a cherry tomato, trying to hold back words (maybe a few curse ones) I exited the line so as to not confront the lady who just yelled at me and moved to a cashier who had just turned on her light.

I pulled an Izzie (from Grey's Anatomy), put on on my baking clothes, and started mashing really ripe bananas that I had. I baked banana macadamia nut muffins courtesy of Epicurious via Bon Apetit. I accidentally put twice the amount of nutmeg called for and I wouldn't recommend it. I thought the macadamia nuts added a different crunch but the muffins probably would be so much better if I had sprinkled raw sugar on top of each muffin (as stated in the recipe). I think I will stick to my Apple-Banana Muffins.

After cleaning up my mess, my belly full of a couple of muffins and a glass of milk, I lay in bed thinking about the what happened at work. I don't know what time I went to bed, I'm guessing 2 in the afternoon because I woke up at 10 pm just to bake again.

it all started with milk

The milk caught my eye because it was in this cute safe plastic bottle. More importantly, it advertised "tastes just like 2%." Skim milk freaked my husband out. To him, it was blue and tasted like water. His 2% tasted like cream to me. We made a lot of compromises in our first year of marriage to include toothpaste brands (he won this one), liquid vs. powder detergent (I won with liquid), but, milk was one we could not and would not agree on. So, I brought this home and it was a wonderful surprise. After visually proving that it was NOT blue he took a swig and smiled. Alas, we found our milk! It only took a year, but no more cartons left to expire. It just happened to be hormone free. One day, after a few months, we were shopping not in our usual grocery store and couldn't find our milk, so we went with a certified organic brand. It was good too! And, that's how we got we got our organic start.

I started to try organic fruit and organic yogurt. Now, we are not a totally organic couple and being organic doesn't necessarily mean it's healthier in terms of calories and fat, but, some things definitely taste better. We use Eggland's mostly because of the cage free birds. We (mostly my husband) try to buy home grown (not really organic, but, better than the waxed stuff in the store) fruit on the side of the road on days it isn't so windy that it hurts our face to walk to the barely standing fruit stand. It tasted great, mostly because the what's on the side of the road is whatever is in season. Unfortunately, there are no community supported agriculture (CSA) subscriptions around our area but it is something I would love to get into. I first learned about CSA in April 2008's issue of Bon Apetit magazine but learn more about it here. I have decided that the next place I move to has to have a weekly open market, a Whole Foods, a Target within 25 miles, and a CSA subscription.

So, to the milk that got us started, the fruit on the side of the road, and the cage free egg producing birds, I've made some To Die For Blueberry Muffins with a mason jar of milk, of course. Easing my way back into baking, I'd probably change a few things next time I use this recipe. I used low fat buttermilk (that's what was in the store) but the batter was so thick, I would probably just use the my good old regular skim milk next time. Also, I so freaking didn't learn from the corn casserole incident and tried to put the streusel topping on in front of the oven, in the middle of baking. Thus, not all of it got put on top and now my oven really needs a cleaning. Yes, more curse words flew around the kitchen especially during the smoke alarm going off. Next time, I'll just top them before I put them in the oven, who cares of the topping sinks? Overall though, these were an okay start to my new life. I had to slap my hand because I just ate 3 of them. I know. Bad, hulagirl.