caffeine diary

Other:
Assembled bookcase from Target

Food:
Pizza (Crust=Now or Later Pizza, makes two crusts, topped one with sauce and cheese and pepperoni and cheese and pepperoni, the other one will be baked when I'm done with this one.)

Bagels (plain). I am getting better at shaping them.

Ambitions: still pecan pie, gingerbread plus (=gingerbread cake with ginger syrup, which I intend to make from the ginger root I bought the other week), cheesecake with ginger syrup in. I am going to a party on Saturday night and refreshments on Sunday are potluck, and my birthday is on Monday, so variations on the theme of "birthday cake."

The other pizza (which is easy, because just needs topped and baked).

Worship:
Created worship schedule with only two fuckups. :/ (All got worked out but still).
Thursday email.
Started drafting November worship team agenda.

(I'm gonna go ahead and invent prompts for the many days that no one requested.)

So tonight when I came home from work I baked! I was sick for literally all of December and only made one batch of emergency gingerbread, but I am better now, and was feeling really stressed out, so baking as self-care. I made three of the things I love to make best:

1) Gingerbread
2) Whole wheat bread
3) Something I'd never made before :)

1) Two years ago, in fall-winter of 2011 (a miserable time emotionally) the bookstore with its Starbucks smelled constantly of gingerbread, and I kept thinking I wanted some, and then that I could probably make it for cheaper than I could buy it at Starbucks, and ultimately I went ahead and bought molasses and ginger and a cookie cutter and a bunch of other things and before I knew it I was baking ALL THE THINGS. But it started with gingerbread, and ginger and molasses are two of my favorite ingredients (even though molasses is proverbially slow). I have a jar of good quality ginger, although I think I bought it in that two-years-ago baking spree and so it's probably not quite so good as it once was. It still smells delicious, though. Like ginger.

I made gingerbread people. The first batch I made this winter was for Sunday school -- they were genderbread people -- and they were so good that I needed to make another batch. I got sick, though, and ended up freezing most of the dough. I baked it tonight, though. The gender/gingerbread people aren't beautiful, but they are delicious. Kimmy said they tasted extra good, probably because it's been so long. :)

2) I finally went ahead and made my first yeast bread for Thanksgiving this year. I made a super simple recipe out of King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion (which is my primary recipe source) that I simplify even further so it's just: water, whole wheat flour, molasses, olive oil, salt, yeast. It's also DELICIOUS. And satisfying. Kneading is a special joy.

3) NEW RECIPE! I got a Pinterest account to browse and pin recipes, which is where I found Eggnog Cinnamon Rolls after bringing home an after-Christmas-Day-discounted jug of eggnog and trying to figure out what to do with it. These were lots of fun to make, although my inability to spatial relationship made rolling and cutting them into roll shape/size difficult, but then heat and yeast did their magic and the rolls expanded gloriously to fill the whole pan, and then I drowned them in the eggnog glaze and it was beautiful. And eggnogy. Roommate Ryan made orgasmic sounds as he ate one, so I declare these a success too.

++

Baking gives me so much joy. I love raw ingredients -- the way they smell, the way they look, the way they combine to make magical delicious food -- I love the different kinds of tactile sensations involved -- and I love making things that other people will enjoy.

\o/ baking!

Oh thank goodness. My roommate has access to internet once again. The world is a much more amusing place now. I'm still trying to figure out what sort of birthday fic to write for her... sweet and cuddly, funny and wrong, or angsty and depressing. I'm guessing the latter is probably a very BAD idea for a birthday fic... maybe I'll write two. My fics tend to be short.

My sister and I made lemon squares today.