November Happenings in my Life

I have been busy, I have also been making time to take it easy when I need to. My health condition continues to create some difficulty in my daily activities but I do my best to not let it stop me from doing what I want most of the time. I still go to the gym five days a week to do cardio and also chair yoga.

I recently found some Matcha green tea powder which seems to increase energy. I even made cookies with it. I have learned not to drink it late in the day if I want to sleep at night.

Today I made time to write stories on my website that have been a long time coming. I finally wrote the stories from September through now so if you have time, scroll down the home page of my website to read what I have been doing for some of my time.

Gina who owns an apartment where I live and I have been working on the flower beds here. They are primarily dirt and one of the men at the gym where I work out gave us lots of Bromeliads that we planted, and we also planted several young palm trees someone gave us.

At the end of October we had our building tented for termites. We had to leave our apartments for a few days for this process which really created work for all of us living here. We had to bag all of our food, including what is in the fridge and freezer, and cabinets. Also, medicine, medical supplies, etc. It was interesting watching the men put the tents on the entire building, and then we watched them remove the tents and roll them up again. It’s not a task I would want to do, especially being on the roof or climbing up ladders with these tarps and clamps.

I decided to buy a new Kitchenaid mixer. The Kitchenaid I have is about 30 years old and a 5 quart mixer. There was a great special that I saw for a 6 quart Kitchenaid, so after a lot of thought and prayer I decided to buy the larger one because it will allow me to make double and/or triple batches of dough for cookies and bread. My older mixer is good for single batches, and because it still works great and probably will for many years I am going to keep it. I bought the new mixer in Majestic Yellow which is a cheery color. Since I got it last week I have made numerous batches of cookies and many loaves of bread. Most of these baked items I have given to friends and neighbors, and I froze some for me to eat or give away later on. I also froze some balls of cookie dough so when I want fresh baked cookies I don’t have to mix batter, I can just put the dough on a cookie sheet and bake them.

The bakeware and cookware I use is by Curtis Stone and I absolutely love it. Nothing sticks to the pans and no oil or spray is needed. Cleaning the pans is easy which makes cooking lots more fun.

I have also been experimenting with new recipes which is fun and so far the results have been good. One of my friends came over for Thanksgiving and we baked biscotti. I usually convert cups to grams because it is more accurate of a measure. I learned this while working at the bakery in Texas. Well, we made a triple batch of chocolate, chocolate chip biscotti and in the process of converting the measures and calculating from a single batch to a triple batch, I seemed to have forgotten to add the cocoa powder. We mixed the dough and it seemed very soft. I thought perhaps it was the butter was mixed too much. So we put the dough in the fridge for an hour or so to firm up.

Since it was a triple batch of dough we measured it in six portions on a scale and as we were doing this I realized the dough was yellow, not chocolate. It was then I realized we didn’t add the cocoa powder which was why the dough was softer than usual. So, we stirred cocoa powder into the dough but not enough evidently. The Biscotti baked flatter than normal. It tastes good but it came out more like a cookie than Biscotti. I bet I don’t forget the cocoa powder again!!! It’s good every now and then to know I am not perfect. Thankfully, the cookies still tasted good and were edible so the ingredients were not wasted. I even made a pound of brown butter to use in my cookies. Brown butter has a wonderful flavor and it’s good in almost any food where butter is used.

Holidays are rapidly approaching and I bake more than normal. I stocked up on baking supplies including chocolate bark and candy canes. A few years ago at a bake sale I bought biscotti that tasted really good. It was dipped in chocolate and had crushed candy cane pieces stuck into the chocolate before it hardened so I want to make some this year.

On the way home from the Farm in September my check fridge light came on. Thankfully, it happened about 90 minutes or so from home. I turned the fridge on again a few days before I left for Native Rhythms and the light came on again. I took my camper to a RV repair place last week and they checked and increased the gas pressure which hopefully will correct the problem.

I made a very large lasagna the other night. I kept a portion and gave the rest to a neighbor who doesn’t cook very much and likes to eat. So, I cook extra for them and they reimburse me for the cost of their portion of the food. Since I am cooking anyway it’s easy for me to make extra and it helps them. I seem to always make lots of whatever I cook or bake so I have been surprising my neighbors with fresh baked goodies. I love seeing their surprised expressions.

Not much else is happening that I know of at the moment. At least now, as of today, my website is up-to-date as far as I know.

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1 Response to November Happenings in my Life

  1. Kevin says:

    Cookies and bread two of my favorites glad to see your doing well.

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