#FunnyFriday

Add a dash of cat hair, and it makes the whole outfit!!

#FunnyFriday

Bread Talk

Practically all the things that I bake, I love! I love the way they taste, I love the process involved in making them, and you really can't wrong with the smell either.

But, bread? Man!! Don't get me wrong, I have a mad sweet tooth and I love making sweets,  but, bread holds a special place in my heart. I love how involved in the process you have to be. I love (ok, I hate it sometimes) how one single thing can change the way a loaf will turn out. I love how it's so simple, yet so complex. Also, I'm pretty sure I love it because it's an excuse to get a whole section of the kitchen counter messy. :-)

I have no clue why I decided to go on a bread speech. Aw well. I needed something to write about.

#FunnyFriday

Sourdough

I'm rather pleased that I can add Sourdough to the list of breads that I can make! 

Sourdough is one of those breads where it's a process. You have to be involved and take it step by step. It's also one of those breads where it takes an attempt or two to get it just so.

attempt #1

The frisbees

My first attempt missed the mark a little bit. It didn't smell quite right and it didn't rise very much, which lead it to be dense. I thought I knew dense before this loaf, but oh no! This loaf was so dense my brother really, really wanted to use it as a target for shooting. Pretty sure he still wishes we did...

Anyway. The results of attempt 1 were only fuel to my fire. So, the next day, I looked at more recipes and I found one. Before I found it, I was wondering if you could use a regular bread recipe and add some of the Starter to it for flavor. The recipe I found did just that. I used the recipe. It was magic bananas! The classic sourdough smell was there, it rose, and it looked gorgeous. But as good as it looked and smelled, it tasted even better!

Attempt #2

So, the next time I make Sourdough, I'm going to use my  go-to bread recipe with some of the sourdough starter. And then I'll post an official So Easy My Cat Could Bake It Sourdough recipe.

For now, you'll have to wait! 

#FunnyFriday

A Funny Story...

So, you know how in this post I said that we were going to take a brake from fostering? Well, that brake is over. Which is okay, we had a good couple of months with no fosters... LOL!

A little more than a week ago, on first Saturday, not even a minute from our chapel, we saw CC. Probably the most emaciated dog we've ever seen first hand. And you tend to see a lot when you're in dog rescue.

 However, in addition to being the most emaciated dog we've seen, she is also the happiest and sweetest adult street dog we've seen.

 SOAR graciously agreed to take her under their wing! 

  
And yes, the poor baby is heart-worm positive.

If you are interested in learning more about CC (Cecilia for long), or you just want to follow along on her journey, please go like her Facebook page! 
I'm going to try and post a little something about her  adventures everyday, So you'll definitely be able to follow along step by step on her journey!

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The Epidemic of Pumpkin Spice

 Roughly four weeks ago, long before Fall actually arrived, I started to see pumpkin spice creeping into the world once more. 

I understand that people enjoy pumpkin, especially this time of year. I do, too. In fact, I'm in the middle of writing a blog post for Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bars (which are the bomb diggity, by the way!). But, I'm getting tired of all the commercials for pumpkin stuff. They began way too early and now that it's the second official day of Fall, pumpkin flavored cereals (which aren't all that great. Not the Cheerios, not the Life and not the Miniwheats, anyway) pumpkin coffee (even McDonald's joined in) or whatever else I'm forgetting are all old news. It's getting so old that at this point, even a limited edition pumpkin spice smelling bowling ball would likely get an annoyed eye-roll out of me.

What about the long-forgotten fruit of fall... Apples? You know, apple pie? Or what about fresh cranberries!!! Trust me, I cannot wait for those bad boys to enter the stores. To me, that means that Fall has officially began. Well, that and cooler temperatures outside. Life in the South means that Fall really doesn't feel like Fall until November.

But for now, I will laugh at the commercials and enjoy the memes about the pumpkin frenzy.

#FunnyFriday

Exclusive Content! A Glance At My Latest Project...

This school year, another one of my classes is Mosaics. I get to experiment with it to see if it's something I'd like to as a profession. I'm really enjoying it so far!!!!

My first project is house numbers for the house.

I'll write about it in more detail when I finish it. I was just getting excited about it and I also didn't know what to write about today. :-)

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Photography Class

This year, my brother and I are taking photography as one of our classes for the year. We're a couple of weeks into it now, and I'm having fun. I mean, I expected it to be fun, but it has already exceeded my expectations!

So far, we've learned how to properly clean the camera and the lenes. And Brother taught me how to do a Long Shutter Exposure picture, which is much fun!

An example of our Long-exposure experimenting

I've also learned a couple pretty important rules, such as never delete a picture after looking at it on the camera display... always wait for a computer screen. Most pictures look much better on the bigger screen.

And of course, we've gone outside and around the house taking pictures. Here are a couple I've taken.

#FunnyFriday

Dirt and Worms

There is a local custard place here and they have delicious custard concretes. My brother loves the Dirt and Worms concrete, which is vanilla custard with crushed Oreos and gummy worms.

For the last couple of years he couldn't have it because he had braces... the gummy worms are a no-go with braces. He recently had his braces removed after nearly three years, (YAY!) so now he can have gummy worms and the like.

As part of the celebration, we made Dirt and Worms for church. This variation is chocolate pudding. And it just might be better!

Here's what you need...

• 2 5.9 oz boxes of instant chocolate pudding and the amount of milk it calls for
• 1 package of Oreos (crushed. The food processor works great)
• 8 oz of cream cheese
• 1/4 cup butter, room temperature
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 8 oz of Cool Whip
• Gummy worms

To begin, make the pudding in a large bowl according to the package.

Cream cheese and butter

Next, in your mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter until fluffy. Then reduce the speed to add the powdered sugar. Once all of it is added, increase the speed so that the fluff is regained.

cream cheese and powdered sugar

Then, combined that with the chocolate pudding. You just fold them in, so that you don't lose the fluff. And once those two are combined, you fold the Cool Whip into it.

Adding the cream cheese mix and cool whip

Mud!

 And there's your mud! 

Now comes the fun part. Layering it. You alternate the mud and the crushed Oreos in your container. Use a container with clear sides so that you can see the layers. A trifle bowl, mason jars, or something of that nature. Once you have all of the layers you would like, add the gummy worms and some more Oreos to the top. This keeps pretty well in the fridge.

This recipe gets 5 out of 5 cat whiskers!
Mom found the recipe here.

#FunnyFriday

Creme Brulee

French might be a weird language, but sometimes names sound better in French. Like Creme Brulee. It sounds fancy, like something you'd order off a menu on a whim.

Some fancy chocolate burnt creme.

In English, it means "burnt cream." Not really something that sounds too appealing. It sounds a little boring, to be honest. 
 
But I've got to tell you. I've made "burnt cream" and its delicious. It's appealing and the exact opposite of boring. I mean, anytime you can use a torch in the kitchen you're going to have a good time. I highly recommend making some Creme Brulee!

 Ingredients:

•  2 cups heavy cream
• 1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons of sugar
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips (of your choice, i used dark chocolate)
• 5 egg yolks
• sugar, for dusting

That's it! Just four ingredients!

The first step is to heat the heavy cream and 1/4 cup sugar in a pot, making sure to mix in the sugar. Heat this until it begins to simmer. Once it has begun to simmer, add the chocolate, being sure to whisk it until it's smooth.

In a seperate bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the remaining 3 tablespoons sugar. 

Now, slowly pour the egg yolks into the cream mixture while whisking. You want to take your time. This part is a bit like pastry cream. Going slow minimizes the chance of ending up with cooked egg bits in your cream. I cannot emphasize enough that you need to constantly be whisking... so if you happen to need a second pair of hands to help, don't be afraid to ask.

Once its all combined, you can strain it through a sieve, if you want. I didn't because I was fairly confident that I had no egg bits, but it's all a matter of opinion.

Now, you can pour the cream into ramekins. You can fill them however full you'd like, they don't rise very much. Once the cream is in the ramekins, place them in a brownie pan and fill the pan with just enough water to reach halfway up the ramekins.

They bake at 250 for about an hour or until they're just set.

Let them cool on the counter until they can travel into the fridge. In the fridge, they really set up quickly, which makes it easier for burning sugar on the tops.

At the moment, I cannot find the video my brother made of me doing the top. When I do find it, I will add it.


Beware with these, they taste very, very delicious. This recipe definitely receives 5 out of 5 cat whiskers!!

I found the recipe here.
I also made a vanilla version. I need to find the pictures before I write a post for it, but don't worry... chocolate was better! :-)

Rosary Crusade

In preparation for (and in honor of) the 100 year anniversary of the Fatima Apparitions of Our Lady, Bishop Fellay has announce a year long Rosary Crusade. 

The goal is to have twelve million Rosaries said and fifty million sacrifices made. The primary intention will be for the triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, but two other intentions will be for the Consecration of Russia and for the protection of the SSPX, their works and fellow religious communities.

Yes, twelve million and fifty million are HUGE numbers. Just looking at those numbers, I'm a little nervous, but there are more Catholics in the world than we sometimes realize. Plus, this is a year long Rosary Crusade -- We can do it!

You may not be looking forward to the fifty million sacrifices (if I'm honest, this part is daunting to me more than the Rosary part), but they can be small or large. You could not listen to the radio in the car. You could have a glass of water instead of soda. You could sacrifice meat on more than just Fridays. There are many sacrifices we can make.

I'm kind of excited for this Rosary crusade, so, I felt like I had to share it. I've never done one before, so I'm looking forward to it. We already say the Rosary as a family every day, but being part of something bigger, this Rosary Crusade is a wonderful feeling. It starts on Aug. 15th, the feast day of Our Lady's Assumption... kind of fitting, don't you think?

And if you haven't been saying the Rosary everyday and would like to know more about this crusade, here's a link.

Imma Back!

I did it again. I completely ignored my blog. What can I say... it was summer. And an eventful one, too.

Z-Bo got adopted!!! A nice couple adopted him. He lives on a golf course and has a fellow k-9 companion. Sometimes we miss him, but more than that, we are so happy for him! We're taking a brake from fostering for a little bit. Seriously! This time we are!

Also, this summer My mom, brother and I got confirmed in the Catholic church!

My brother and I also visited our grandparents. My parents gifted us with round trip airline tickets and three weeks of vacation without them. We've flown before, but don't remember because we were so young. This trip, we will always remember! We had a great time... it was very nice to see my grandparents and my Aunt and Uncle. It was strange, though, not to be around all of our pets and not having the usual chores to do. My grandpa is already making plans for next year!

We've also been getting some home improvement things done around the house. We tiled the family room after completing the renovation of my brother's bathroom. We plan on tiling the hallway soon. My mom and I really enjoy it and work well together. My dad and brother have been scraping the ceiling in the main living areas.... it's incredibly messy, but it looks so good when it is done! And we painted the dining room.

And now, school is starting once again. I'm hoping that this time I'll keep my blog more current. So, in an effort to do that, I'm going to be doing new things on my blog. I'll still write about recipes and my baking adventures, but I'm going to try and write about other things. Sometimes I'll write about something I'm researching. Other times I may share a news story or something that catches my eye. Hey, I may even ask my brother if he wants to hijack my blog every now and then... just to keep things interesting! :-)

The Adventures of Z-Bo

We have had Z-Bo for about nine months, it's crazy. He is such wonderfully goofy gentleman that it's just amazing no one has snatched him up yet.

Sometimes this happens with fostering... Especially with big adult dogs. Not everyone searches for them, they want the smaller dogs or the puppies. And yeah, I get that. But that doesn't keep me from being sad for Z and all the other long term foster dogs that get over looked.

But it's all the sweeter when they do get adopted!

Recently, SOAR asked all the fosters of the dogs that have been in the rescue awhile to try and get some good videos and pictures, to get these dogs some more publicity.

And, well, when you've had a dog for nine months, you tend to have a hard time choosing your favorite  videos and pictures of him. So my brother and I played around in iMovie and made a montage of his best stuff. SOAR put it on their YouTube page. If you're interested in watching it, here's the link....

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LoQac0lMA8I&feature=youtu.be

Feel free to share, You'd be amazed at how much that can help!

Flat-men

A couple years ago, I started playing around with those felt rectangles they sell at craft stores. I made random things with them, business card pockets, cases for my camera and other things.

Then I started making these creatures.

I call them Flat-men. I make them to look like creatures. What kind of creatures, I'm not sure. It's just something fun to do.

For a while, I stopped making them. But this week I made the one in the first picture for my cousin, and I was reminded of how fun they are to make. 

Maybe I'll start making them again!

#FridayFunny

The Chocolate Eyestravaganza

The gorgeous eyestravaganza

My brother's birthday theme was eyes. And his cake request was chocolate.

So I'm gonna call this cake the Chocolate Eyestravaganza.

Seriously. If you want a truly chocolate cake, this is for you.

The cake is no mere chocolate cake. It's an American Mud Cake. That means it tastes like a cross between a brownie and a cake. It's moist, it's chocolately, but that doesn't make it too rich.

The filling is whipped ganache. Whipped ganache, folks. It tastes like a cross between moose and a truffle, and it just melts on your tongue.

And the frosting is just regular ganache. (Hehe! As if any ganache is just run of the mill!)

Man, this cake was so fun!

#FridayFunny

Kakistocracy

The other day there was a pretty funny word on the page a day calendar and I have to share it. 

Kakistocracy : government by the worst people.

Kakistocracy. Such a fun sounding word and pretty adequately describes our government sometimes.

Now, if there was only a word like that to describe the media... 

#FridayFunny