Flyby Stardancer

So this still had issues due to Cook's Error. I didn't have enough liquid and wasn't checking it often enough, and had it on high to cook the dry beans, so some burned to the bottom of the slowcooker. :( I managed to rescue most of it by scooping what I could to a pot and adding water, then simmering that. The al dente beans then became soft (at least enough to eat) after about an hour simmering on the stove.

So I'm comparing it to Dennison's Hot chili, because that has been my favorite for years. This iteration doesn't have quite as much beefy flavor, and the heat is slightly more intense, but slower to hit. Considering I'm trying to up my heat tolerance, hotter is not a bad thing! It's just pushing my limits the way it is. Anyways, this is getting pretty close! And is good enough to eat this whole pot (over a few meals!), before I work on a better recipe.

( Mock-Dennison's Chili, Round One! )

So, I'm trying to cut down on the number of chemicals in my diet. (It will likely never get down to zero--I drink way too much soda and other sweetened drinks!) Part of that is trying to get in the habit of making my own bread loaves, and cut down on canned foods.

The chili Is one thing, because I tend to enjoy chili as an easy meal a LOT.

And the bread? I have ingredients in my bread machine for my fourth loaf in a row. :D And while I've gone by the same recipe every time, no two loaves have been the same.

1. Used milk instead of the water/dry milk combo called for, and instant yeast instead of active dry, because that's what I have on hand. I didn't adjust down the yeast from what the "quick" setting calls for, because my yeast was just out of the fridge and I figured it'd still be sleepy and would need the extra time. Uh, NOT. lol Actually touched the top of the machine from the "oven spring", and had fallen by the time the baking was done. Whoops. Still tasted good.

2. Used milk, and replaced the white sugar with honey. Again, used the instant yeast, but I scaled down the amount to the appropriate amount for using on the basic setting.

3. Used buttermilk, and replaced some of the salt with baking soda to balance out some of the acid from the buttermilk. Also used brown sugar instead of white.

4. Tonight's loaf! Went back to milk. Replaced some of the flour with 2 Tbsp of flax seed meal. Also ran out of bread flour, so about 1 cup's worth of the flour in it is AP flour. Also used honey again as the sweetener.

I'm also working on getting my butt up and cleaning more. Cleaned the toilet for the first time, and managed to actually keep up with dishes, including cleaning the stuff I used to measure out the ingredients for bread as soon as the pan was in the machine, and the machine turned on. Hopefully I'll be able to keep it up.

House still isn't completely clean, but it was clean enough for game night. It went well. :)

And my kitties surprise me. Jack has always been friendly. We've had people over before and he would be out demanding attention. Instead, yesterday and today he's hid like a scaredy cat, and has not let me carry him out. Finally tonight he walked out when we were nearly done and peered into the room warily, only to bolt when someone made a move he didn't like.

After a couple hours Cleo came out and stayed out. She was in the room playing with us and getting treats and pets.

( Proof! )

Perhaps one or both will be out more next time I host game.

So, my oven does not work. This means the world of baking is limited to what I can put in my mini muffin maker. (Which is the original model of such devices, I believe. Definitely an old model.)

I decided I wanted to make muffins with my homemade jam in the center. So I took this recipe, omitted the topping, and put a tiny dollop of plum jam in the center.

SO YUMMY.

This recipe is thicker, so the muffins need to make a minute more than the standard time for boxed mixes. However, that's not much of a problem. :)

Now if only I can keep myself from eating all of them tonight...

Just while I'm thinking about it.

For those of you who use box rice mixes and the like... An easy way to add veggies without screwing things up so the rice doesn't cook is to add frozen veggies at the very last second before you put the lid on to simmer it. This way the veggies steam, but don't affect the cooking of anything else. (I've tried adding corn to stuff before, and had the rice not fully cook.)

And I'm making zatarain's dirty rice for dinner.

( Update on Mom. Strays into possible TMI area. )

(Subtitled: I Hate Cancer)

( RL problems behind here. )

( And in a less angsty, but still disheartening note... )

But my knitting kit is MIA. It has everything I need to finish knitting projects (and I have one that I need the kit to finish). It also has all of my crochet hooks in the main sizes I use.

Also, all of my sewing equipment/supplies are at one house. I'm at the other. :/ I printed out a free pattern while I was at work and I'm cutting out the pieces to tape together to cut out the pattern pieces.

...I still want to be sewing. (sigh)

Life has a way with screwing with plans. Will get the second BotCon post up soon as I have time.

Meantime, I stopped by JoAnn's on my home. Had some really good finds in the red tag section (which were 50% off, on top of the red tag discount!).

( More info, including a picture, under here. )

So this year, Mom and I want to give gardening another try. Last Saturday we cleared out our planter boxes of dead leaves (from a neighbor's tree, stupid thing is growing half over our side of the fence and has contributed to destroying the fence) and bad dirt.

So today on our way home we stopped and bought some plants (two strawberries, two tomatoes, bell, poblano, and jalepeno peppers) and soil. We only had time to put old potting soil in the boxes before it got too dark to work. Tomorrow we'll add the new soil and plant. :D Mom's also planning on getting some sawdust from work to cover the soil.

Now, Mom needs to remember to water while I'm at school. Hopefully they'll last long enough for me to get home. And we're hoping to get some usable fruit... We have birds here that like to peck on what we grow and no way of scaring them off. My aunt has her dog to keep the birds away from her plants. We don't have any pets this summer, and Red never was much good about protecting them when he was alive.