Just Checking In...

Yes, I am still alive, and no I haven't gone into labor yet. There have been a lot of changes going on in my life here recently (not the least of which being my increasingly beach ball sized belly) and I haven't been able to find the time nor the inspiration to blog. I promise there will be a new post here as soon as I'm feeling up to it.

Until then...try to guess what I'm doing in this picture!

A Long Expected Party

A very Happy Birthday to Bilbo and Frodo Baggins on this 22nd of September, 2010! I would mention their respective ages, but I'm afraid I don't know how to convert Shire Reckoning to the Gregorian calendar.

I say we celebrate with a pint of the Gaffer's home brew (or some cider for us expectant folk)! Bottoms up! Also, check out Seven Geeky Ways to Celebrate Frodo and Bilbo’s Birthday With Your Kids. I particularly like #4.

Monkey Balls!...Er, I Mean Bread

One of my favorite memories from my childhood is of visiting my grandparents, where we would pop open canisters of refrigerated biscuit dough, cut them into pieces with scissors, cover them in butter and cinnamon-sugar, and pile them all in a Bundt pan to bake. My grandmother always called them Monkey Balls, a moniker which her grandchildren found truly amusing and entertaining (for obvious reasons....giggle). I remember on more than one occasion we would somehow miscalculate the bake time and/or temperature, and end up with a very crunchy exterior and a rather doughy interior (which we still ate, of course).

Well, since then my standards have changed just a little bit, to where the use of refrigerated biscuit dough would be tantamount to culinary murder (sorry Gramma!). So you can imagine my delight when I stumbled upon (and when I say "stumbled upon" I really mean actively searched out...because I'm pregnant and I crave things) a recipe on smitten kitchen for homemade monkey bread...sans Pillsbury! She takes her version from Cook's Illustrated and adds a cream cheese glaze, which I omitted because 1) I was craving the Monkey Balls from my childhood, which did not include a glaze, and 2) I didn't have any cream cheese on hand. The result was an even better version of the one my grandmother made. Glory! And I polished most of it off by myself...because I'm pregnant.

Monkey Bread

Adapted from smitten kitchen

Dough
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick or 2 ounces) unsalted butter, divided (2 tablespoons softened, 2 tablespoons melted)
1 cup milk, warm (around 110 degrees)
1/3 cup water, warm (also around 110 degrees)
1/4 cup granulated sugar (I used organic cane sugar)
1 package or 2 1/4 teaspoons rapid rise, instant or bread machine yeast
3 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting
2 teaspoons table salt

Brown Sugar Coating
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (I added an extra 1/2 teaspoon, because I love cinnamon)
8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick or 4 ounces), melted

1. Adjust oven rack to medium-low position and heat oven to 200°F. When oven reaches 200, turn it off. Butter Bundt pan with 2 tablespoons softened butter. Set aside.

2. In large measuring cup, mix together milk, water, melted butter, sugar, and yeast.

To proceed with a stand mixer, mix flour and salt in standing mixer fitted with dough hook. Turn machine to low and slowly add milk mixture. After dough comes together, increase the speed to medium and mix until dough is shiny and smooth, 6 to 7 minutes. The dough will be slightly sticky. Turn dough onto lightly floured counter and knead briefly to form a smooth, round ball.

To proceed by hand, mix flour and salt in large bowl. Make a well in the flour, then add the milk mixture to the well. Using a wooden spoon or dough scraper, stir until dough becomes shaggy and is difficult to stir. Turn out onto lightly floured work surface and begin to knead, incorporating shaggy scraps back into dough. Knead until dough is smooth and satiny, about 10 minutes. Shape into taut ball and proceed as directed.

3. Coat large bowl with nonstick cooking spray or a tablespoon of neutral oil. Place dough in bowl and coat surface of dough with more cooking spray or roll around to coat in oil. Cover bowl with plasti-crap and place in warm oven until dough doubles in size, 50 to 60 minutes.

4. Place melted butter in one bowl. Mix brown sugar and cinnamon in a second one.

5. Flip dough out onto floured surface and gently pat into an 8-inch square. Using a bench scraper or knife, cut dough into 64 pieces. Gently roll each piece of dough into a ball. Working one at a time, dip balls in melted butter, allowing excess butter to drip back into bowl (a fork helps). Roll in brown sugar mixture, then layer balls in Bundt pan, staggering seams where dough balls meet as you build layers. Cover Bundt pan tightly with plasti-crap and place in turned-off oven until dough balls are puffy and have risen 1 to 2 inches from top of pan, 50 to 70 minutes.

6. Remove pan from oven and heat oven to 350°F. Unwrap pan and bake until top is deep brown and caramel might begin to bubble around edges, 30 to 35 minutes (mine didn't bubble, but it was definitely done). Cool in pan for 5 minutes (no longer, or you’ll have trouble getting it out) then turn out on platter and allow to cool slightly, about 10 minutes. Serve warm.

Basically, you just pull the thing apart with your fingers. I was a tad impatient and probably dug into it too soon because I burned my fingers more than once, but it was divine!

In the immortal words of Julia Child: Bon appetit!

Confessions of a Northern Transplant

It was almost 90 degrees Fahrenheit today...in the middle of September...when I'm supposed to be unpacking my hoodies and drinking hot beverages in the crisp, slightly chill air.

Instead, I'm trying to stay cool by running the air conditioner and the ceiling fan at the same time (being pregnant has turned me into a walking furnace).

I don't know if I'll ever get used to the weather here in the south. While there are many positives to living here (loads of barbecue, friendly people, "Red State", etc.) I don't count the weather as one of them. Some of you may say, "You won't be saying that when winter comes!" Oh yes, I will. See, I actually don't mind winter. Some of my fondest memories are of the various blizzards I have weathered during my childhood and adolescence. There's nothing like curling up in front of the window with a gratuitously large mug of coffee and watching each snowflake make its balletic descent into obscurity. I was lucky last year to experience one of the snowiest winters this area has seen in a long while. It made leaving the north a bit easier.

As much as I love snow, however, autumn has always occupied a special place in my heart (hence why it was chosen as the preferred season for our wedding last year). And I suppose my internal clock has yet to reset itself, because I've already switched over into "Fall Mode"...a tad early for this climate, methinks.

For example, I desperately want to mull some cider. "You want to do what to that cider?" I want to mull it. No, I do not want to ruminate on it, although I have found myself in a very contemplative state whilst sipping apple cider. I want to mull it in the following sense:

To heat, sweeten, and flavor with spices for drinking, as ale or wine.

 Mulled, or spiced, cider is a favorite of mine. As a matter of fact, just this evening I purchased a bottle of home fragrance oil from Bath & Body Works in that very scent. It typifies autumn to me (probably because my mom makes a massive batch of it every Thanksgiving)...and it's damn good!

So last week, when the weather was beginning to look like it could be cooling off, I became a little overzealous and made my own mulling spices, fully intending to mull the gallon of cider I purchased back when I made my apple pie (also in a fit of zeal). I will share the recipe for the spices with you and hopefully you live in a climate that will allow you to actually use them without having to run the air conditioner full blast. I found this particular recipe on Love to Know:

Basic Mulling Spices

Makes 1 1/2 cups

6 cinnamon sticks
1 small whole nutmeg
1/2 cup whole cloves
1/2 cup whole allspice
Grated peel of one whole orange

Put the cinnamon and nutmeg in a zippered storage bag and chip into medium sized pieces with a hammer or the flat side of a meat tenderizer. Place in a storage container (in my case, another plastic bag) with the cloves, allspice and orange peel.

To use, place two tablespoons full of the spice in a square of cheesecloth, tie with twine, and add to four cups of cider (or wine). Sweeten to taste (I used about 1/2 cup of sugar for four cups). Simmer for three or more hours and serve hot. This works best in a crock pot, but you can do it on the stove, just make sure not to boil it.

This mix smells heavenly! Whenever I walk by the cupboard where it is kept I stop and inhale deeply. Ahh, fall...

Pants are the Devil...and Make You Look Fat

Apparently there has recently been a debate of sorts circulating around the Catholic blogosphere on the moral standing of pants vs. skirts. Yes, pants vs. skirts. We're still having that discussion. This particular bout is being fought in response to an article over at CatholiCity, a website closely associated with a man who divorced his wife for no reason and gained custody of their four children by demanding she stop homeschooling them. Awesome, right?

So basically, the article pleads with women everywhere to discard our "damned pants" for the sake of modesty and femininity. We should wear dresses and skirts all the time in order to avoid being a stumbling block into temptation for all those poor men who want to respect us, but just can't if we insist on wearing form-hugging, flaw enhancing, evil, evil pants (actual points about pants made by the author...with the exception of "evil" although it is consistently implied).

Now, I'm an unabashed skirt wearer....especially during my pregnancy because, well, they're the only things that fit comfortably under my increasingly rotund belly. But I wear pants on occasion, especially during the wintertime or when I'm planning on engaging in an activity that will make the wearing of pants particularly convenient (like bungee jumping). I am, however, one of the weirdos that is sincerely, truly and honestly more comfortable in skirts. Given the choice between a pair of jeans and a long skirt, I will almost always choose the skirt. That being said, I take issue with the idea that women must wear skirts, or any particular article of clothing.

 My comments on the article follow:

Almost every style of pants reveals private information about your figure (by way of contour) what only your husband (and if not him, no man, including your sons, if you have sons) should perceive.

And some styles of skirts reveal just as much as a pair of tight pants. So is it the pants themselves that are the problem, or the fit? Can we not wear a skirt just as immodestly as a pair of pants? Is it really the pants themselves that are the problem? Hmmm.

Thus, even a woman endowed with the most spectacular genetic form, in the bloom of her youth, can be given the illusion of ugliness, if not cheapness, by wearing pants. Likewise, pants rarely do anything but exaggerate extra volume on our figures.

Wait a minute. First pants are an occasion for temptation, and now they merely serve to accentuate our wobbly bits? Make up your mind!

Of course, we defer and appeal to our male readers to make clear your moral clothing preferences to the women and girls within your realm of responsibility or influence.

...Um, what?

In the day-to-day reality of the suburban lives most of us live, men almost always delegate the purchase of clothing to their wives. Women then make virtually all the fashion choices, mistakenly relying upon the opinions of other women (who know either too little or too much about how fashion choices affect men morally). Good women are always tempted to buy the styles they see other women and young girls wearing; inevitably everyone, men and women, are pulled downward by the undertow of the constantly lowered bar of our sexualized and superficial culture.

Heaven forbid a woman purchase her own clothing!! It's too bad we're too weak-minded to make the right decisions about such purchases. The corrupting influence of society is too strong! WHO WILL HELP US?!?

May we suggest (or perhaps you wives and daughters might suggest) that your husbands and fathers take you shopping for the expressed purpose of choosing everyday clothing for you.

Oh thank God! I thought I was doomed to harlotry!

Can I just say that the idea of my dear father going shopping with me to help me pick out clothes makes me want to laugh so hard I would actually pee (pregnancy will do that to you). Not that he has poor taste, but I can just picture this scene in the women's department of JcPenney's:

Me: "So, um...what do you think of this?"
Dad: "Heck, I don't know. Get whatever you want. I'll be in the men's section..."

And while I take my darling husband's opinion into account, he by no means determines what I wear. He thinks I'm just as beautiful in a pair of pants as in a skirt, and he most definitely sees the practicality of pants for certain situations.

The fact that this has been turned into a moral issue is ridiculous. The pants themselves are morally neutral...they're just pants! It's how they are worn that constitutes the real moral issue, and I can definitely agree that there are some styles of pants that should never be worn. But if I wear a pair of pants to weed my garden I shouldn't feel like I'm breaking some moral code. I also shouldn't feel like I'm betraying my femininity. I affirm my femininity every day I bear this child in my womb, and I will continue to affirm my femininity once he is born by mothering him and raising him to be a respectful Catholic gentleman.

Now where are my maternity jeans?