Happy Birthday Ka and Zaia!

On July 12, Ka and Zaia turned one year old. They got a day of canned food and new toys - a feather toy for Ka (which he stole out of the bag, packaging and all) and a new puff ball for Zaia. Zaia killed her puff ball in roughly 30 seconds flat, but we consider that a success.



For perspective, here's a picture of them when we first got them. Note that they are sitting in the same cat tree in both pictures. When we first got them, we thought Ka would be the crazy, run-around-the-house cat, less of a lap kitty and more of a get-in-trouble kitty. Zaia would be the lap cat, more shy but loving with the people she's comfortable with. We were wrong on those predictions.

Ka loves to sit on laps. He'll follow us around the house, waiting for a lap opportunity. He sits on laps daily. He's also braver with new people - greeting new people within 10 minutes or so, where Zaia will likely retreat into her room for the duration of the visit. Zaia is more of a weekly lap-sitter, but indulges in daily insanity. She'll play with her toys, chase herself up and down the stairs, hopping in and out of boxes, behind the curtains and she gets a spray dousing for attacking the blinds every evening. She's shyer around people, but braver around gadgets. She was the first to use the robot litterbox and will sit near the vacuum cleaner longer than Ka. They haven't learned any new tricks in a while (primarily my fault for not teaching them anything new), but they still happily do their old tricks for treats.

They've been a wonderful addition to the household family so far and we look forward to many more years with them.

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Addicted to... Oatmeal?

I have apparently never had real oatmeal. Sure, I've had the little flavored packets I add water to. I was once partial to the cinnamon or maple flavors. But no more!

This weekend, I was too lazy to head out to a brunch place and I didn't want to have 2 pancake breakfasts in a row. So I tried the old-fashioned oatmeal recipe - the kind that takes half an hour to make. Nothing instant about it. I had oats (for granola) and milk (for yogurt) lying around and of course some butter and salt. I let things simmer, waited about half and hour and voila! The fluffiest, creamiest, toothsome oatmeal I have ever tasted. I sprinkled brown sugar over the first bowl. And when I went back for seconds, I tried honey drizzled over it. I would have tried maple syrup next, but my stomach ran out of room. It even reheats well in the microwave.

Guess what I'm having for breakfast this week?

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America's Test Kitchen Bread Rescue

Having gotten a good start on bread weapons, I thought it would be nice to learn how to make edible bread so I know what NOT to do for bread weapons making.

I turned to The New Best Recipe cookbook for some help. Otherwise known as the "engineer's cookbook", The New Best Recipe is made by the folks at America's Test Kitchen who also edit Cook's Illustrated magazine. Luckily for me they had a section on making baguettes.

I knew I had bitten off more than I can chew at first when the opening paragraph of the baguette section included, "Where we parted ways was on the question of whether you could actually create an outstanding baguette at home in a regular oven." Uh oh.

I spent a weekday evening reading through their thorough research. From visual cues how to tell that the sponge was ready, to when the dough is kneaded enough all the way to when the bread is done baking, they outlined it all. They had some nice pictures of the aforementioned sponge (the sponge is the first mixture of yeast, flour and water, I call it yeast appetizer, before the rest of the flour is added) which I found very helpful as an end condition to watch for. My sponge actually wasn't ready in the cookbook's estimated duration of 8 hours, but took the rest of the night into the next morning.

I already knew that I enjoy the kneading process - it's very relaxing squishing around a ball over and over again - but the new process made it even more fun. The reason I didn't reach the windowpane condition of the dough the last time was because I was adding the wrong ingredient to address the issue: flour instead of water. Adding water on top of the dough only made it feel slippery and hard to grip, but by "crashing" the dough, picking it up and throwing it down on the work surface repeatedly, it would not only splash bits of water at the counter, but incorporate the water into the dough. Best of all, when I pinched off a tiny bit of dough and stretched it, it didn't break and became translucent - the elusive, yet promised windowpane.

The baking process was also fun and much more active. I used my pizza stone to bake on rather than a regular cookie sheet. But on the rack beneath the pizza stone was a pan of water to keep the humidity of the oven air up as the bread baked and prevent the crust from drying out, hardening and preventing the bread from expanding. The bread was done when the inside reached a temperature of 205-210F, so I was having to spear hot bread with my thermometer through the blazing heat of the oven to see if it was done.

Then it was time to see the results. Before the taste test, I was able to actually cut the bread with a bread knife. The crust was slightly crunchy and the crumb inside looked relatively uniform. It tasted like bread! I thought it was on the chewy side, but not the kind of chewy I remember store bought baguettes being like. But it tasted like bread! Victory dance!

Next up, sourdough.

PS: Believe it or not, the photo in this post is actually my bread.

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