Gingerpeople, to be politically correct

I don't personally like gingerbread that much. I find it a little bit bland, like it needs to be sweeter or something. It does, however, make excellent cutout shapes which is why I continue to make it year after year.
This year seems to be a defining year for me in terms of my design and execution skills; last year my decorating cookies were a hot mess, but this year? Excellence. My pumpkin carving skills seem to have undergone the same transformation, but that's another story for an unexpected and hilarious time.
On Tuesday night I decorated sugar cookies with my mother until my student came for tutoring, and then once all students had been dismissed and my mom had gone to bed, I hunkered down in front of the TV with a rack full of gingerbread men (people, persons, its?) and two squeeze bottles of royal icing (note to all cookie decorating enthusiasts: THIS WAS THE BEST DECISION EVER! I will continue to use squeeze bottles instead of icing bags for as long as I only need straight semi-thin lines), a glass of milk and both Home Alone 1 and 2, and off I went until 1:30 in the morning.

I didn't get all of them finished, but what I did get done I quite enjoyed. I'll either finish the rest when I get back from my weekend in Rochester, or leave it up to mom to finish. Regardless, enjoy my pictures. I'm becoming a more efficient cookie-roller, and had all the gingerbread men rolled, baked and cooled in just inside of an hour.

I'm going to go curl up in my warm bed now and settle down for a long winter's nap.

-Laur

Classic Gingerbread Cutouts:

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup molasses
2 eggs
4 cups all-purpose flour, divided
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and brown sugar until smooth. Stir in the molasses and eggs. Combine 1 1/2 cups of the flour, baking soda, salt, allspice, cloves, cinnamon, and ginger; beat into the molasses mixture. Gradually stir in the remaining flour by hand to form a stiff dough.
3. Divide dough into 2 pieces. On a lightly floured surface, roll out dough to 1/8 inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes using cookie cutters. Place cookies 1 inch apart onto ungreased cookie sheets.
4. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Cookie countdown

So here's my first round of cookies: blue snowflakes. I think they're really pretty, and they happen to taste really great, too. The cookie cutter set came with 8 shapes but three of them are weird little tiny things that aren't much use. The biggest one, top left, is about the size of my hand and very sturdy. I made up a batch of Royal Icing to decorate them with, but didn't finish the job; I'll be using white icing and pretty sugar to complete the effect.
Here's the recipe for the cookies:

Best Rolled Sugar Cookies by Jill Saunders

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
Directions
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.













And now for the Royal Icing recipe:

Royal Icing by Veronica

Ingredients
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
2 egg whites, beaten
Directions
In a bowl, sift together confectioners' sugar and cream of tartar. Using electric mixer, beat in 2 beaten egg whites for about 5 minutes or until mixture is thick enough to hold its shape.
I think this post is going to look a little strange, but what can you do.
Do you like my little Christmas tree? Or Hanukkah bush? It's blue and white, but it's a tree, so I suppose it transcends the lines of holiday religion. I like it, anyhow.

Happy baking!

-Laur

Christmas time is here

It's December 1st. Well, it's almost over, but today was mostly December 1st. I've been ignoring my blog because of Nanowrimo, but that's over. I didn't win. I hated my book. Oh well, serves me right for not planning.
So today I decorated the house a little bit and baked half a batch of snowflake-shaped sugar cookies. They're really awesome snowflakes, and I'm going to bake and decorate the rest of them tomorrow. Mom and I also made the awesome centrepiece to your left, and we'll probably put it in the front vestibule to be festive and such. But only if I can find a table to put it on.
The other pictures are ones I doctored up with Picnik after my friend Samantha and I went to the Santa Clause Parade on November 15th. It was an almost balmy day and the parade was lovely and short, about 2 hours long, and we had a good spot right at St. George station across from the Bata Shoe Museum. We could see everything, and afterwards we went for a little window-shop in Yorkville.
I'm taking my holiday baking very seriously this year, and starting tomorrow I'm going to blog my cookie recipes and photos every time I bake a new kind.
Cheers!
-Laur

It's getting to be that time again...

Well, when the web badges are up you KNOW that it's on its way...National Novel Writing Month 2009, in its 11th proud year, will be starting at 12:01 am on November 1st, and though I will probably still be partying my grass off, I will definitely be plotting this year's masterpiece in a small, inebriated corner of my mind.
This year I want more of my creative friends to get involved; I have so many people in my life who are capable of such greatness, and few of them every try to achieve it.
Here is my hit list for people who should do Nanowrimo this year:
Aleks Sagan
Marisa Williams
Samantha Feder
Aaron Armstrong
Robert Hull
There are more, but I can't think of them right now. So, my friends, this is an open challenge: write your hearts out in November, and see what happens. It may be one of the most meaningful experiences you ever have. Go sign up at the Nanowrimo website and find me, Lolowin, so I can support you through one of the most challenging and rewarding months ever.

Can you dig it?

- Laur

Thanksgiving experiments

The Dulce de Leche cutouts cookies I made. I doubled the recipe and got all the conversions right except for the eggs. The dough, as a result, was extremely dry and hard to work with. But, in the end, I managed to get it all out onto the pans and they look pretty good, I think.
The works in progress.

Today I had the day off and I baked and cooked up a storm. I made that squash soup again, with some small changes; I forgot that I used up all my celery the other night in a pan-Asian stir fry, so I nixed it and made up for it with carrot and Spanish onion, which I sauteed in a very small amount of bacon grease (OH MY!). Then I figured out how to cut a pie pumpkin in half (above), gutted it and roasted it for an hour and a half. Then, using oven mits so I think I wasted some of it due to reduced dexterity, I scraped the flesh from the skin and mashed it and pureed it with my immersion blender (below). Pumpkin puree doesn't smell nice, just so everyone knows.

Below is the pumpkin cookie dough that I made with aforementioned pumpkin puree. I used real, fresh-ground cinnamon in it. I think I left some residue in my coffee grinder, but that cinnamon packs a punch, and leaves some heat on your tongue. WOO!

The finished cookies. They have oatmeal and chocolate chips in them. And a shitload of butter and sugar, woah now. They have a very cake-like consistency.

Becoming a Foodie

I've been cooking up a storm in my house, woohoo! After a weekend journey to St. Jacob's Farmers Market, I brought home 4 butternut squash, 3 pie pumpkins, 6 huge leeks and 2 gorgeous Spanish onions. Mom and I proceeded to make the best soup of life, pictured above.
I find that I really enjoy cooking, moreso now than ever before. The thing I missed most about home in Europe was not being able to do my own cooking; mind you, a lot of the food I ate was stupendous and probably something I could never reproduce, but I still missed being able to make myself a simple omlette in the morning or a pan-Asian stirfry for dinner.
Tonight for dessert after a dinner of aforementioned squash soup I made cinnamon buns from a recipe I found on Allrecipes.com (my new recipe go-to site). Even though I had to alter the bake time (15 minutes was not enough to prevent some still-raw dough in their centres), they turned out far better than I ever could have imagined and I am so pleased. Being able to make interesting desserts is important to me; I don't have an array of parlour tricks or whatever to pull out when guests are around, but by golly I can cook a delicious 3 course meal! I'm not going to go all Julie Powell (Julie and Julia) on you, especially since I was reading Chatelaine and I found out that after her book became a success she went out and cheated on her husband, her biggest cheerleader during her cooking blog experiment, and ruined her marriage. Now, I don't exactly have a marriage to destroy, or even a romantic relationship, but I feel like this journey should be shared in bits and pieces. I'm learning; I didn't blog about every class I attended throughout my university career, so I probably won't do it for this particular segment of my education. I will, however, share with you, my faithful readers, a selection of my triumphs, and my failures.
The cinnamon buns are rolling unpleasantly in my stomach, but you know what? They were worth it.













- Laur

Quichey quiche

Today is Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of repentance. You're supposed to fast all day and reflect on the sins you have committed throughout the year. Being a non-believer, I've decided that you should reflect every day in an effort not to do things that hurt people so often, so I ate a delicious breakfast and lunch, and I just sampled the spinach and mushroom quiche I baked for tonight's feast at my house.
I've been cooking a lot lately, way more than usual, and using recipes properly so that I don't have as many screw-ups in the kitchen. The other day I made potato gnocchi all by myself, and my mom gave it her seal of approval. Now all I have to do is get a real Italian to tell me how to improve it and I'm all set! I made an Alfredo sauce from a recipe too, but it was awful and I'll never make it again. I like my own white sauce, that I make with butter, flour, garlic, salt, milk (or cream, when I'm feeling ultra-indulgent) and a little bit of Parmesan cheese. I've also been baking bread; I seem to be pro at white bread, but whole wheat isn't going so well. I'll try it again on Wednesday.
Anywho, I'm going to take a nap before getting up to vacuum, sweep, and shower. My house smells amazing.

-Laur

Slow return to reality

2 weekends ago I helped put a famous pig-roast party into play in Muskoka on a family friend's island. It was fantastic, and the weeks leading up to it were spent focused on getting the right food together, prepping, packing, and mentally preparing ourselves for the madness to come. This picture is of Jessica Poland and myself, goofing around during the party (it's mostly me goofing around, but hey, someone had to!). But the party ended, and reality struck, and I realized something:

I feel really bad. That may not be the most profound statement ever made, but it's true. I realize that lately I've been really selfish, and it's time to stop.
Things haven't been easy since Sarah came home. She's been depressed, and was out of work for a while, and when she's home she sits in front of the TV all day or never gets out of bed. She doesn't contribute, and lately more than ever it's been apparent that Mom is going to need some more financial help running the household.
Yes, when I'm home I tend to do things. I clean, or I get rid of items that need getting rid of. I empty the cats' litter box, I vacuum, I organize the kitchen, I do handy-work...but that's not enough.
So, even though I said I didn't want to even look for a teaching job until January, I'm going to start putting my resume and cover letter out there, to see if I get any bites. Not just to public schools, but to private ones and tutoring companies, too. I feel burned out from last year, discouraged for sure, and my teaching confidence definitely took a hit (for those of you who don't know, last year's teaching placement experience was ANYTHING but positive, for the most part), but I'll do it.
So wish me luck! Soon I might have a classroom of my very own!

-Laur

Countdown!

So I now have a widget at the bottom of this web page that is counting down to my departure for parts unknown, AKA London, England. 15 days and counting. HOW DID IT GET SO CLOSE???

I'm nervous but excited. I have so much reading to do! Time to shower and hit the books.

-Laur

Oh, and I also graduated on Monday

I almost forgot, I also graduated on Monday. I guess the excitement from the weekend preceding sort of detracted from the actual event. Nevertheless, I marched across that stage to the cheers of my friends and accepted my Bachelor of Education gratefully.
Now I'm finished :)

-Laur

Feels like home to me

So I spent the weekend with my family in Edmonton. We were there celebrating my grandmother's 85th birthday in what was basically a 48-hour party, though the official shindig was only 4 hours long. It was amazing, I got to see my old boss and my Edmonton friends and have great visits with my family and see some people I hadn't seen in over 9 years.
Feels like home to me.

-Laur

Skills

So I got my new camera almost a month ago and it has been so much fun to play with. Please enjoy these pictures from the last few days, including Princess Xander under the patio table. It was actually too hot for him. What a princess.

-Laur

A year of firsts

On Saturday I went to my first friend wedding. My dear friend Marisa Williams became Mrs. Josh Tierney. When I think about it my first instinct is to scream in terror, because I AM SO NOT READY, but it wasn't my wedding, and Marisa was ready. And now she's someone's wife.
I think it's so cool that she got married. She planned the whole event so perfectly, and it looked so beautiful and I know everyone there had such a great time. She should be so proud.
Today she and Josh flew to Paris for a 2-week honeymoon. I know they're going to have the most amazing time.

-Laur

It's not every day

that you find an elephant in front of a museum. Not a taxidermied, stuffed woolly mammoth, but a real, live African elephant wearing a sign around its middle. No joke. I was at OISE for an interview-type thing and when I was finished I decided to take my new camera (yes, I bought it yesterday after school) for a walk over the the Royal Ontario Museum to take some pictures of the new building addition that I STILL haven't seen.
So I'm walking along and I inhale through my nose (something I try not to do downtown because my mucus turns grey, sorry for the TMI) and smelled...elephant. It's a very specific smell, elephant. I can't really describe it, but I can tell you that I've been to zoos with elephants enough times to identify that smell easily. So I look at the crowd forming down the street and lo and behold...an elephant.
Apparently the ROM is putting on an animal exhibit of some sort this summer and today was the kickoff; the Metro Toronto Zoo was kind enough to donate the time of some handlers and 1 large African elephant, 1 juvenile male Bengal tiger, 1 Grevy's zebra, 1 massive Clydesdale horse and a 1 tiny and spunky Shetland pony for the cause.
I was so close to that elephant that if I had stood in line long enough, I could have had the chance to feed it a pellet of hay and touch it. I was scared, I'm not going to lie, so I didn't do it. Now I really wish I had. I did take a bunch of pictures, though, until my battery died (first time, had to drain it) and I went back to the subway instead of going into the museum.
What an adventure!
-Laur

The upshot...

Well, it's all over. It's amazing how a person can spend months building up to a certain day and then feel slightly bereft, because a day is only 24 hours no matter how you shake it.
Ed Formal is over and I feel bereft. Not in a weepy, unhappy kind of way, just in a gently missing kind of way.
The evening was AMAZING; from an organizer's point of view, it could not have gone any better. Dinner wasn't right on schedule but everyone got to eat, so there were no complaints; the music was good even though the DJ didn't stick to the playlist I gave him, and the professional photographer took hundreds of pictures. Both Don Dippo, the Associate Dean of Education and Steve Sedran, FESA's president, gave great speeches despite the lack of attention coming from one particular side of the room. Even the seating plans were relatively uneventful, again with the exception of one particular site.
We sold raffle tickets and gave away some gorgeous prizes, photos from the school in Kenya we support as well as several pieces of African art, and finally, everyone was very vocal in how much they enjoyed themselves.
On a sad note, there were a number of thefts committed at the event, one of them involving my own faithful pink Kodak V803 digital camera, so bye-bye pictures. My friends have been super about sharing their pictures with me, but it's not the same. I'm eyeing a Canon SD1200IS (yes, the one from the commercial with Avril Lavigne) as a replacement, but I'm going to have to cut into my Europe fund to get it. I can't go to Europe without a camera, after all.
There will be more pictures eventually, but for now I have to focus on my last 3 days of placement, my final evaluation, applying to more boards and cleaning my disgusting sty of a bedroom.

Forever in blue,

-Laur

Won't you please, please, please let me get what I want

I feel like I've been waiting for this day forever. Everything that I've been doing for FESA since January has been geared toward May 15th, and in 20 minutes...well, it will be May 15th.
In the words of Penny Lane in Almost Famous, "It's all happening".
Tomorrow night Ed Formal 2009 will coalesce into red and black sparkle and shine, a ballroom full of music, lights and 500 people will spread out before me and I will be, for one brief evening, sitting on top of the world.
I hope it's amazing.
Won't you please, please, please let me get what I want.

-Laur

P.S. Grey's Anatomy just broke my heart.

Someday I'll fly away

I'm going to Europe this summer. Isn't that just awesome?
Here is the trip I'm going on: European Highlights. I'll see England (but I'll be arriving 5 days in advance so I can take my time), France, Italy, Germany and the Netherlands before coming back to London for an evening and flying home the next day.
I'm so, so excited. I think it's going to be so much fun!
Here are some pictures of some of the places I'm going to see: