Toaster Tarts are good enough for Jazz!

I like pastries… maybe too much, and i like making them too.. enough that i could happily keep this recipie in circulation and never buy a bakery version again! I know what’s in these at least. :)

They are intended to bear similarity to pop tarts or frozen strudels, and i would say that they are more like the latter.

I used the fruit compote we had left over from a dinner party as the filling but it was a little runny even after i thickened it and simmered it down for an hour or so.. so the goo was leaking out the sides as i was assembling the two halves of pastry, but once they were baked they held tight. I reccomend using your absolutely favouritist jam… My next batch will be filled with apricot&brandy jam.

Indulgence!
Oh yeah, and they keep really well in the freezer and are ready in the minute or two they take to toast, but are crispy and delicious!

SO MANY LEMONS!

My roommate half-arsed the master cleanse.

I love her, but somehow she wasn’t able to sell all 30 on craigslist even for the bargain basement price of 6.75, and she wasn’t willing to cut back on her level of physical activity while cleansing. I totally get it. But its been driving me nuts to see all these lemons sitting on the table getting old. Its sort of heartbreaking.

I had an idea that what i could do is use them to make yellow snow cones to distribute during the downtown spring olympics madness here in vancouver, alas, my plans were much more complicated by the details such as lacking a snow machine.

Anyhoo, there are rather a few recipies in the JPC and i opted to make enough lemonzestvodka to make a double batch of both Limoncello liquor and Limoncrema.

I juiced all the lemons after zesting them and wound up making a lemonade sirop that i’ve frozen for the summer, I froze 6 icecubes worth in the icetray and will try making individual lemonades by adding a cube to a glass of water. its about 4TBSP of sugar to 1.5 cups of lemonjuice and seems to be about the right amount to add to a pitcher of water. :) Hooray for useful.

I will update on the progress of the liquers as they progress, pretty good work for a sunny sunday!

Yogurt Cheese is my new staple food!

So easy and wonderfully rich and light at the same time.

All you gotta do is hang up some yogurt in a piece of clean jersey or a teatowel overnight and you end up with this amazing spreadable wonder. Its better for you and tangier than cream cheese on a bagel.
My current favourite is adding rosemary to it… mmm… rosemary yogurt cheese on a raisin muffin! :)

Jammin' in Vancouver!!!

Kiki:
Hey blog: How do you feel about being re-directed for a while towards my newest obsession?

Blahg:
Sure! I'm game, write all over me!

K:
Cool! Well I finally bought my very own copy of 'Jam it, Pickle it Cure it!' By Karen Solomon and in so doing broke my debt repayment rule of 'NO book's until the debt's gone'... but it was a conditional rule break.

I broke the rule because: I have a plan.

B: -Oh no, not another plan!

K:
Oh yeah, I'm gonna work my way through every recipie in this book, not unlike the whole julie/julia thing... but well... cooler because this book is cooler. To me. Seriously, Curing my own bacon... SO THERE!

B:
Is that sanitary?!

K:
Well wether or not it is, i'm darn well going to do that, and the rest of the recipies/projects in this book and expand my repetoire of things even further because in life, i am the jill of all trades and master of none.. and darn proud of it!

B:
That certainly is true.

K:
Great, so you're on board! Its up to you to record my wins and losses in this particular trail of kitchen related escapades and even when its feeling tough, and as though there isn't any point in making yet another batch of homemade toaster tarts, (less salty this time) there is a magical outcome that doesn't involve a movie deal or a hug from meryl streep... although you know how much i like hugging famous people and discretely clipping a lock of their hair for DNA analysis and later genetic mapping.

B:
Ok, GO! Whats the magical culmination of this forlorn and somewhat pre-emptively self-depricating goal?

K:
I'm going to San Francisco!
Not only has Ms. Solomon Written an awesome book that is so well photographed and typeset i want to lick the pages, she's tucked away her personal secrets and scores in 'The Cheapskates Guide to San Francisco'. Wouldn't you know it, i've never been there as an adult... and i'm broke.

B:
Sounds formidable.. but surprisingly well considered.

K:
Thanks self-talking encouragement voice that i have so far called 'blog' (or Blahg in this printing)!!! Lets Get Cracking!

B:
Indeed!


Note to self:
The next few posts will be backdated to relfect their original entry on the interweb.

GO ME!

My new and deeper dreamscape

It has been a few months now since the change in my body chemistry and i'm now a victim/winner of fantastically vivid dreams.
I have yet to decide how i feel about them, but i'm going to use this blog since i hardly use it for anything anymore as a dreamblog, I will record as i remember these events.

Oh, yes.
I woke up just now 3:48 or so after a dream about being a school mistress (a la jane ayre) and our funding decreased drastically, which meant closure until further notice. At this point many of the teachers i oversaw mostly young women all went out to the playground of my childhood and tried to enjoy each other (non-sexually) for the last time before going home. The atmosphere was of desperation and I apparently also dealing pot on the side took full advantage. I found myself commiserating with two young cooks at same school... brothers and hiding out in back of the cafeteria kitchen hot boxing the storage room. Unfortunately, there was a vent down into an alley and the smoke wafted out and then up into the quarters of two very young south american dudes who were acutely offended and made haste, gun in the hand of the younger one, somehow holstered so as too be kept a distance from the body. I watched horrified half way to escape out of a side door as he panicked, gun against the throat of my comrade, whose brother swept back in after evading the other south american and the two of them pulled the trigger in a struggle. Next the body of my friend although well-stoned slumped further into the box he sat on blood trickling from his fatal wound and the tables turned. His brother managed to wrestle the gun out of its strange forcefield, turn it on the south american who was no more than 16 and use it to push him out the door away from the corpse. I pleaded with him: 'They're brother's too.,Don't be hasty!'

That's pretty much the end.
Woke up shaken, not stirred with a trickle of tears and the feeling of clenched jaw.

Poolapalooza

Its been a lot of years of feeling well, plump.

Its been a lot of feeling like 'i don't like to exercise' and now I think I'm getting it, because I have found my 'thing'.

There is nothing better than setting the pace in the lengths lane at the pool, even if it is an evening swim attended primarily by seniors from my hood.

I love doing this, and I absolutely love the resulting toning in my body. I am wearing all the same clothes but they just fit better now.

I wore a (cutest) little hepburnesque gingham silk top to the Gala event at the Cultch the other day. I put it on and thought; 'this has never looked right, I bulge out of it' and yet, to my surprise; It fit BEAUTIFULLY!

I relished the occasional top shelf reach because it showed off my smoother than ever tum!

Hooray for having a pool down the street! I won't go back to frumpy when fabulous is so fun!!!

Kiki

A little over a year ago I was just readying myself for the thrust into a whole new life, culture and career.

A little over a year ago, I was spent at working a job that had helped me through, but become like an overbearing parent, full of weighty obligations and numbing patience as i waited to finally move on.

I loved that life I lived, the freedom i had learned to cultivate for myself there. I loved knowing every inch of that city, and still finding something new every day. I loved to be held warm and close by the friends who I loved, knew and who I trusted felt the same for me.

I leapt.

I leapt into a new kind of patience, one that required me to encourage myself and be satisfied with the possibilities that lay ahead. I reveled in the opportunity to introduce myself to the new people I met, and to myself since afterall such a change does change a person to a degree.

So in the spirit of re-introductions, and fresh steps I began to wear the nickname I never knew I wanted as my own.

I felt this springy fresh name was oppressively optimistic at times, and even unduly sexual on occasion in the context of business but somehow I wore it well, it emboldened me to a degree, and I was secretly shifting it towards a more confident and wise reading.

Kiki, rooted in my Finnish name 'Kirsi' is easier to pronounce, is sweet and memorable, is unorthodox...but who isn't, it references a new area of growth on an orchid, its Happy.

Kiki is my friend, is fantastic, is still figuring it out

Kiki lives in the Pacific Northwest and loves the green rainforests and grey riverbeds and teal lakes.

Kiki cherishes her family and all of her wonderful good friends spread all over this planet.

Kiki is helpful, a bit shy, a boisterous party animal, a sharp witted comrade, a considerate debater.

Kiki is a willing student of home cooking, musicianship, instrument repair and life in general.

Kiki is well loved, certain of her intentions if not her course of action, eloquent, and dedicated to doing good everyday.

.

Kiki is who I am becoming, without losing sight of my pasts, I feel like I have become a grown up these past few years, it feels good.