A delicious contradiction: quick bread in a slow cooker

I love baking, but sometimes it just seems so wrong to have it be 100 degrees outside, with the air conditioning keeping it in the mid-80s, then cranking up the oven to 400.  And so I've also made friends with my slow cooker.  Along with the energy savings, I love that most recipes involve gathering some ingredients into the pot, leaving them for a few hours, and returning to find a delicious meal.  And the more I use my slow cooker, the more things I find you can make in it.

Case in point: bread!  Bread is one of my aspirational bakes, I eventually want to do some of the 'real' bread baking of yeast activating and rising and punching and all that jazz, but quick breads are a good stepping stone for building my confidence.  This recipe popped up in a few places, and I thought I'd give it a try.  I thought bread would make a good addition to the pot luck table for the Ravellenics cast on party, since it's pretty much a finger food that requires few 'accessories'.  And since this is a garlic parmesan bread, anything you spread on it would just be extra goodness.

This is a very simple recipe that lends itself well to making again with some variations and additions.  From the base of Bisquick, egg, milk, and a little sugar, you could add more than onions and garlic.  How about some rosemary?  Maybe switch it up entirely and add taco seasoning and Jack cheese for taco bread?  I'm clearly making this again.

The only adjustment I made to the original recipe was to double it because my slow cooker is a 6 quart. It turned out great, though I could probably have left it cooking for a few minutes more to get the middle a little more done.  I haven't yet learned the fine art of knowing when bread is ready like I have cookies and cakes.  And then it sure was a fun conundrum figuring out how to get it out of the deep ceramic dish.  But I got it eventually, with just a little breakage.

This was graciously gobbled up by my fellow knitters, and we only took a chunk home with us.

No more yarn...and this time, I mean it!

The trouble with going on a yarn diet for any length of time beyond a month is that there are always little events popping up that make seem irrational not to add to your stash.  There are big sales at Hill Country Weavers at the start and middle of the year, fiber festivals in April and November, not to mention other random sales from stores both on and off-line.  Birthdays and swap packages also create reasons to grab more yarn.  And just like grocery shopping, once you're in, you rarely leave with just what was on your list.

This time, it was a sad sale that caused me to gorge myself on new yarn.  As I mentioned before, Yarn Barn in San Antonio is closing, and so their stock was on massive reduction.  We drove down yesterday to bid them a reluctant farewell, and bring a small piece of the store back home with us to remember them by.  My piece just ended up being slightly larger than planned.

I ended up with:

• Several skeins of Cascade 220, two for Christmas gift knitting and four bare skeins to be dyed using Kool-Aid or food coloring sometime in the future
• What Would Madame Defarge Knit?, a pattern book that I've had my eye on for a while
• A skein of Abstract Fiber yarn in a brilliant pink (call it the theme of the weekend)
• A skein of Dream in Color that blends misty blue and a very light blush pink, I'm thinking it will make a nice shawl with icicle motifs

But that's it until October!  Between now and the Yarn Crawl, I'm going on a diet.  The only exception made will be for the purchase of yarn for swap packages.  Very strict.  No cheating.  Absolutely none.

Colorway of the day: pink

I've signed up for another swap with the Odd Ducks that will be assigning partners soon.  This one is themed around our favorite colors, and I'm going with pink.  Not pastel pink, no.  Hot pink.  Eye-searingly fun pink with just that drop of blue in it to electrify it.

This has me thinking about pink, noticing it all around me, and wanting to point it out to whoever my spoiler is destined to be.  Because pink could mean so many different things, especially depending on your computer monitor.  So I've been finding real world examples everywhere.

First, I woke up with the Olympic tennis coverage, and lo and behold, the stoic dark green that is the traditional background of the courts during the Championships has been replaced with a sort of pinky-purple.  This article has some good pictures, though I'm not sure this is what I mean by my favorite pink.

After watching the Bryan brothers chest bump their way to victory in the men's doubles, Mom and I ventured out to do some shopping.  In preparation of which, I applied my super-duper pink eye shadow from Makeup Forever:

Now this is what I'm talking about!  You're all starting to see how I chose the color scheme for the header and link text, aren't you?

First, we went to Michael's, and I scoped out some yarns that had the colorways (if not the fiber content) that makes me smile.  There was Vanna's Glamour in Jewel, Lion Brand Homespun in Tulips, and Vickie Howell Sheep(ish) in Hot Pink(ish):

Our next stop was DSW, because a $5 off coupon simply cannot go to waste.  And what do you know, I found myself another pair of running shoes that just happen to be another great example of pink:

They're Nike+ shoes, which I like because I have the little '+' thing that tracks my runs and everything.  I have another pair that are more black with fuchsia and highlighter yellow.  I like these because they are almost completely colorific, and I feel like that's important in a running shoe.  You want it to be something that makes you smile, because halfway through, you'll need every excuse you can find.

Can we pause to marvel at something: I am excited because I have a new pair of running shoes.  Seriously.  A few years ago, I wouldn't know myself.  But I would wish I could be that person.  And now I am.  That's just pretty darned cool.  Okay, the moment has been paused, onto more pink!

We also went to Home Depot, and along with other things which are worth their own blog post later, I scanned the paint chips for more examples of pink to give to my spoiler.  Unfortunately, there apparently isn't a lot of demand for fluorescently pink walls, so most of the pinks I found were close, but lacking some of the brightness that I guess they avoid because it might drive someone insane if a room were actually painted that color.

Thankfully, plenty of people want their nails to be this color.  I would say China Glaze Pool Party, Goldie 80's (check out the first picture for the one I mean), and Orly Flirty (another comparison blog, basically all these pinks are awesome!) are three from my own collection that embody the spirit of hot pink.

Alright, I think that's enough pink for one day, I wonder what tomorrow's colorway will be?

Ravletes, are you ready?

Yeah, it's still annoying that the Olympics continues to make more headlines for brand-enforcement and security issues, but I'm determined to stay peppy.  After all, Andy Roddick could win gold!  Haha, what was that I said about not getting my hopes up at Wimbledon?  Anyway, there's tennis to be watched, and even more importantly, things to be knit.  I am counting down the minutes until I'm allowed to cast on and get started with my Ravellenics projects.

Big thanks to one of the gals in my mom's knitting group, she sewed up project bags for everyone, and included me amongst their ranks, even though I don't get to join them weekly.  It's London-themed, and fits my supplies perfectly:

Given how perfectly-themed my bag is, it's only right that my first project in line for the next fortnight or so is an attempt to make a Union Jack Danger Monster.  I'm hoping it will look something like this:

Cute, right?  I'm challenging myself with this one because I haven't really done any color work before, and I've never made a monster.  Hopefully I can keep my tension, and the improvisations that are required in adding the chart into the original pattern don't end in chaos and tears.  Positive thoughts!  If those athletes can walk in the opening ceremonies in some truly eye-searing national uniforms with a straight face, I can knit this monster!

Technically, I could start knitting at 3 pm, when the opening ceremonies are actually happening, but I'm going to hold off until The Knitting Nest's viewing party, when NBC will show the whole ceremony and we will be noshing on a pot luck dinner.  More on the results of my contributions later, because knitters have to carb-load just like Olympic athletes!

Success, as measured by a lack of fainting

Yesterday I donated blood for the fourth time.  You'd think the hard part would be the actual blood-giving, or maybe the finger prick to test my iron levels and getting my blood pressure tested after being asked a barrage of questions about my needle usage.  But no, the hard part comes at dinnertime.

This is because I am silly.  This is what my mother would say.  I wait just a little too long to start making dinner, and end up on the kitchen floor.  The first time I donated blood, she had to revive me with a spoonful of honey nut butter.  For the next two donations I managed to avoid having a smelling salts moment.

Unfortunately, I decided to make myself some oatmeal for dinner last night, and that takes a little while to thicken up.  I kid you not, I barely made it to the sofa with my bowl before the lights started to dim.  But I was able to nurse myself back with my bowl of oatmeal and all was well.  Hopefully by the fifth donation I'll have learned my lesson and will make something microwaveable or something.

But the good news is that the vampires found my veins on the first try, and I managed to sneak out with an extra packet or two of Oreos.  I'm thinking they're going to end up on the bottom of some delicious cupcakes.  Because I'm a giver of life, love, and delicious cupcakes.

Cubicle kitchen: Chocolate Peanut Butter Pretzel Bark

There's something about the addition of salt that takes sweet to a whole other level.  In the case of this week's office treat, it took it from casually licking the spoon to ravenously scraping the cookie sheet for every last ounce of this salty sugar crack.

I've already admitted that my baking is often a way for me to enact a little kitchen stash busting, using up pantry items which might otherwise go to waste.  This week, I had a box of Pretzel Thins and this handy dandy recipe from Tina at My Life as a Mrs.  She used Pretzel Crisps as opposed to Pretzel Thins, but these are clone products, so no difference there.

So basically, brown sugar and butter are melted together and poured over pretzels which have been laid out on a cookie sheet lined with tin foil that's been sprayed.  That bakes for a little while to continue developing the toffee/caramel, and then chocolate chips go on top, melt with the residual heat, and are spread evenly across.

One actual difference is one I'm a little ashamed to admit.  The same way you should measure twice and cut once in home improvement, you really should make sure you have all of the recipe's listed ingredients before you start cooking.  Especially when it's a 5-ingredient recipe, for goodness' sake.  How was I to anticipate that I didn't actually have a bag of chocolate chips?  Thankfully, it was a happy accident, because I did have a bag of Reese's peanut butter chips.  Along with that, I had some of those solid milk chocolate mini-eggs from the candy clearance aisles, so those were chopped up just for good measure.

Spreading the melting chips wasn't a very pretty business, I wasn't sure I was doing the 'right' thing and that everything would stick together.  But I diligently kept going, and put it into the fridge to set up.  Even after a night in the fridge, it still wasn't as bark-like as Tina's was, so I used the same trick I do with fudge, which is to start cutting (or breaking in this case) apart and sit the pieces upside down to dry/harden.  This helped to get the caramel a little less gooey.  It's still not quite in the fully-hardened state I had imagined, but it's certainly stable and not melty anymore, just sticky to the touch.  Not sure if that's because I used margarine rather than butter, or if I didn't heat the sugar and margarine mixture enough, but it's still darned tasty.  And all remaining goo was thoroughly enjoyed by myself, huddled over the cookie sheet in the kitchen losing all sense of restraint in the face of the pure desire for sugar.

Given it's power over me there, I was pretty sure that no one would mind that these don't look like prize-winning beauties:

The mix of salty and sweet, chocolatey and peanut buttery is definitely a winner in terms of taste, and no one cares how it looks. Some people have declared it to be my best baking achievement so far.  I feel confident saying that it is at least the most addictive.

Some self-Examination

I wonder if there's someone over at Examiner who has noticed that I went from an article every weekday to one or two a week.  But they probably don't.  After all, I'm just one in thousands of writers across the country that suddenly decided to break ranks and start blogging.

And I'm finding for myself that forgetting about Examiner is easier than I thought.  I have to make sure that while I'm typing away here for you that I don't let the whole week go by without something for Examiner.  Last week I squeaked in just under the deadline with a sad article about the closing of the Yarn Barn in San Antonio.  Mom and I are planning on going this Sunday to bid adieu a yarn store that we both loved visiting on the Yarn Crawl the past two years.

Thankfully, one place that is not closing anytime soon is BookPeople.  Or at least I hope not, God forbid.  But they have a fully-booked schedule of events this week as per usual.  And as per usual, there's at least one book in there that I end up thinking, 'Hey, I should read that.'  I'll let you try and guess which one it might be...

I'm going to try and publish again in a few days about all of the Austin Ravellenics events.  But just so you know, when I'm drafting articles there, I'm always thinking about blogging.  Because I love you more.