Sunday, etc

[magid]

Sunday turned out to be as overbooked as Saturday, though with less exercise.

First thing in the morning, I baked cinnamon bread and cinnamon raisin bread (glad I'd remembered to make the dough the night before, despite total exhaustion). It was hard not to sample any, but they were for the evening.

Breakfast (cold pizza), hand exercises, stuff around the house, then I walked over to tigerbright and teddywolf's. We got on the road heading west. Yet another beautiful day, enhanced with the chance to talk, and seeing spring coming in in so many places. It was a livestock day: we saw not only cows and horses, but also sheep and llamas (definitely the 2 L kind!). It was also an antique car day: we saw probably a dozen old cars heading the other way, presumably to some sort of rally. They were beautiful, though I'm not so sure about the one that was painted bright aquamarine....

A stop at Brookfield Orchards, where I hadn't been in years. The penny candy has hit inflation... But a lot of the rest of the place felt the same.

We drove through Paxton, and both Wolf and I noticed changes... Not that there shouldn't be any, but it was somewhat dismaying to see how many new structures were ugly, unaesthetic, or unappealing.

Brunch with the parents (somehow I find myself less and less entranced with the classic bagel-and-cream-cheese sort of brunch. Though there's not a lot they can do currently with no appliances at all), a tour of the current state of the house, and a bag of things of mine that had made it to Atlanta (ie that were packed up with their stuff when they moved down 6 years ago or so, and I've not thought of since.), including my passport from high school, the wrist id my mom was given in the hospital when she went to have me (whoever thinks I'm a packrat: I come by it legitimately!), and a paper model of an amoeba I made for school (it's an A- amoeba :).

Much talk, so there was a mad dash to the train station; I bought a ticket and ran upstairs.... to see the commuter rail train pull away as I was 2 steps from the top. Dang. Luckily my parents offered to take me to the Framingham station, or I'd've missed the peanut butter event. (Since my parents used to live there when first married, I got to hear how there were 2 kosher butchers when they moved in, etc etc.)

Back to South Station, had many quarters eaten by phone machines, finally got a ride arranged (thanks to queue). Home to grab all the things for the peanut butter extravaganza, then to the wilds of Dot. (I am so not familiar with that part of the city. Rather embarrassing.)

What I brought for the ultimate peanut butter event at bitty's: both cinnamon breads (with raisins and without), spelt bread, quince preserves (yum), rose hip jam (rather syrupy, a bit odd), kiwi spread (a texture I'm not interested in; I think I shall foist it off on the cow orkers), the peanut butter and chocolate non-truffles. Much peanut butter consumed, with all sorts of additions, though I wimped and didn't try it with pickles....
Also learned Euchre, which is fun; I'd like to play again (esp with a helpful partner like pheromone :). Some solitaire, then home, to fall into bed.

And this morning I had the first physical therapy appointment of the week: I graduated to green silly putty :-). The therapist took some measurements, and there are definite improvements in hand strength. And I'm doing a lot of things I couldn't manage a few weeks ago. Hooray. (now if only I could bike....)

And for the first time in 2 months, I drove to work. It felt a bit odd, actually.
(Side note: the cow orkers appreciate the left over cinnamon breads and chocolate cake.)n

Comments

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

the peanut butter and chocolate non-truffles

This stuff was SOOO good! After returning home I sadly realized that I had neglected to smuggle any of it out with me.. Pray tell, how did you make this food of the gods?

[magid.livejournal.com]

it's easy. basically making vegan truffles, but with peanut butter instead of almond paste, which makes it react differently.

melt chocolate (this time i used a bag of choc chips). put a decent glob of peanut butter in a mug (i had gotten the peanuts-and-some-salt-only kind, and the oil had settled to the top, so i needed to recombine it), add some hot water, mix to thin it some. mix into chocolate.
i left this to cool, for making truffles later (what i'd do if it had been almond paste). but the reaction is different - the chocolate seizes up more, and pretty quickly, so next time i think i'd immediately pour it into a wax-paper-lined something to let it cool there, scored into pieces, perhaps.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I made some of this tonight, but, for whatever reason, mine seems to have come out to the texture that you wanted your to be, as opposed to the texture *I* wanted it to be, which was the way yours came out. Hmph!

Still yummy, though. I just really wanted those awesome crumblies.

[magid.livejournal.com]

possible differences:
ratio of water (i didn't use much, since i also had the peanut oil to stir back in) to peanut butter.
type of peanut butter (?).
ratio of peanut butter stuff to chocolate.

hm. that's all i can think of. sounds like i should do it again and see what happens... perhaps for potluck this week....u

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I used Trader Joe's bittersweet chocolate (from the pound-plus bar), melted it in the microwave, then heated up some Whole Foods Peanut Butter for Kids in another bowl, added a bit of water so that it would get more liquidy (not very much, really), and mixed it all together. I even tried freezing it on some parchment paper, and it got harder, persisted in maintaining a proper truffle-like consistency.

I wish I'd stolen the bag from bitty's!