Okay, I knew coffee did this. I just didn’t really think about it but if you drink two gigantor cups of organic Ethiopian Yergachef dark roast just before going to the gym, your heart rate is going to run a bit higher than you expect. And take forever to get back down. So fewer calories burned as the poor treadmill struggles to keep you down in your target range. Meh.
Month: January 2007
links for 2007-01-19
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something to think about if you live in one of those pressboard shacks they try to pass off as homes these days
My back porch is a zoo
You know how I had one grey cat eating on my back porch and then discovered it was two? Well, how many grey cats do you see in this picture? That’s two on the porch and one sitting on my old doormat that they have dragged out into my yard.
But wait, that’s not all. Last weekend while I was in my kitchen, I heard a very loud “crunch crunch crunch” coming from outside. The cats don’t eat that loudly. I peek out the window and see this, a ‘possum. I know they love cat food. I opened the door and chased it off. It wasn’t in much of a hurry to go. I’m sure it’ll be back.
And then later this week I discovered yet another critter eating cat food on my porch. There’s a little brown bird that perches on the edge of their cat bowl and eats the broken crunchies. Today it was so warm that I had my back door open. And somehow the cat food eating bird slipped under the screen door and ended up in my kitchen. He wasn’t too happy about that. Luckily I was able to get him back out fairly quickly. At least he was smart enough to know which way he wanted to go.
Bread machine pumpernickel bread
I have a confession to make. One of my many idiosyncrasies is that I hate sticking my hands in the food. So I’ll never be a great bread baker. But I can get by with a bread machine. I scored a Sunbeam bread machine from freecycling this past year and have been trying out the recipes in the manual that came with it originally. This is the pumpernickel bread. I adapted the recipe a bit to make it vegan. It didn’t come out as dark as I’m used to with pumpernickel and it rose up really tall! It didn’t need more molasses so I’m not sure what it wants for brownness. It was tasty anyway. It made a great side with the lentils and winter vegetable stew I’ve been eating on.
Pumpernickel Bread
4 ounces soy milk
6 – 7 oz. water
1-½ teaspoon salt
2 Tbsp. molasses
1-½ Tbsp. margarine
2-½ cups bread flour
1 cup rye flour
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 Tbsp. cocoa, optional
2-¼ teaspoons active dry yeast
(Basic or Whole Wheat Setting – Not for Timer)
All ingredients at room temperature (70°F-80°/21°C-27°C), except soy milk
Measure all ingredients into bread pan in the order listed above. Select Basic or Whole Wheat setting. Select crust setting if other than “Medium.”Press the “Start/Stop” button to begin the bread making process. The display will begin counting down the minutes until the end of the cycle. When the baking is complete, the display will read 0:00 and the unit will signal (when this occurs, you may choose to press the “Start/Stop” button to cancel the “Keep-Warm” cycle if desired). Remove the bread and enjoy!
Notes
My bread maker seems to “sweat” a lot, so when the bread is done I will pull the bread out of the pan and put on the rack in the oven at about 350 degrees for about 5 minutes to dry up and moisture on the bread.
More from Vegan Italiano
The recipes in Vegan Italiano so far seem to be pretty easy. Maybe that’s just the ones I’ve picked to cook. Still I think this is a good cookbook for begining to intermediate cooks.
This is the Winter Vegetable Stew. What a great way to use cabbage. If you’re looking to save some money, this is a really inexpensive, tasty dish. Everything comes out infused with classic Italian flavors. I usually think of a stew being a little more juicy. Concerned that this would start to stick to the pot, I ended up adding about 1/2 cup of water early on. That seems to have been the right amount. The flavor didn’t seem to suffer.
Later in the week I made the Rotelle with Fennel and Cherry Tomatoes. This is a great “I don’t feel like cooking” dish. Especially if you use canned cherry tomatoes as I did…DeKalb Farmers Market carries a brand that is really tasty. There is very little chopping involved and only 1 pot. It’s done in about 20 minutes. And I love fennel so I’m always happy to have another way to use it. I know, these aren’t rotelle. I got these mezzi rigatoni instead.