Impromptu Phototography Class

I love taking pictures.  Not just fun, "I was in London, look you can see me in the picture with Big Ben!" photos.  Not just on vacation, "look what we saw!" pictures (though that would explain the 38 pictures of cranes on my computer).  I like photos that work with the capabilities of the camera to show something new.  They help us focus in on a detail, or an emotion, or show us the "big picture."  They're like art that you can do well without having to be good at drawing.

I love this kind of photo, yet I haven't taken many myself.  They seemed out of my reach.  I figured I should get a better camera, or take a photography class.  However, maybe all I need is some practice.  So, I gave myself a spontaneous photography project: an apartment portrait.  It didn't go quite as planned; halfway through I was enjoying the close-ups so much that I started taking pictures that would be good for a treasure hunt.  You know, like they do for cities?  They ask, "Do you know where these pictures were taken?" and you have to identify their locations from photos that show little details like door handles.

I ended up with a few that I enjoyed enough to share:

Baby Basil

Kitchen Basics

Dot Painting, viewed from below.

Spice Rack (or Spice Lazy Susan, if you prefer)

The Perfect Fall Breakfast Cookie

The Perfect Fall Breakfast Cookie

When I was a child, I didn’t care much about growing up.  At 10 years old, when all my classmates were dreaming about which car they wanted to drive someday, I chose “limo”.  Riding in a limo was the least like riding in a car—you could watch movies!  And you didn’t have to drive!

However, I suppose I was intrigued by the idea that adults could have cookies for breakfast.  What I didn’t know then was that, as an adult, I would understand the health repercussions.  (Not to say that cookies are bad…just bad in the quantities that I like to eat them.)

Enter…the perfect breakfast cookie!  Eggless, butterless, but yummyful!

I got this recipe from Joy the Baker online.  I fully recommend checking out the original site—I did not do the sunflower seeds or sugar and her cookies look gorgeous!  I also love her raspberry cupcakes...

http://www.joythebaker.com/blog/2011/04/vegan-chocolate-chocolate-chip-cookies/comment-page-3/#comments
 
Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used wheat and it worked fine!)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup sugar (vegan)
• 2 tablespoons flax seed meal
• 1/2 cup applesauce (my dough came out dry so I added a little extra applesauce & oil)
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 1/2 cup chocolate coated sunflower seeds
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips (or 1 cup vegan chocolate chips)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Cooking Directions

• Place a rack in the center and upper third of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
• In a small bowl, carefully whisk together sugar, flax seed meal, applesauce, oil and vanilla extract.
• Pour the wet ingredients, all at once, into the dry ingredients. Add the chocolate chunks (and sunflower seeds, if using) and stir together with a spatula. The dough will be fairly thick. Stir until all of the dry ingredients are just moistened. You can even use your hands if necessary, but try not to knead and overwork the dough. Dump dough out onto a piece of waxed paper or plastic wrap.
• Form into a disk, wrap, and refrigerate for one hour (or overnight).

This is why they are great for BREAKFAST.  Make the dough the night before, let it chill overnight, and you have fresh cookies in the morning with barely any effort!  You can make as many as you want and leave the rest of the dough so you can do it all again the next day!

• Once chilled, scoop dough by the tablespoonful into balls. Roll in granulated sugar, place on prepared cookie sheets, and press them down, just slightly with the heel of your hand. These cookies won't spread much.
• Bake for 9 to 10 minutes. Cookies should still be slightly soft in the middle. Remove from the oven. Allow to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes, before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Cookies will keep, in an airtight container, at room temperature, for up to 5 days.

**For extra deliciousness:  add 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder and 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon to the dry ingredients, sift together, and proceed as recipe instructs.

What makes the cookies “fall” cookies, you ask?  That’s simple: place a pressed fall leaf next to your plate of cookies.  Ta-da!  You’re in the spirit of the season!  Cookies for breakfast should really be available year-round, and this one is easily adaptable.  For spring, put a flower on your table.  For summer, a bowl of sand with a shell in it.  (Then you can imagine you’re eating your cookies on the beach!)  For winter, a snowball.  Or, if you prefer less cleanup at the end of your meal, a paper snowflake.

Plans

Over my breakfast of egg on toast, I decided I was going to do something fun today.  I planned it all out: I’d get on my bike, enjoy the fall colors on my way across town, then call up a coworker and see if we could have lunch.  I got out my bike and set sail.

It was a gorgeous fall day; just the right shade of warm, just the right degree of breezy, gathering the leaves up and tossing them so they swirled around me in tame tornadoes.  I stopped to let a fuzzy black and white caterpillar scoot past me on the road, then stooped down to give him a lift into the grass.  The little Woolly Bear ambled gracefully through its jungle, looking a little odd in his thick coat on such a warm day.  

I coasted along the edge of Lake Monona, which shone brilliant blue in the sun, and wondered. How many steps would it have taken me to cross that road?  Six or seven?  This caterpillar would have needed fifty to a hundred scoots (insert technical term for caterpillar movement here) to navigate the same space.  Perhaps the cottonwood leaf was thinking similarly as it hitchhiked for a moment on my finger, using the wind first as an elevator up to the height of my handlebars and then a seatbelt as it rode with me.

I stopped to swing, at a playground right by the lake, and then sat for an hour just enjoying the view.  I walked down to a pier, where I was given a quizzical look by a passing seagull.  I watched a garter snake slither hastily away from me when I got too close.

Before I knew it, hunger had driven me home with the plan of cooking an early dinner.  So much for my plan of a fun day and lunch out!  Maybe next time I’ll make plans with the caterpillar.

Why it’s so Cold in Wisconsin : A Modern Day Myth

Many people don’t know that the sun is quite a positive, flighty little personality.  Years ago, as the sun was bouncing around the universe it got tired and sat on a tiny little planet (which of course was immediately burned up, like it was the sun’s breakfast.)

Before bouncing away, our sun noticed a little movement on a nearby planet.  From a distance it watched curiously, and the life grew and grew into many new forms.  The sun burned brightly with the joy of watching these little creatures.  It wanted to warm them all!

All over the globe, the heat got soaked up, until the land itself seemed to be a heater, burning many a foot that tried to tiptoe across the sand.  In a land known as Wisconsin, however, the sun was met with cool indifference.  Wisconsin let the sun know it was perfectly happy being chilled.  

The sun, however, is ever optimistic.  Every year it tries again to get close to Wisconsin, trying to warm it, but thus far, the heat doesn’t stick.  If the day isn’t hot in the sun’s attempt at friendliness, the land is immediately cool again.

And that’s why it’s so cold in Wisconsin.

*Disclaimer: This myth was written by a small-minded inhabitant of Wisconsin, who has not spent much time in colder climes.

Reawakening the Imagination

One day, when I was poking about on the internet, I came across the following pictures of a kid’s unique bedroom, with a pirate ship built right in, and the kid in me woke right up and said, “I WANT THAT!”

As a kid, I’d always wanted to have a treehouse.  Or simply a slide, to get from my room on the second floor to the ground.  It’d be like sledding, but all year round and no snow!  As a kid, I had so many ideas for what would make the world a more wonderful place.  There was one year where I almost believed that if I wished hard enough, I would be able to fly on a broom like Harry Potter.  In my dreams it was true more than once!  I wanted to be a cat for a day, wake up in the morning and instead of going to school, take a nap in a sunbeam.

http://www.toxel.com/inspiration/2011/03/05/pirate-ship-bedroom/

What were some of your dreams as a kid?   Would you want the pirate ship bedroom?