May 2010

1. Gardening, even if it was a billion degrees outside and too sunny and I got too sweaty.
2. Chicken salad wraps for dinner – cold and tasty.
3. Vidalia onions. Mmmmmm..
4. Snugging up to Coffee before sleep.
5. Allergy pills for Daisy. ENOUGH SCRATCHING ALREADY, DOG.

Firstly:
The wiring in our living room is now mostly sorted – there are grounded outlets! – and just a bit of work remains. Phew.

The wiring in our bedroom is also mostly sorted and, in the near future, we’ll make some decisions about how to finish the ceiling (hint: not drywall) and what sort of overhead lighting we want to put in place.

The wiring in our dining room is now grounded.

Soon we will be living extension-cord FREE! Wheeeeeee!

Secondly:
This morning we had to get up earlier than usual – after staying up later than usual (watching UFC) – and while it is now 9 a.m., and I have ingested caffeine in my normal dose, I can barely keep my eyes open. This doesn’t bode well for productivity, if I may say, and I am trying to balance my need to get some things accomplished with my need to obtain some relaxation in order to not get overly crabby and stabby.

Thirdly:
I still do not know where I will be doing my field placement for 2nd year and it is killing me. I’m not even sure why I’m so agitated by this – it makes no difference to my summer, really, unless I choose to get some training done before September. But I am obsessively hitting the ‘reload’ button on the college web site and hoping to see my student number next to the agency I want the most. I’m pretty sure I won’t know the answer until the middle of June, nonetheless. (Reload…reload…reload..)

Fourthly:
It has been far too hot outside, and the house is nicely cooled by the A/C, for me to do any bread baking. I find this offensive.

Fifthly:
My lip ring is healing quite nicely, thank you.

Sixthly:
If I keep sitting here, working on this little list, do you think I’ll get anything else done? No? Damn. See you later, ok?

1. A new (totally inconvenient) batch of baby bunnies in the yard!
2. BBQ’d dinner = cool house and no work for me other than clean up!
3. Electrical work is almost done!
4. Tonight we shall watch UFC and eat unhealthy snacks.
5. Love love love love love love LOVE.

I frequently tell people that if they’re coming to visit – or to stay for a day or two – they need to accept that I completely suck at the entire concept of “hospitality”.

In fact, when people arrive I usually take them on a full tour of the house not to show off my mess but to make sure they have a vague idea as to where they can find the things they might need after I totally neglect to offer them up.

Here is the fridge – it contains food – please help yourself.

Here is the cupboard that contains soap and toothpaste and other similar things – please help yourself.

Here is where we keep towels. Grab some if you need them.

Please don’t expect me, your hostess, to remain clothed the whole time either – there’s a good chance I’ll randomly leave the room and reappear in jamma pants.

etc.

My friends have accepted this, I believe, and while it might be awkward to root through someone else’s fridge and cupboards, it sure beats starving to death while visiting me.

I mention this because it has come to my attention, today, that at least one of my acquaintances thinks I’m an awesome enough host that, for the second summer in a row, they have decided to come and stay for a few weeks – and have brought their entire family.

Bunnies.

While Coffee worked in the garden this afternoon, the beagle was sniffing around the yard (as always) and suddenly materialized with a mouth full of fluff. This time, instead of chomping down on baby bunnies, she had only just disturbed the top layer of fur on the nest and had not yet encountered the snack-sized babies further down. Phew.

Mama bunny had dug a small hole at the very edge of one of our garden retaining walls. She had then covered her nest with dried grass clippings and, of course, a copious layer of her own fur.

We peeked into the nest and saw a large squirming collection of tiny, black, wrinkly baby bunnies. This means they’re “fresh”.

Great!

So, last year when Mama put her babies in our yard, we had a beagle who (we think) ate one. We invited people over to look at the babies and, in some cases, pick them up and take photos. We stomped around the nest at various times doing yard work.

We did not offer cookies or breakfast. We didn’t even point out where we kept the towels.

We were terrible hosts.

Apparently, much like with our friends, no one bun cares about the hospitality around here anyway.

I’m going to go and change into some jammas now.

1. Hummus on really dense, grain-filled pumpernickel rye bread. Oh yes yes yes, please.
2. Remembering to take my multi-vitamin.
3. Sleeping in a room that is basically a cave – cold and dark.
4. BBQ veggie burgers with loads of saurkraut (not homemade, yet, though!)
5. Getting a smile out of a kid who hasn’t smiled at me in a long while.
6. Making plans to bake in my solar oven.
7. Allergy pills.
8. Subtitles – so I can watch movies that are not in English and enjoy them.
9. Macaroons. Frozen.
10. Library books!
11. Bonus: my beloved husband, always.

1. Lada Gaga’s “Teeth” makes me weirdly happy. (song below) I have no idea why.
2. Coffee encourages me to practice things. He’s such a nice boy.
3. Getting the lawn mowed and getting myself into a cold shower – before 9:30 a.m.
4. Chuck Liddell. What’s not to love about that guy?
5. I’m really and truly enjoying my summer vacation so far.

1. I spent a good chunk of the day lounging around, reading a book and wearing jammas. Ah, summer vacation!
2. Coffee knows how to make me feel less agitated.
3. The freezing coldness of our bedroom is awesome. All hail the basement!
4. Cold meds for Coffee who has the sniffles.
5. Laughter.

A few months ago, one of my classmates made me some homemade chapatis. He brought it to me at school, I brought it home, then I ate it and died of happiness. The kids loved it, too. My classmate assured me that it was easy to make and that it was “no big deal”.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when I started looking, in earnest, for a chapati recipe that I could attempt. I was amused to find that most of the recipes made huge quantities of the bready-goodness.

Coffee located atta flour (on sale!) and we had a jar of ghee waiting in the cupboard.

Last week I wrote that I had made my first batch and that they had turned out quite well. I don’t have a tava, but my enamel frying pan seemed like a good substitute. About half of them puffed up into little balloons (causing me to make squealing noises of glee) but all of them tasted good.

I had made a small batch of them, feeding the dogs the first few that I mangled, and I saved 4 for Coffee to eat when he arrived home. After he ate them we discussed a few tweaks to the recipe, some thoughts on the cooking process, and decided we’d attempt a full batch in the near future.

Last night we made a double recipe (to make a total of 16 chapatis) and we worked together to make them. They’re ridiculously easy to make, fast, fun, and the balloon-puffing makes me giddy every time it starts – seriously, what other food puffs while you’re frying it?

The recipe we used noted that we could use oil or ghee in the pan – in my previous attempt, I noted that the non-oily pan worked better and made for happier chapatis, so we decided to omit it this time. I used olive oil in the dough, instead of ghee, but that wasn’t particularly noticeable in the end. And, instead of using ghee on the outside of them, Coffee smeared them with olive oil margarine (yum!)

We also made them a bit thicker than the recipe stated – and found that gave us a softer texture for the finished bread.

And now, the recipe, according to us:

Chapatis.

(Makes 8 chapatis – can be doubled, tripled, etc.)

Ingredients:
1 cup of atta flour + extra for flouring surfaces
1 tsp salt
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil or ghee
1 cup warm water (approximately)
olive oil or ghee (optional) for frying
butter, margarine or ghee (optional) to coat when finished

Directions:

1. Combine flour and salt with a fork
2. Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil or ghee and pretend you’re making pastry – chop it around with a fork or knead it in with your hands.
3. Make a well in the middle and add warm water, kneading as you add it, until the dough feels soft but not crazy-sticky.
4. Turn dough out onto a floured surface and knead for about 10 minutes – until it’s really soft and squishy and verging on sticky.
5. Wrap the dough up in plastic wrap and set it aside on the counter. You can leave it for 30 minutes or a full day.
6. When you’re ready to make chapatis, unwrap the dough and divide it into 8 chunks.
7. Heat a heavy pan to medium-high. We used a ceramic 7″ pan (not teflon) but other people use cast iron. You can choose whether to oil it with ghee, olive oil, or not at all; we don’t oil it at all.
8. Take one of the chunks and roll it into a ball in the palm of your floured hand. Flatten it, then use a floured rolling pin to roll it out to a 7″ circle. Do not flip it while you’re rolling, just change the direction you roll. Leave the unused chunks covered lightly until you’re ready to roll them out.
9. When the pan is heated, place the rolled-out chapati dough top-down on the centre of the pan. Count to 15 and flip it over. The cooked side should be lightly browned but not burnt or crispy.
10. Watch the dough circle until a few small, puffy bubbles appear on it – in the middle and/or sides. This can take anywhere from 15 seconds to a full minute, depending on your heat setting.
11. Flip the dough back over to the first side again.
12. Right after flipping, use a wad of paper towel or a thick, clean towel, and press down around the edges. The chapatis will balloon up!
13. When it’s puffed up, remove it from the heat and smear it with butter or ghee (this is optional but tastes SO GOOD!)
14. Check out both sides of the chapati and see if it’s done to your liking. Adjust your cooking times accordingly for the next attempt.

Notes:
Our chapati was cooked for about 15 seconds on the first side, then about 15 seconds on the second, then flipped over again to puff up. Depending on the heat setting you use, it can take longer. The general sentiment is that it should be a fairly quick dough to cook and will require attention as you do it. Experiment with timing and, as well, with the thickness of the dough when it’s rolled out. We found that the chapatis tasted best when the dough was about 1 mm thick.

The kids loved it – all of them asked for more. The hardest part of this is trying not to just eat it as you make it; the first few you really need to ‘test’ to see if they’re done the way you’d like and, well, then you just want to keep ‘testing’! Nom.

Nutritional Information:
(calculated by me)

Each chapati, cooked as above, contains

Calories = 120
Sodium = 0.5mg
Fat = 4 g (about 0.5 is saturated)
Fiber = 2g
Protein = 3.5g

Note that this doesn’t include whatever quantity of margarine you add to them and any oil in which you cook them!