I Found the Words to Every Thought

I haven't posted anything in a while.

I have pictures from at least three baking projects on my computer or camera, but they haven't done much besides sit there.  I am finding that I would rather not post just a recipe or a picture of an outfit.  I want to have a story to tell, or a thought to offer.

I still don't have a story to go with these pictures and this recipe.

The quote in the title of this post is from an Emily Dickinson poem - I've been revisiting my lit textbooks the last couple days.  When I woke up before five o'clock yesterday morning for no reason, I had some devotion time, and then I read Dante, as one does at five in the morning. Then there was sort of a chain reaction, and now I'm posting about Emily Dickinson.

Anyway, the poem, especially the first stanza here, captures how I often feel when writing, and sometimes how I feel when speaking.

I found the words to every thought

I ever had -- But one

And that -- defies me --
As a Hand did try to chalk the Sun

I don't know that I have the words for every thought, but it sure seems like I have the phrase for everything except what I actually want to say in a given moment. I have a whole host of ideas for blog posts right now, but I felt compelled to keep everything in chronological order, so the chocolate-walnut biscotti had to come first.  But I don't have words for the thought.

There's something delightfully ironic in how perfectly Emily Dickinson phrases the elusive quality of words and writing. It's hard to believe she ever had a thought she didn't eventually phrase in a uniquely compelling way. (Just for the record, though, the second stanza adds the layer of communicating with people of different background and context, and that's another thing entirely.)

I could try to make some brilliant segue here about Emily Dickinson and biscotti, but, well, I think that's another thought I have not the words to, so I'll just give you the recipe and some pretty pictures.

Brownie Biscotti
(via allrecipes.com, altered)

1 T butter (altered from 1/3 cup in recipe)
2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs (altered from 2 in recipe)
1 t vanilla
1 3/4 cup flour
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 t baking powder
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
(the recipe also called for chocolate chips, which I'm sure would have been delicious, but I didn't have any)

Preheat oven to 375

1. Cream the butter, sugar and eggs. Add the vanilla to the mixture.
2. The recipe says, as most do, to combine all the dry ingredients together and then add to the wet.  Sometimes I do that. This time I just added each individually and mixed it all up.
3. Add walnuts (and chocolate chips, if you have them!).
4. Time to make the fun logs for the first round of baking.

 

I'm trying to take slightly different pictures, since I'm sure the same picture with slightly different textures and colors is not that interesting.  Maybe I should change this feature to Biweekly Breakfast Baked Good to avoid getting too repetitive.

5. Bake the logs at 375 for 25-30 minutes.

6. Let the logs cool for about 10 minutes, then cut diagonally into slices.

7. Bake the slices for at least 20 minutes, or 10 minutes on each side if you like.

8. Now you have a brand new kind of delicious biscotti!

baby it's cold outside

In preparation for a project that I'll be starting in a couple weeks, I decided to venture beyond my balcony to take pictures yesterday. There's some awkwardness to be overcome in the whole setting up a tripod to take pictures of yourself in a public place thing. I thought it would be best to try it the first time when it was twenty-five degrees out, and no one in their right mind was at the park. (I am not, by the way, included in that "in their right mind" category for the purposes of this story.)

Here are some of the lessons that I learned the hard way on this adventure:
1. Always wear gloves until the last possible second.
2. Bring boots with good traction if the grass is going to be covered in a quarter inch of ice.
3. Do not wander far from your car because of a pretty tree. You won't take any pictures of it anyway, and it will take that much longer to get back once your fingers have started to turn blue.

Yeah, it was really cold.  So cold that I had no option but to use a Christmas song title for the title of the post (and an overdone one at that).  I left with only two good pictures because I couldn't feel my fingers to press the buttons on the camera anymore.  I think I did a pretty good job acting like I was having fun, though, don't you?  And that red wall is fantastic.

dress-as-skirt/thrifted, shoes&sweater&belt&necklace/target, tights/?

rugelach like woah

I took seventy pictures of this week's baking project.

Alright, fine, that's an exaggeration.  I only took sixty-eight.

Because of this, I think I'll just give you the recipe and let the pictures do the rest of the talking, except to say that I've been taking a break from biscotti and eating these for breakfast this week.  And honestly?  They kind of taste more like pop tarts than the pop tarts did.

Raspberry and Apricot Rugelach (pronounced "Roo-guh-luh," I have been told)
(via allrecipes.com and The Great Cookie Book)

Cookie:
1 package cream cheese (8 oz) (I used the 1/3 less fat kind)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 t salt
1 t vanilla
2 cups flour

Filling:
1/4 cup brown sugar
9 T sugar
1 1/2 t cinnamon
3/4 cup raisins
1 cup walnuts, finely chopped
1/2 cup raspberry and/or apricot preserves (The recipe says to blend them in a food processor, which I did not do, and it was fine.)

1 egg and 1 T milk beaten for an egg wash

Bake at 350

1. Cream the butter and cream cheese together, then add the sugar, salt, and vanilla.
2. Add the flour slowly.
3. Roll the dough into a ball, then cut it into fourths and chill for a couple hours. (The dough should chill, I mean. You can chill, too, if you want.)

4. Mix the brown sugar, 6 T sugar, 1/2 t cinnamon, walnuts, and raisins for the filling. (We'll use the rest of the cinnamon and sugar later.)

5. Roll each fourth of the dough into a circle (recipe says 9 inches in diameter...I say until the dough seems the right thickness).

6. Spread the preserves on the circle, then sprinkle it with 1/2 cup of the filling. Press the filling into the dough so it sticks.

7. The really fun part: Cut the circle into 12 equal pieces.  

I'd like to take this time to say that the cookbook gave me very specific directions on this: First cut the circle into fourths, and then cut each fourth into thirds.  Four times three is twelve.

8. Roll each slice starting from the outside edge.  Here is a step-by-step visual guide:

(You may note these are a different color than the picture above - I did two circles of dough with raspberry preserves, and two with apricot. This is the apricot.)

9. After you've done this with all four dough balls, place the rugelach on a baking sheet with the points tucked under and chill for 30 more minutes.

While you're just chilling, here's a whole lot of pictures of how pretty they look all rolled up and set in rows:

10. And finally, mix up the remaining cinnamon and sugar (1 t cinnamon, 3 T sugar).  Brush the cookies with the egg wash and sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar.
11. Bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes.

Some post-sprinkling pictures - or as my filenames say, sparkly rugelach:

The finished product

itty bitty living space

We'll get this out of the way first: these pictures are kind of awful.  My skirt's all wrinkled, the lighting's off, and my the couch clashes with the red. (Not that I dress to match my furniture. That would be weird.)  I edited the heck out of them, and I think it just made it worse.  So there's that.

Then there's the awesome optical illusion that I didn't mean to create. I wasn't even going to post these pictures for the reasons mentioned above, but I couldn't resist once I saw the trick they played on me.

Do you see it?  I'll give you a minute. (hint: it's way more pronounced in the second picture)

skirt/ann taylor loft, shirt&earrings/thrifted, tights&cardigan/target, boots/rough hewn, belt/h&m

On the internet, giving you a minute means you have to scroll down. It's true. Spoiler space.

Did you figure it out? I look disproportionately large.

But why, you ask? Or you didn't ask, probably. I'm still going to tell you. It's the bookshelf on the left side!  You probably can't tell it's a bookshelf; it looks like the corner of the wall.  But since the bookshelf is significantly shorter than the wall, it creates the illusion that the ceiling is also much lower than in reality.

I am a giant living in a tiny dollhouse!

I don't have a whole lot more to say about these pictures.  I got bangs. Argyle tights are better than other tights.

I have to go stomp around a tiny village now. Then build a house on top of a beanstalk. No time to waste!