Soft Pretzels recipe

Some days just call for comfort food. These pretzels are tasty and are relatively easy to make. The smell of bread from the oven makes the entire house smell delicious.

The rapid breakdown of the simple carbohydrates in this recipe mean a quick boost in energy and conversion of the tryptophan into serotonin but there's a large surge in insulin, too. You probably ought to eat a protein with this snack; perhaps cheese or tuna or a bean dip.

Soft Pretzels

2 cups warm water
1 egg, at room temperature
2 Tablespoons (2 pkg) yeast
6 ½ to 7 ½ cups white flour
½ cup sugar
1 egg yolk
2 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons water
¼ cup margarine
coarse salt

Measure warm water into large warm bowl. Sprinkle in yeast; stir until dissolved. Add sugar, 2 teaspoons salt, margarine, egg and 3 cups flour. Beat until smooth. Add enough additional flour to make a stiff dough. Cover bowl tightly with aluminum foil. Refrigerate 2 to 24 hours.

Turn dough out onto lightly floured board. Divide in half; cut each half into 16 equal pieces. Roll each piece into pencil shapes about 20 inches long. Shape into pretzels. Place on lightly greased baking sheets. Blend together egg yolk and 2 Tablespoons water; brush pretzels with egg yolk mixture. Sprinkle with coarse salt. Let rise in warm place, free from draft, until doubled in bulk about 25 minutes.

Bake at 400° about 15 minutes, or until done. Remove from baking sheets and cool on wire racks. Makes 32 pretzels.

Hamburger Buns in 30 Minutes recipe

These are the FASTEST hamburger buns that I know of AND they taste great! You can astonish your family with your great culinary skills by making these for dinner. Add a pulled pork topping or sloppy Joe mix to the buns along with a salad and you are good to go.

Hamburger Buns in 30 Minutes

Mix and rest 15 minutes:
3 ½ cup warm water
1 cup oil
¾ cup sugar OR ½ cup honey
6 Tablespoons yeast (or 6 packets of yeast)

Add:
1 Tablespoon salt
3 eggs
10 ½ cups whole wheat flour

Knead enough extra flour into the dough (if needed) to make a fairly soft, but no longer sticky dough

Shape immediately into 24 hamburger buns. Let rise for 10 minutes. Bake 10 minutes at 425°.

HAUPIA (Coconut Pudding) recipe

Really, I AM working on the next installment of the insomnia series; it's just taking waaaayyy longer than I anticipated.

In the meantime, here is my favorite haupia recipe. Haupia is a traditional Hawaiian coconut pudding. The consistency is more along the lines of gelatin rather than a traditional pudding. I've read that haupia is very similar to the European dessert blancmange. Give it a try - it's delicious AND uses simple ingredients AND is easy to make. How much better can a recipe possibly be? (Funny note: the ingredients remind me of the stuff I used to make another batch of Homemade Deodorant today!)

HAUPIA (Coconut Pudding)
By Cynthia Dyer-Bennet (peoples@well.com)

Ingredients:
1 can (13.5 oz.) coconut milk
7 Tbs sugar
7 Tbs cornstarch
¾ cup water

Directions:
Pour coconut milk into saucepan. Combine sugar and cornstarch in a separate bowl; stir in water and blend well with a fork or whisk. Stir sugar mixture into coconut milk; then turn on heat. Cook and stir over low heat (with a wire whisk if you have one, or use a fork...) until thickened. Pour into 8-inch square pan and chill until firm. Cut into 2-inch squares.
Yield:
16 servings ("Ha, ha, depends on how much you eat," says Cynthia)

The trick to getting it thick enough to set is to cook it longer than you usually would with a custard-type pudding. When it thickens, don't stop cooking/stirring. It should be nearly the consistency of chilled Elmer's glue when you finally put it into the pan it's going to be chilled in. It will probably not smooth itself out in the pan since it'll be incredibly thick, so take a rubber scraper, dip it in water and use it to smooth the pudding evenly in the pan before chilling.

Mama and my name

My name is Mud
Many of you have asked about my mother. I have to say that I don't know. She has written me off as an unworthy daughter.

Having been raised in the United States I grew up with ideas of individual freedoms rather than the ideas of duty to parental ideology. You can imagine the clashes that caused with Mama. The final straws have been my changing my name to one I can be happy with and with my boarding my goats rather than selling them.

The Name Change(s)
I was given a beautiful Japanese name when I was born. It evokes images of Springtime and blossoms. It makes me feel beautiful and graceful and serene. I was put up for adoption when I was six months old and ended up in the home of a Japanese woman and her American serviceman husband. I was unofficially called by a new English name until I became a naturalized American citizen at age six when my name was legally changed to the new name. (Apparently, Japanese law stated that I had to keep the Japanese name when the family adopted me.) I ALWAYS hated the new name. Perhaps there was a memory of the original name floating around in the back of my mind but I found the new name harsh and ugly. That feeling was solidified when everyone I met that had my new name was either fat, or dumb, or cow-like, or ugly. It made me wonder if my parents even liked me.

I always wondered if I was adopted since I didn't look like anyone in my family. I asked my mother once and she responded with anger, informing me that I was NEVER to ask that question again. I found out the truth while looking for my birth certificate and finding my adoption papers instead. My mother's response was a tearful plea for understanding - she wanted me to feel like a real member of the family. However, she hadn't taken into account other Japanese family members never treating me like a real part of the family. I could never understand why my younger sister was treated like a princess while I was the red-headed stepchild. Even Mama treated me like that. Perhaps it was the time, perhaps it is an Asian custom, but I don't remember Mama ever praising me for anything I did well, there was only criticism for things that needed improving. That custom has continued to this day.

After discovering my adoption and the name I had been born with, I changed my middle name to the original name. It resonated with me and I felt like I was carrying happiness around with me everywhere. I never bothered to tell my mother about that name change.

After marrying and divorcing several times I decided to simply change my name back to the original name. I have to wait until I have enough money to more than cover the basics before I can do that.

However, while I was taking Mama around to her doctor's appointments, she would introduce me and I'd ask to be called by the Japanese name. This made Mama more and more disgruntled. She finally demanded that I stop using that name. I tried to explain how I felt about the two names. She agreed that the Japanese name is beautiful but went on to say that she had given me the new name and that was the name I should use. My rejecting the new name means that I am rejecting her personally. She feels that my using the Japanese name means that I am choosing my birth family over her (and for the record, my birth mother doesn't want anything to do with me either - she told me that herself over the phone when I was 26 and had finally located her.) I find it ironic that Mama insists on my English name even though she has never been able to properly pronounce it. None the less, she views everything I do as a personal reflection of her. Therefore, she rejects me.

The Goats
Mama raises Yorkshire Terrier show dogs. She loves them more than her own children (she has said that in my presence on several occasions.) I view them as cute, useless, expensive, yappy, did I say useless, pieces of fluff. I raise Nubian dairy goats. I love my "girls" - they are smart, affectionate, hard-working ladies that provide creamy, delicious milk that I use for drinking, cooking, cheese-making, and for making soap. Mama views them as an unnecessary expense. Admittedly, their board (they are still in southern Arizona) is an expense that I can hardly afford, but I worked hard to buy and raise them, they have champion milk lines, and I want to have them in my possession again. Mama views that as ridiculous, a show of my utter stupidity, profligacy, and lack of common sense. Therefore, she rejects me.

Today's conversation with my mother resulted in her telling me that she is disgusted with me and that she doesn't want to have anything to do with me. I responded with if she ever wants to have a relationship with her oldest daughter again to please call me.

She has finished radiation. She doesn't know what will happen next.

And that is that.

Setting Goals

"The ability to convert ideas to things is the secret to outward success."

-- H W Beecher

I've taken on ANOTHER stocking job (that makes three) in order to make enough money to live indoors. That means I'm working from 5 p.m. until 1:30 a.m. every day - there are NO days off.  This schedule is messing with my circadian rhythm big time.  I find I'm tired all of the time these days and I'm constantly in  a brain fog. The brain fog is what's making it harder to get the blogs finished, not to mention preparing for the business meeting that's coming up on Thursday.

Business meeting? On top of everything else, I've partnered up with one of my bosses to get a shelf stocking business off the ground. She is experienced in the grocery business and I'm experienced with starting businesses. You'd think it would be easy then for me to get everything done even while I'm semi-asleep, but it just ain't so. Our targeted start date is November 1, 2010. That's six months from now; not much time, so I REALLY need to get myself into gear in spite of fatigue. That means setting goals.

I've read many articles about goal setting but this one, this morning, struck a chord with me. It comes from Patrice Dickey's website, Your Guide to the Life You Love. I'll let you know how the goal setting goes for me. In the meantime, perhaps you can set your own goals to achieve something marvelous.

SEVEN STEP GOAL SETTING
******************************************
1. Write down everything you've ever wanted to do, and choose one goal with which to engage in this process.

2. Ask yourself, "Where am I now? What strengths do I have? What experiences, skills, support, networks, belief systems and foundation will support me in achieving this?"

3. Write down the obstacles to the goal.

4. Write down the steps & paths to overcome the obstacles.

5. Write down WHEN you want to get there.  Create mini-deadlines. (Even though I'm the farthest from a football junkie, this made sense to me-- on a football field, every 10 yards the players get a new life -- plus they can even mess up twice in that process and get three downs). Mini-deadlines are easier to achieve.

6. Write down what rewards you expect--and bring them to life with a picture involving your five senses.

7. Ask yourself, and write down the answer: "Am I willing to do whatever it takes? Is it worth it?"

Waldorf Cinnamon Jello recipe

I lived in the Jello Capital of the World (Utah) for twenty-one years. During that time I went from considering Jello as an iffy "dessert" to incorporating it into salads of every kind. I think Jello eventually permeates every brain cell to the point where you consider the stuff one of the essential food groups.

I've since become rehabilitated and rarely use Jello, but I kept this recipe as one of the healthier and, I admit it, tasty salads.

Waldorf Cinnamon Jello

6 oz pkg cherry Jello
¼ cup red hots
1 large apple, chopped
1 can mandarin oranges
1 cup walnut pieces
1 cup boiling water
1 cup cold water

Dissolve Jello and red hots in boiling water. Add everything else. Refrigerate until jelled.

Rewiring the Brain

If I had the funds to cover all my needs right now, I would be attending school at UC Berkeley getting a PhD in neurophysiology; specifically the plasticity of the brain after experiencing trauma and how people relearn after brain trauma, whether that trauma is experienced prior to or after birth.

I've always been interested in learning and in improving cognitive abilities. I was ecstatic to have children; I now had my own experimental lab rats on which to practice my theories on learning! (I know that sounds horrible, but that WAS my attitude about those precious, tiny babies.) I LOVED playing learning games with my kids. I carried them upside down around the house as we laughed. I had my tiny babies turning the lights on and off in darkened room as I exclaimed, "Wow! You turned the lights ON, and OFF, and ON.." I stuck Cheerios to their faces and was delighted with them as they groped and learned to find and eat the cereal (this was especially entertaining during church!) We played with electronic "toys". We played with Legos and Capsela blocks. I homeschooled. You get the picture.

I read everything I could find on improving a child's IQ. I read to my children. I made sure we had no TV so the kids had to either read or find some imaginative game to occupy their time. We cooked, we sewed, we gardened, the kids worked in the shop with their father. We conducted science experiments (my area of expertise), I sent them to classes at the Y, we had musical instrument lessons; I tried to make learning fun.

These kids grew up to be high-achieving, curious, delightful adults. I was thrilled to watch their growth. I felt that my methods worked well.

And then I adopted a tiny little baby with neurological problems. I thought that enough love and work would make her brain healthy. I thought the same methods that I'd used with the big kids would work with her. I was told I was wrong. I learned about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. I learned that the experts said that these kids would always need someone to be their "external brain" because the brain damage was permanent and they would never function in a "normal" capacity. I felt emotionally devastated.

But, being an incorrigible optimist, and, as usual, refusing to believe the experts, I've kept training, and working with my youngest child. There are so many times that I've lain in bed crying as waves of helplessness have passed over me, but I refuse to believe that the brain can't rewire itself.

And occasionally I come across information that tells me I'm on the right track. I'm POSITIVE that the brain can create new neural pathways to rewire itself into health. I believe that good nutrition and repetition and techniques I haven't yet learned (or developed) can help my baby grow into an independent, successful adult. So I keep working at it.

One day I'll be able to help other parents with brain-damaged children help their kids grow up healthy. In the meantime, I just keep learning everything I can.

I guess I'm rewiring my own brain.