Light Dragons

Time for me to start that maniacal holiday baking that I swear to myself I won't go overboard on, every year, and yet, still manage to.

I was going to do 3 different cookies and one candy this year. That's it.

Then the SiL saw a bread in the latest Food Network magazine and it looked nearly the same as Povitica, which I KNOW I made her a mini loaf of last year, but apparently she doesn't remember it. So I said I'd make her one with just chocolate filling in it. Except the recipe makes THREE full sized loaves, which means, she gets one, we get one and I guess I can send one to my parents...

And thus it begins.

That spiral down into overboardness.

So what's on the list, you ask?

Well...

My mom's Capt Crunch Candy, of course, that's a yearly MUST.

Gingerbread cookies- another yearly MUST, for both my dad and the FiL.

Pizzelles- ANOTHER yearly MUST for my mom and the MiL. And only them. Sorry peeps. They take way too long, especially since they get made two at a time.

Hamantaschen cookies- I made 3 flavors last year for the first time. They went over very well, 4 flavors planned this year.

Sugar cookies.

And THAT was it, I swear.

But then I came across these two cookie recipes in weekly King Arthur Flour emails, and well, yeah... now I'm up to 5 cookies and one candy.

Linzer cookies- I actually have cookie cutters for these too! Thinking doing just a chocolate filling though. In my defense, I have wanted to make these for awhile now. So there.

Double-Shot Mocha Chunk cookies- they just SOUND delicious.


So...

5 different cookies with 5 different fillings between them, 1 candy and a bread that makes 3 loaves. Is it any wonder I get started early?

Did I mention that there's 30 people/families on my list that are getting boxes this year? Yeah. Luckily, half won't need mailing.}:P

Hopefully the insomnia will end soon. Hopefully.

I haven't been able to sleep normally since I got my temporary crown. It came complete with the insertion of a post and that's undoubtedly where the bulk of the pain is coming from. A fiberglass rod was shoved up into my upper jawbone, after all... my body is adjusting to this but it involves lots of pain and headaches.

Vicodin + caffeine = a very sick Ardath.

I may call the dentist's office today and see if they can get me a non-hydrocodone-based prescription (oh hay I've never tried oxycontin is it good?) or I may fall asleep the second I get home and be worthless.

Finals are coming up, wheeeeeee!

So here's the rest of my semester, which is this week and next:

Two papers due on Friday. One just needs revisions, the other I'm behind on.
Another paper due Monday, along with an oral presentation of its information, and then that class is done.
Finals next Thursday and Friday, both of them obscenely early in the morning.

And that would be that. So once I do the papers and presentation I'll have most of a week to study, and it's material I've been enjoying so it's sticking nicely in my head anyway.

This at least makes it easier to deal with the fact that, at the moment, I have no brain power to speak of and only had three hours of sleep, maximum, last night. I just want to crash... at least once this little class is over I finally can (once I get home).

Onward.

Or something like that. Watching an old episode of "Stingray..." it's an episode in which he checks himself into a mental institution to investigate reports that it's being used as some kind of espionage base. After throwing a deliberate freak-out at one of the other patients to establish his crazy creds, the other patient tells him:

"Yeah, you came to the right place. You're a bona fide fruit salad."

My instant reaction:

"Mmmmm... fruit salad..."

There's some downstairs.

It probably wouldn't be nearly as funny to me if I weren't so sleepy/insomnia-laden at this moment in time.

But now I'm hungry. And snickering.

Mmmmm... snickers...

The Daring Bakers November 2009 Challenge hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.




I almost didn't do this Challenge.

Why? Because I hated Cannoli. Well, turns out, Mark loves Cannoli, my neighbor Chris loves Cannoli, Mark's boss and her family loves Cannoli, so it wouldn't be hard to get rid of them when I did make them.

( Continued )

Since Max could fit in the bathroom sink. This is amusing.

Comment below and I will tell you which of your characters that I've played against are my favorites and why I love them. Then repost this in your own journal.