I promised pictures of Indigo.

I even took them.

And I cooked things.

But I’ve been too depressed really – to put up pictures with .. you know…. descriptions and … directions and .. instructions and fevered.. word things.

There was big snow, we lost power, it was an ordeal. All of the food had to go, everything had to be scrubbed. That is about the time when things started truly going awry in my world, and rather than righting themselves, they seem to be on a slippery slope.

So – the only things I really have to say are:

I am alive.

It takes forever to boil water in a kettle using sterno.

Always check your french press to be sure it doesn’t have a gaping hole in it’s bottom when you need it … in an October snowstorm, when the power is out.

I am sure there is more. Somewhere. Eventually.

Meh.

 

Indigo – part 2

I’ll put pictures in tomorrow.

Right now I have runny indigo dripping down the back of my neck.

Let me tell you about indigo, its pretty neat. But also a pain in the rear end.
If you are planning on ever using indigo, please look here. Be safe.

In its dry form its rather deceptive you see. It looks very similar to henna. Green, powdery, soft.
I take 500ml of indigo, mix with about 100ml of henna. I dropped a couple tablespoons of amla in there as well with 2 tbsp sea salt.

When mixed, it looks soft and silky and fluffy.
It’s partially lying.
Indigo is gritty, it has little bitty peices of grit, its hard to get out of your hair, and kinda feels like large grains of sand. I use henna in my mix (in this case, I have not mixed it with anything and the dye has not released, Why? Because I forgot to reserve some of the stuff I used earlier tonight. I use the henna powder anyway, because the henna *is* silky, it acts as a thickener for me here, The indigo has something to hang onto, it will rinse out easier and will stay where I want it much better – in my hair, rather than on alltheotherthings.  I do have some dripping down my neck at the moment, but trust me – way better than it is if all I used was water. The henna also helps me smooth the indigo through my hair. Indigo doesnt spread as nice as henna does. It has to be piled on.   The Salt is in there out of habit, I love to dye fabric. Salt helps improve the color of dye.  You probably have lots of things dyed with indigo, the most likely being jeans. Does it help? Im not sure. Lets hope?

So whats neat about indigo is that you mix it with the warm water, and you add your salt and its this bright green stinky substance.  But as the air hits it, it turns this deep dark blue color – woo! Oxidization! If you ever see it as it happens its pretty neat.  So! We leave this on our hair, wrap it up, let it drip down our necks. (With this, I am not kidding you… keep paper towels near by. Toward the end, it really starts to drip constantly and will drive you insane.  Indigo has a short shelf life once the dye has released. Keep this on your head for about 45-90 min or so. Then go rinse it out.  You will be grateful for the bottle of cheap conditioner, because you are going to need quite a bit of it to get this stuff OUT.

Also – make sure you grab another one of those towels you dont mind staining. – It will most likely be blue or… spotted with blue.
And – I hope that pillow case is dark, because you may leech dye from your hair for a little while, but if you have ever dyed your hair, chances are you have seen that happen before and you are expecting it.

This all said – My hair is a runny mess, all…. over… my…. neck.

Off to rinse! Pictures tomorrow!

Henna and Indigo

Several years ago, I was minding my own business, dying my hair its signature blue-black, when things went horribly wrong. I developed an allergy to PPD. Not only did I wind up with 2nd to 3rd degree burning all over my scalp, but the color was rejected by my hair.  At first, I thought it was a fluke, only to discover how very wrong I was later on when the fumes from another dye later on gave me a reaction.  I was very, very sad. I pretty much gave up on being able to dye my hair again until I started to research Henna.

While I want to be informative, there really is no sense in reinventing the wheel. There is an amazing website all about it- But I will tell you a few things since they are relevant to this post. The first being that if you have an allergy or sensitivity to hair dyes, this is a good avenue to look into. But the biggest, most important thing I will tell you here and now, is that you need to get your henna from a reputable person. Henna only has -one- color. Reddish brown. It is not black, blue, or purple. Anything stating it is a colored henna is not pure henna. Even if you are not looking into Henna for your hair, but as a temporary design on the skin, you should do your research first, take a look at that website. Be informed. You don’t want to go and get henna done only to find out later that it has been terped with ppd or even gasoline. (No, not kidding. I wish I was.)

I buy my henna and indigo from here.  (I even have a really old post on her mixes page here)
It is always lovely, silky, and sifted. I trust her. For me, that is very important, because getting something that isnt what its reported to be could be exceedingly dangerous and even life threatening.

What I have learned over the past few years is that mixing hair henna is best kept simple. Henna and lemon juice. No extra stuff. The more STUFF I put in it, the more it smelled and my color stayed the same either way. I should note here! My hair is very dark, The nuances you can get by mixing other things in is lost on my hair in some instances. In the link above, you will see my hair – its very streaked and light there because I was spending ridiculous hours in the sun.

No wine, coffee, oils or vinegar, it only makes the smell pungent and icky. (And I’ve certainly added STUFF to it over the years, you can tell just by the previous mix link I’ve got there.)

I mix an entire 500ml Body art quality henna with a few tablespoons of indigo and enough lemon juice to turn it into the consistency of well stirred Greek yogurt or sour cream.  Throw it into a freezer bag, squeeze out all the air and let it sit in the fridge until I am ready to use it. Sometimes things don’t turn out as I plan them, and I wind up chucking it into the freezer after dye release.  If you are looking to do this much faster than I usually am, you can keep it out on the counter or somewhere warm and the dye will release much faster.  I have heard of dye release happening within hours if you leave the container out in the sun on a warm day or in the car. I don’t recommend nuking this in the microwave or trying to literally -cook- the henna.

If you want to mix Henna for body art, mix with lemon juice and honey.  You want your consistency to be thick, stringy and sticky. But… I’m doing hair here, so…

So, Are you ready to be a pretty precious snowflake princess with me? No? Not really?  Just hanging out to watch me make a mud coated fool of myself? Well okay then, hang out and watch me be ogrelike. See if I care. *sniff*

Sausage and White Bean Soup – Or, how not to make delicious soup.

I love green fresh things.
I just like to rinse them off and look at them with their little droplets of water hugging the leaves.
Today I am attempting something new – I have never made anything with Broccoli Rabe, lets see if I’ve botched it.
(Uh, yeah… make sure you read the entire thing….)

I need more knives. I have several, but this one is my absolute favorite because it cuts through just about anything like butter. I don’t remember who makes it, I could probably go look but… well honestly I don’t want to get up at the moment. I am not feeling so well today. Thing is though, it isn’t so great at chopping and fancy knife work, because it was truly destined to be a bread knife, its not really meant for chopping and mincing and rocking back and forth through allthethings.   But I love it, and I cant find my sharpthingssharpening implement of doom, so… there you go.

Is there gas in the car? Yes, There’s gas in the car…..

We made it through the hurricane safely. Nerves ran so high last week before the storm hit that I am ashamed to say that I couldn’t seem to cook.  I *should* have been cooking? But I had no imagination for food. No, not even exciting Spam things in case power was lost and non-perishable culinary skills were desperately needed.  (Yes, I did use ‘exciting’ and ‘Spam’ in the same sentance, and that is a story for another time.)

The grocery stores were menaced. Out here in Connecticut, at my usual grocery stores at least- there was a restrained calm. It was packed like sardines, not even during the winter pre-Nor’easter days or for holidays have I seen it so busy, or lines so long. It was eerie and quiet, everyone with the same pinch around the eyes, that slightly glazed over nervousness.

There was panic buying.

You couldn’t get down the bread aisle for all the people and carts akimbo, Oreos? Sure, that’s a great replacement for bread! After puzzling at facebook statuses from New Jersey, New York, CT, I pondered the growing trend mentioning “FRENCH TOAST SUPPLIES!” and felt genuinely disappointed that the store had no Challah.  I wondered if I had missed some strange storm tradition where one *must* make French Toast the morning after. I even asked. I am not sure I got much of an answer, other than a theory about the rush to buy bread/milk/eggs anytime a storm rolls through. (and I still want french toast. Thanks Irene. Thanks a lot.)

Hours before we were hit, with the outer bands whipping up into Connecticut and laying down the first bit of rain, we nervously sat in the living room and pondered evacuating.  We finally made the call to go to my sister in laws house on higher ground.  I should mention we are quite inland, but we are in an area that has been known to flood, and we are in a basement apartment. As I type this, I can look to my left, and I have to crane my neck in order to see grass. We had sod level drainage ditches intricately carved out on the sides of the house and leading out to the road, but I’m afraid that wasn’t enough of a security blanket for me with record rainfall recorded in the past month or so, and when I had spent the previous weekend sucking water out of the kidlets carpet.

After we watched the police go door to door on the news, evacuating people closer to the shore, we looked at each other and into the car went my computer and monitor and his recording equipment and a couple guitars. Within in an hour we were out of here, and we did pretty well actually – we only forgot our personal blankets. The kidlet had his. Somewhere, there is a ziploc with the few DSI games the kidlet had, I have no idea where it went. So far – it isn’t a problem, and I am exceedingly grateful for *that*.

Honestly, once we made the decision to go, instead of all the what ifs, I felt so much better about the storm coming. .. Until we got to my sister in laws, and noticed just how much glass was surrounding us, and .. oh.. that electric pole is.. right there huh.

We are okay though. We didn’t sleep so well, what with the banshee wind outside and all those trees swaying. I watched the neighbors topiaries spring up and down like Weeblewobbles, flattening to the ground and sproinging back up. Over and over. Trees lost their limbs and giant branches fell. Water came into the basement. I nervously watched the weather as long as I could and then would check facebook and twitter to see what the governor and the news were saying.  Conflicting reports about my area of town came in – No power, some power, high and dry- Lots of flooding. I wasn’t sure what we were going to come home to.

In the aftermath, we only took in a little water in the kidlets room. We have had power. The first day of school was postponed day by day, but opened today, much to the kidlets chagrin. The past several days I have been searching for missing persons, but think everyone is accounted for now.  Three grocery stores, Our grocery store… and any backup we would go to otherwise are closed. One is flooded, the others have no power.  My fridge is filled with questionable food and needs to be cleaned out. My half and half is still partially frozen, the setting on the fridge still doesn’t know what it wants to do.

All in all, we are very lucky. All around us are washed out roads, old lovely trees have fallen everywhere, things are flooded.  Today school opened.  I hope the grocery stores aren’t far behind.

Dear sometimes neighbor….

Hello Neighbor, how are you doing?

I bet you are doing just great today, because you aren’t home. Your mother is upstairs though, and she’s yelling an awful lot today, but I have the air conditioner on high at the moment, partly because I’m giving that Chicken Pot Pie with Cream Cheese and Chive buscuits another go, which included lots of epic hot dishwashing action down here, and partly to drown out her raving.

You see, this casserole of goodness equals love. On good days when your mother isn’t home until late in the afternoon, and it has been gloriously quiet, I can do things like this. I can make things with love that take my full concentration. On bad days, they go awry. On bad days when your mother is really looking for a reaction, and throws my nerves on edge, I forget important things because my hands are shaking too much to read the recipe. Or she is making abruptly loud crashy noises that startle me, and I forget why I had the nutmeg in my hand… or that no, I did not add the lemon juice yet.

My feet hurt, but it’s okay, because I was able to do the dishes – I was able to concentrate on chopping large amounts of baby zucchini, fresh baby corn, garlic, onions, celery, organic carrots and chives. The kidlet was busy and not throwing full blown autistic tantrums today, Your mother wasn’t here yet. I was not afraid of cutting my fingers off. It was GLORIOUS.

She did come home-  But I was whisking by then, and then I was working fat and whatnot into biscuit dough. I am not as nervous about losing fingers around a biscuit cutter.

Love tastes so good.

Dearest neighbor – I have had an epiphany today. I used to wonder what happened to my brain. I used to be a reasonably intelligent woman who could form sentences and hold a conversation that made sense and did not bounce from topic to topic at the barest twitch of eyelash. Also- my hair was not so heavily streaked in silver, and I was not this fluffy. All of these things I notice… occur around the time your mother started to decline and harass us… and here I was blaming my poor child for it (in a loving, rather funny way) and his autism by proxy. Go figure.

By the way, the police were here again on Saturday, we had a lovely chat. Next time, I hope to have coffee made by the time they get here- But when your mother calls them, sometimes it takes hours for them to show up, maybe I will make a game out of it… see if I can guess how long it will take them to send someone out.

I wish you would come down for a chat too, I’m going to try to get some pamphlets about Dementia for you, and I have some great pictures to show you with your mothers keyscratchy hobby on our cars paint job. I have a feeling it wont make you stay home to watch her, or hire someone else to drive her around and keep her company though, but you know what they say… The more you know, and all that.

- Much love,
Me.

It has been a bad day, and the police were called.

Yeah, I was thinking this would be a good ‘lets make baked goods’ place, but its been a bad day. So … maybe its to be a mishmosh of everything place. And you will understand why I am so scatterbrained when it comes to doing ANYTHING.

It has been a bad day. When I got up I thought… Breakfast. I like breakfast. Its Saturday and things will be wonderful! It’s my day off! My one day off a week. Its not really a day off. I snuck into work, (I work online) and I did customer service and whatnot… because I could really.  And when people need help they don’t want to wait, and I’d like less CRAZY tomorrow morning please.

Feeling virtuous, I was thinking of breakfast. I wanted something breakfasty and delicious, though I cant really tell you what that was going to be. It was going to be fantastic though. And then the not really argument happened. It wasn’t an argument, it was just a … crankathon. And it didn’t go away. And the next thing I know, we are not only not having breakfast, but doing epic grocery shopping on a Saturday. Without a plan.  I have been in a food rut for a long time, and I’ve desperately been trying to do NEW THINGS to combat it. Like the amazing Chicken pot pie with cream cheese and chive dumplings at Joy the Baker‘s blog.

They were amazing, and distracted me -huge surprise- forgot the nutmeg and lemon juice, and yes, still amazing. I added drops of lemon later on? ... yeah. Happily ate leftovers all week and mourned when they were gone.

So then we get home.

BABANG!

Thats the sound of one of our front tires exploding. Big Badaboom. No Multipass.  Thats the sound of the Rotor being warped and heating up so badly that the-tire-blew-up. That is the sound of a bad caliper that was replaced last month. Its the sound of my paycheck whimpering. I know paycheck. Its okay…. one day we will hold hands and frolic. But … apparently that was not meant to be this week. That is the sound though, of those nice school clothes I needed for the kidlet being put off, along with the daydreaming I was having of buying girly soaps and various cosmetics in the hope that I could inflate my withering self esteem. Yeah. Crap.

But no, heh, it doesn’t stop there.
Then *she* comes home.  And she starts banging on the floor in the apartment above us again. She, you understand, is an 88 year old lady that lives upstairs, and she has some form of dementia. She is by herself most of the time, and she has been harassing us for oh, four years now. There is a lot to this story, there are a lot of details I am afraid I cant articulate right now. But this time, she is accusing us of breaking into her apartment and turning her heat on. This time, she calls the cops. I have never in my life, had the cops called on me until she started harassing us. Its an interesting experience.

The first time I was outraged and hurt.. and upset. Now? Now I am tired. Because even the cops say they cant do anything. Even the cops know whats going on, and know we aren’t oh… turning on her heat (its august in New England)  Nor have we ever stolen her underwear (no I am not kidding), They know we didn’t steal her vacuum cleaner, and they know we didn’t steal the air conditioning unit that is installed into the wall of the building above our windows for her apartment. No… they understand we haven’t done all of those things, and this time…. the police officer said that we can either wait it out until she dies (yes, that is what he said. All the while implying how SAD the entire thing is.) or we can move…

So yay! Being afraid to leave the house and sit in the yard. Being too nervous and shot to work on the garden I bravely started planting in the spring. Having the windows closed in August when its a deliriously beautiful 75 degrees because I don’t want to hear her screaming and cursing at us.

We cant move. At least not for another year.

And oh… I promised you daylight time pictures of the ugly cake.

Slightly better than really late at night. But yeah, I don't think its possible to make this pretty.

It’s not just the cake that goes upside-down…

I had to middle name myself a few moments ago. You see, I am tired of making cake.

My feet hurt.

Things went … do I need to say it? (awry)
(The pictures you are about to see are infused with yellow interior light, I’m sorry. I am also sorry that this cake also… is so yellow that it is hard to tell which is the light and which is just… ugly cake. meh.)

I dont know why I am just putting cake into the oven at 8:48pm on a Tuesday. Well… yes, I do know.  It is the Misters birthday. Happy Birthday Mister! <3  This is the first year in several years that I have been able to afford to make him birthday cake. I have been planning said cake for a while now. Or rather, had I REALLY been planning, it would not have gone as awry as it did. I know for next time…. I will promptly forget. Its what I do.

So yes, Misters birthday.  He is not big on sweet things. He is more … bacony, salty… processed meat and cheese producty. But each year as he was growing up? Cake? Pineapple Upside-down. His Moms.
You know what this means. Things-Mom-Made. Moms… always make the best (or the worst, its rarely just mom-usedtamake-this-thing-and-it-was-eh-okay-I-guess).

It’s challenging, its daunting. Not to mention, I am not big on pineapple baked things. I never had it before making it myself.

My brief encounters with pineapple-at-a-party-with-other-stuff-and-not-being-antisocial-by-itself  was very limited to things like…oh… That god awful version of ambrosia. (Canned pineapple, cool whip, jello?, marshmallows,fruit cocktail out of can…. mixed together, usually in a bundt like jello mold and flipped over.) So sweet that your teeth are willing to give up secrets about all the things you did when you were a teenager in order to be swished in black coffee for relief. (Not that I ever did anything that my teeth would keep secret.. or something. I don’t know, aren’t we talking about pineapple? Why are you looking at me that way?)

So yeah, Birthday tradition thing. Mister. Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
The first year I made it, I made it in a huge rectangle of pyrex, and the cats attacked it while it was cooling after the flip. (awry cake, see?) Everyone cut that corner off and assured me it was fantastic. (It was pretty excellent actually, I thought they were being nice and trying to talk me off the ledge. They actually weren’t.

So! What made things go awry? Oh.. My Fridge. Looked like this this morning.

Oh dear...

We just hadn’t gotten to the store. I promise that cider in there is a month old and is not why there is a large lack of food in my fridge. Yes.. that does say bait. That is the mister’s drawer. <.< So yes. Grocery shopping. Say a prayer for that jar of pickle juice, it met its demise when that bar on the door broke and it went crashing to the tile floor and spread dill vinegary goodness on ALLTHETHINGS.  Anyway, that took longer than expected because the car battery died blah blah blah. AWRY.

So… Cake. We hope. Its in the oven. It isn’t done yet.
This is where you are going to be annoyed with me, if you aren’t already.  I forgot to write down part of what I did, but it wont be that big of a deal I don’t think. We’ll see. It only counts if you wanted the recipe -cough-.

Dry stuff

Preheat your oven to 350F
Sift together your flour, baking powder, spices and salt and set aside.
Cream together your butter and sugar until they look lovely and fluffy and happy
together.

ooooh, yellow.

Add eggs one at a time (waiting until each one is incorporated into the batter)

Yay for spoons!

Add vanilla, milk and pineapple juice together and slowly add them to the mix.

It looks way better here than later....

Add in your dry ingredients a little at a time or the batter will explode and you will be coated in goo.
Place rings around the bottom of your pan and dot with cherries. I really prefer these, they are lovely. And check out that wonderful labeling. It makes me happy just looking at it.

Here is where you groan and throw things at me…. you have to make caramel, which is really just a slowly heated and stirred combo of butter, brown sugar and corn syrup. Sometimes there’s no corn syrup. I’ve done it with just the butter and brown sugar several times before. But … I forgot how much brown sugar I had, and did not have enough. I had to fish out a half melted stick of butter. I had to add a few tablespoons of granulated sugar and some molasses, My mind went blank, there wasn’t a pen, My goldfish ate my homework. Mistakes were made. Anyway….. um. It bubbled, it looked right… I poured it over the pineapple in the bottom of my bundt pan and then poured in the batter. And put it in the oven…. And then looked at the mess my kitchen was, and middle named myself to go clean that cast iron missy. RIGHT NOW. (Because with cast iron, you MUST clean it -right away- and tell it you love it. It will love you back.)

oh... beloved cast iron...

And then I came and sat down.
And then I went to check the cake.

Fat bottom cake... you make the baking world go.. oh... erm... nevermind.

And this is where I tell you that  it looks ugly…. until you cut it. I will take pictures of that tomorrow and hopefully I will remember to upload it.

But it is rather lovely and carmelized....

I played it safe with what I remember on the spices, now having tasted it, I would recommend 1/4 tsp. of clove and ginger if you like things spicier. (I think its really easy to overdo ginger and cloves.)  Normally, I will also dot the cake with pecan halves, but I forgot that I had some shoved in the back of my freezer, Pecans give this a nice nutty touch and the flavors play very well together.

The cake is dense, moist, and makes you feel as if you had CAKE.

The misters eyes rolled back in his head. Yay \o/

Cake:
a scant handful of canned and pitted cherries
1 can pineapple rings with
3/4c pineapple juice reserved
3/4 c. unsalted butter
1 3/4 c. sugar
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
3/4 c. milk
2 1/2 c. flour
1/8 tsp of each: ginger, clove, cinnamon
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt

—-
Caramel…. its a mystery.
Brown sugar
Butter
Corn syrup
If you don’t have brown sugar, you can mix molasses with white sugar, but I forget the ratio, and honestly, chances are you are going to have brown sugar instead of molasses.

The best laid plans…

It's all the balloon whisks fault, I tell ya.

By the time I was done, my kitchen would look like a citrus massacre had taken place, but it would be cleaner than it was when I had started. Rather, my cabinets would be anyway. It had started out innocently enough, surely as all my cake schemes do- but it would go awry….. Because that is famously what happens in things I put my hands to. They just often go off kilter.

I am attempting to believe that this is a charming facet of my personality, and not the character flaw I’m sure most others would. When I am in the kitchen, I often imagine that somewhere, I am causing apoplectic tantrums in some chef somewhere, in some lovely copper filled kitchen where the floor is pristine, the walls are bleach white, and natural sunlight streams through wide arched windows, casting their light onto generously sized counters in honey toned woods and cold granite.  But… as usual, I digress.

Cakes and I have a long history of having issues. Sometimes we get along famously. Sometimes.. Well, sometimes things go so disastrously that I wonder if counseling would be out of the question. I am pretty sure the counseling is needed anyway. Likely, it isn’t all the cakes fault.

So.. my first post that I started in the beginning of the month, was supposed to be all about cake, the running monologue that was going on in my interior during the cake-a-thon. I promise it was witty and brilliant, and my punctuation was going to be perfectly aligned with grammar. Really. It was. The fact that the draft was called “The best laid plans…” is killer. Because life happened, and I was tired at the end of all that cake. I did take pretty pictures for you though. I assure you that despite a crack in two of them? They were fabulous and perfectly baked, not awry at all. The awry part was ….. the loss of my balloon whisk. I found it, I dismantled my kitchen in the process and cleaned out my cabinets. That was the awry part…. And I learned that I do not like baked strawberries in cake. Thats about it.

Even the crack on this Strawberry lemonade cake is gorgeous.

In the end, I had three lovely cakes. Two lemonade, one strawberry lemonade that was the perfect shade of pink. My glaze was fantastic. I went through more lemons than I can count. I massacred strawberries. I experimented and failed making a purple lemon glaze when I steeped and strained blueberries in lemon juice. I foolishly sugared my fruit on the final lemonade cake in hopes that the humidity would leave it alone and it would be fabulous for presentation.  It didn’t. It still looked lovely. I was not embarrassed. It did not go awry. The cakes were eaten. One of the cakes was ninja’d and gone within 10 minutes. Thats winning, I say.

And not only did my best friend hijack and hide pieces of cake? But she plied me with Mojitos.

Oh yes...