Tuesday Travels - funny mishap

This past Thursday, I drove to Sacramento to meet up with some family. I made it to Sac around 7:30pm and was driving down a 4 lane street with the windows down, jamming to the radio. All of a sudden I heard hollers from the car beside me. Are you kidding me? A car full of guys are heckling me? Wow, it's been ages since that's happened. Um, kids, I'm 32 years old. You must need glasses. haha.

So I ignored them. I just kept jamming down the street. But, I could see out of the corner of my eye that the car was staying beside me. Neck and neck as we both drove down the street. The hollers continuing. And then the next light turned red and I knew I'd be uncomfortably stuck idling beside them until it turned green. I guessed that they just realized the same thing because they became even rowdier. So as I began to break, I casually rolled up my window, leaving the passenger side window down to keep the car cool. Odd thing was, I could still feel a breeze blowing THROUGH the car and not only could I hear them still, they seemed to erupt in laughter. All the while, I kept my eyes straight ahead.

The light turned green and they finally got tired of teasing me and drove off. It wasn't until they were completely out of sight, that I then turned to look at my window. Some how it came off the track and rotated 90 degrees, looking something like this....

No wonder they were laughing their heads off.

I had to jump back on the highway before reaching my destination. The wind at that speed was causing the window to flap and bang against the car. I had to drive down the highway holding the window to keep it from flapping. Only slightly less embarrassing than being laughed at by a car full of obnoxous boys.

The Sunday Special - vege bread

Not vegan bread, VEGE bread. I put vegetables in it. So in following the same recipe as last time as a guideline, I decided to use olive oil instead of butter, honey instead of sugar, add some bee pollen, change up the flour/flax seed proportions, and added vege pulp left over from juicing.

I added these ingredients in this order into the bread machine.

1 1/8 cups Vanilla Coconut Milk
1 egg
2 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 Tbsp (I didn't measure it but it was close enough) Honey
1 tsp salt
1 sprinkle of Bee Pollen
2/3 cup packed down Vege Pulp (carrot, celery, spinach, cilantro)
1 cup Wheat Flour
1 cup All Purpose White Flour
1/2 cup Flaxseed Meal
2 1/8 tsp yeast

It came out really small. Guess it didn't rise.

It tastes good though! And is really moist.

I'm thinking, next time use about 1/2 the pulp. Does anyone have any suggestions on what I should do differently? I'd like to see it rise and make a bigger, lighter loaf.

My bags are packed

I'm all set to go. Since it's a road trip, I decided to use a fun vintage bag instead of my boring more airport-y one or my backpack like I usually do.

Woohoo! I'm off. See ya on the flip side.

Tuesday Travels - It's been awhile

I'm so excited! I'm going on a road trip this week. It's been forever since I've gone on a purely for fun trip, let alone a trip at all.

The same bunch that happened to be my first (and only so far) visitors here in Tahoe, are coming to Cali this week and have invited me to go explore Mendocino with them. I've never been and I'm so stinkin' excited to go check it out and spend some time with family. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures and share the highlights with you next week.

It's official

I'm a Nevadan!

the Sunday Special - homemade bread

I made homemade bread for the first time this week. Yeah, I used the bread machine all by myself. =) It came with some recipes and I used the Basic Wheat Bread one as a guide. But of course, the best part is substituting and making it your own.

Yeah, that sounds good. I think I'll call it..... Coconut Barley Bread

Ingredients
Trader Joe's Vanilla Coconut Milk: 1 1/8 cups
Egg:1
Butter: 2 Tbsp
Sugar: 1 Tbsp
Salt: 1 tsp
Whole Wheat Pastry Flour: 2 cups
All purpose white Flour: 1/2 cup minus 1 Tbsp
Flax Seed Meal: 1 Tbsp
Moist Malted Barley (left over from making home brew): 4 heaping Tbsp
Active Dry Yeast: 2 1/8 tsp

Here's what I did.
1. Measure ingredients and place into the baking pan in the order listed.
2. Insert the backing pan securely into the machine and close the lid.
3. Select the appropriate settings. (In this case, I chose 'fresh milk basic bread'.) and push Start.

In about 3 hours, you have hot out of the oven bread. And that is the best time to eat it. I like it hot enough to melt the butter! I was not about to take a picture and run the risk of eating it cold. ha! So here it is a day later and half eaten.

A couple things I've noticed that make me want to make more. It has a nice coconut aroma. Subtle but delightful.
It seems moister than other homemade breads, even the next day it's still moist.

Yay! Now go make some bread. =)

jess

deery

There have been quite a few deer in the yard lately. A few weeks ago, I was surprised to find a whole herd of them right out the picture window. Just about 6 feet from where I was standing (inside the house). I started counting and thought I was done when I reached 6, but then I kept seeing more deer-rières. I knew they'd be gone by the time I ran and got my camera so I just enjoyed watching them bounce down the driveway and across to the neighbors yard.

Today I happened to see one in the back yard and was able to grab my camera in time. She actually stuck around for awhile.

Not sure what's going on with the little tufts of hair sticking up randomly. Maybe getting caught on tree branches. Or fighting?

Eventually, she snuck off to a different part of the yard and found two of her friends hanging out. These last two stuck around so long, I thought they were bedding down for the night. The one on the ground there (you just see ears poking out from behind a bush) didn't get up the whole time I was watching it.

But eventually they disappeared