Lily’s Blog, Dragon Absconded!
Baking Until I Drop

Mango Sorbet, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

As promised, I took another photo shoot of my mango sorbet.

You can go to my homemade ice cream set to see more of my other frozen goodies.

We cut up 4 julie mangoes and 2 doodoose mangoes and then processed them in the food processor.

Afterwards, we added water, sugar and fresh lime juice.

Then, it was ready for the ice cream maker and tada! We got uber fresh, strong mango smelling sorbet.

It was lovely.
Or so I’m told.
I’m still squeamish about actually eating “processed” mango.
But it did taste good (you know ice cream and sorbet…always drips and melts on your fingers).

I am entering this in the Mango Mania competition at What’s For Lunch Honey.

Mango Sorbet, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

Voila! The Mango Sorbet, first product of our ice cream maker.

My parents loved it.
It was like eating cold mango.

*whistles*

Continue reading Mango Sorbet

Whole Wheat Hops Bread, originally uploaded by Chennette.

Last week mom made hops bread and we posted the recipe.

A few days later mom adjusted it to make whole wheat hops.
It came out very well however it wasn’t as fluffy and soft as it could’ve been or say the white bread.

So, when Chennette said she was going to make whole wheat hops bread mom was able to tell her precisely what to change in the white hops recipe to make it just as good.

Whole Wheat Hops Bread

Ingredients

• 1 1/3 package dry yeast (1 package in white recipe)
• 2 tsp sugar
• 4-5 tsp baking powder (3 tsp in white recipe)
• 5 cups white flour (8 cups in white recipe)
• 3 cups whole wheat flour (obviously not in white recipe)
• 2.5 cups warm water
• 1 tsp salt

Same method as previous

1. Dissolve sugar in warm water.
2. Dissolve yeast in sugar and water; mom let it stay a minute or so after dissolving.
3. Add flour, baking powder and salt to the liquid.
4. Stir and knead until it was smooth and elastic (5 minutes or so).
5. Pour some water over the dough and cover it and let it rise until it doubles in size (20 minutes).
6. Punch down dough and knead again and cover and let it rise until it doubles in size again.
7. Grease tray with shortening.
8. Punch down dough and pinch and shape into balls (mom made 15) and place on the tray.
9. Let it rise until it fills the tray (or gets to a suitable size).
10. Preheat oven (say 375F – 400F)
11. Bake for about 15-20 minutes or until nice and medium brown.

I like the new Psych ad.
Really.

Psych starting again soon.
Can’t wait.

EDIT:
I never thought I’d post a youtube video but for this I cave.

My cookbooks have arrived!
Before mom went Guyana (end of May?) I ordered 5 cookbook from amazon.com.

One of the 5 got sent in a separate shipment after the first 4.
It arrived at my skybox on June 3rd and the other …didn’t.

I waited a week (no USPS tracking info) and emailed Amazon who said “Oops! it looks like it got lost. We’ll send you a new shipment but you have to wait a couple days because we don’t have it in stock.”

In the interim, I baked the lemon meringue pie from the one that reached me.

Well my new shipment reached the skybox this week and I got my books today. YAY!
*so happy*

In other news, mom and I finally saw and bought our ice cream maker. The bowl is currently in the freezer and we’ve prepped the ingredients for mango sorbet (which we shall make tomorrow, Insha Allah).

I’ve been baking lots of cookies and such this week and I need to take a break (aside from the weight gaining powers of such treats, sometimes they don’t make me feel so good). So next week some time I will start baking from my books.

:-)

There are so many things I want.
So, I’m taking a break from the baking to list it. Maybe next year I will check my list and see what I got (this is not a gimme…I remember in 2004/2005 I wrote a list on paper. A year or so later I found it and was happy to note I’d got a lot of the stuff…stuff even included “being able to eat more than just chicken and cucumbers”. It wasn’t all material).

• Money
• A job (well, I want the money more than the job but I need a job to get money, right? Also, I need to do more with my time so a job could work)
• EDIT: A new lens for my camera – 50mm f/1.4 or something so
• EDIT: A tripod
• a new phone!!! (man! do i really need one? not really but who cares! I *want*)
• ASUS eeePC
• A new laptop! (Well, more than I want a new laptop, I just wish I could upgrade my current laptop. I wish I could put more RAM in it and that the processor could be upgraded. I mean I don’t know how people go about disposing of laptops/computers. I had the dilemma a couple years ago with the Dell that just wouldn’t die but was crawling and I wanted to take a hammer to it…because an old computer…is old but if it’s still working how can I get rid of it? So, if I did get a new laptop, what would I do with my old one? I don’t know. And mine still works…it’s just…you know slow…
• New tools for the kitchen (mostly scales and thermometers. I’m sure there are other things I need but this would be a start).
• My own house (yes, I’ve always dreamed of owning my own house and land. Not working doesn’t really help this along. And writing the balance of the payment for hajj is going to seriously deplete my funds…hence money at the top of the list…and the wishlist so that I can get out of my system all the things I want but can’t afford and won’t get).
• Someone to buy some of my books (I’m weeding through…getting rid of some…figuring out what to do with the others…)
• Lose weight
• Stop taking all my pills…ie get better
• Grow juicy red tomatoes

I know there’s more.
But I’ve forgotten.
Maybe I should’ve made this a page and update it as time goes on.
I’ll think about that. It can always be a page, later…or something, right?

A slice of lemon meringue pie, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

So, I’m reblogging this for CLICK.

This CLICK is a very special edition. It’s also a fundraiser for Bri who was diagnosed with breast cancer. If you feel you can contribute, please do.

All the best Bri.