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

Lilandra’s Bagel Dough, originally uploaded by Chennette.

I mean, look at me kneading … ;-)

I thought this a funny picture.

Chennette took four pictures of me while I was making bagels.

Somebody please remind.
I’m terrible.
Can’t keep track of days at all.
And can’t trust that the computer clock is right.

Mozzarella Cheese Pizza, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

We like Pizza.
I mean seriously like it…home made especially.
Every time we made our own pizza we wonder why do we buy? (1. cleanup 2. hard work 3. time)

But it’s a fun thing we do together.
So, last time we made homemade pizza we did a cross from Peter Reinhart’s (recipe found online before I got the book with the oodles of tips and instructions) and Alton Brown’s.
It was awesome.
I think we didn’t have enough and used the Naps cookbook recipe to supplement…and we could taste the difference.
*sniff*
Nobody wanted those…or at least we left them until last.

The great thing about making pizza is it can be a family affair. I couldn’t knead or roll dough to save my life (still can’t really roll…or TOSS!) but usually mom would make some dough for us in advance and then Chennette at the appointed time would roll it out. Sister the elder would chop everything (it’s never a hardship for her to slice onions and tomatoes or anything else. My brother and I would have burgers and hotdogs with only condiments partly because we don’t see the point of slicing for one person, partly laziness and partly because we also like plain burgers and hotdogs. Seriously!). I’d help out Sister the elder also…but usually my job would be grate cheese. Tonnes of cheese. My brother’s too I guess.

And then the serious production line starts.

As fast as Chennette produces a crust we’d top and shove in the oven.

So, I must admit, having every body in the house is perfect time for pizza. I made the dough balls waaaay in advance and kept trying to figure out the perfect time.

When Chennette flew in overnight on the way to that Canadian wedding, I figured yay!

And I thought everybody was on board with that.
Continue reading Pizza Making Extravaganza + RANT

Guess what!

No, mom, you are not allowed to guess or say anything. You know everything in your freezer down to the dirty ice at the bottom.

:-)

Sweet Potato Plant, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

This is the lovely sweet potato plant that I mentioned before

We’re also planting peas and look at this little sim plant:
Only a couple days before it was *tiny*.
And about a week after, dad and them finally put stakes down for it and…lo! it twined itself around it overnight.
Plants are both freaky *and* amazing.

I mean…one day you have a bucket of soil in which you scattered zinnias
and the next day there are these green things poking up. It’s so gross!
Seriously! It’s weird to see things poking up in soil all by themselves.

Unfortunately some days later mom found a frog squatting in the pot and it damaged the zinnias :-( So must wait longer. One day I will tell you about frogs and this house.

=>

Or my dwarf pineapple (yes! remember the dwarf ornamental pineapple from the orchid show? A couple days later we went to the place mom buys a lot of her plants and there was one! Just one! Waiting for me! To buy! Well. I bought! Okay mom bought it for me :-)

If you look at that picture you can see purple tips…barely.

But as it grew…white spikes with purple tips started poking out from the pineapple (must upload picture). I mean how gross is that? Things spiking. EW. To cap it all, it looked like the pineapple had acne…a pimple…ripe and discoloured on your face waiting to be burst!!!!

Doesn’t it look like it’s having a breakout??

Now the spikes are gone and there are little flowers or something in its place. See. the pimple spike burst into flowers…

This was a summary of my entry into gardening.
I have to repot stuff soon.

Well, at the orchid show we bought a bamboo orchid, a brassia rex, D Uraiwan x Lasianthera and a D Black Spider x Lisa Kanayama.

We didn’t just buy orchids but also lemon basil and rosemary.

Rosemary, originally uploaded by Lilandra.

I just took pictures of mom’s 50+ orchids.
Not artsy but for the purpose of cataloguing, classifying and figuring out what to do with the ones that might be dying or are in distress.

I guess a true photographer would’ve catalogued and taken awesome shots. Oh well.

Just in case you think I forgot…Happy International Women’s Day!