Making do (and baking muffins), not making excuses.

Pin It I was reading through my new British muffin cookbook this morning, and I realized it's totally useless to me.  Everything is in weight measurements, and I don't have a scale (obviously).  So I wrote off the 5 pounds I'd spent on it and turned instead to my previously unexplored copy of The Joy of Cooking, which I hauled over here last summer and promptly forgot in the suitcase (it was rediscovered a couple weeks ago, along with my favorite winter coat; both presumed losses were sorely lamented).

Now THAT'S a cookbook!  Not only does it have a million recipes and variations, but it's super helpful on everything from bakeware solutions (separating a large pan with aluminum foil and weights to make it a small pan) to knife skills to candy making.  AND she doesn't just ASSUME you have fancy equipment like an electric mixer!  So advice is given on how to cream butter with the back of a wooden spoon, and how to whip cream with a whisk, and how to make truffles in the microwave (you heard!).  I seriously LOVE this woman.

In defense of inactivity.

Pin It Sooo.... I know I haven't posted in a really long time.  And I feel bad for that, I do.  Especially when every other blog I follow seems to have like 6 million readers a day and at least one 2010 Bloggie nomination, and I'm so consumed with envy at their success that I'm tempted to be ultra-petty and make a point of not visiting said blogs just to cut their stats down by one.  BUT I'm not quite that much of an asshole.  Slash I'm too obsessed with their amazing blogs to stop.  Slash I fully realize, in the logical, non-green parts of my brain, that their blogs rock and mine are just ok.  There are some reasons for this, some of which are admittedly all my bad, and some of which are not.

First, my bad: I don't write nearly often enough.  I mean, not even once or twice a week.  WHAT IS THAT?  You would never see a Bloggie nominee who posts as sporadically as I do.  So on that note I'm a bad bad blogger.  And I'm sorry.  I'M SORRY.  Really!  Yeesh, you guys are tough.

Now, onto happier complaints, the things that AREN'T my fault: