The Barefoot Kitchen Witch

Time Management – Or the Lack Thereof

As I said yesterday, I’m on a cleaning kick.  Sort of.  Put it this way – I’m in the mood to clean.  I’m not always.  Or for very long.  But it needs to be done, and now that I’ve armed myself with all sorts of good-smelling, inexpensive but effective homemade cleaning supplies, I’m kind of raring to go.

Thing is, I’m raring to go about a lot of different things.  Sewing.  Revamping this blog (a long overdue project).  Making more cheese.  Cleaning out the house so it’s not so cluttered.  Planning a yard sale for whenever yard sale season officially begins.  (I’m thinking that will coincide with slightly warmer Saturday mornings.)  Making more stuff for my Etsy shops.  Cooking and baking more interesting stuff for this blog.  Working in the gardens. 

And, of course, in and around that there’s normal daily life.  Husband.  Kids.  Pets.  Dishes.  Laundry.  Meals.  Work.  Exercise.  (Which needs to move farther up the list.  Perhaps right after Pets.  I figure breathing things should come first.)

Anyway, I have all these things I either should do or want to do, or a combination of both.

And I’ll tell you right now, flat out:  I’m terrible at staying organized.

An Unanswered Question and the Mystery of The Missing Comment

I should just have left things the way they were. 

I was (moments ago) doing little maintenance things around the website, typing up another printable recipe (for the Short Dough used here and, last year, here.  And in my travels, I discovered that I had posted this year's Short Dough post twice.  (I think I did that this morning trying to get this month's banner to HURRY UP AND SHOW UP!!!!  MAYBE IF I JUST PUBLISH SOMETHING RANDOMLY, IT'LL SHOW UP!  THAT'S WHAT I'LL DO!)  (Impatience is not always a good thing.)

Anyway, I saw that there were two posts of the same name, and so, before anyone could notice and point and laugh about it, I deleted the most recently published one.

A bit later, I was checking my email, and discovered that Lynne had left me a comment about the new banner:

"This month's header bar piccy is nice and easy.. but I still can't find last month's chocolate.

So you had better spill the beans now."

!!!  She was right!  I still hadn't posted that recipe yet!!  Immediately, I clicked on the link (in my email) to the post she'd made this comment in (bad grammer, sorry) - it was the recent Short Dough - Big Snowflakes etc. post.  But when I clicked on it, I got a "sorry, the page you want no longer exists" message.

Oops.  Sorry, Lynne!!

But, to answer your extremely valid question, the chocolate from last month's banner - here it is, in case you don't remember it or haven't seen it - was from the making of my sister's birthday cake.

 

Her birthday?  Halloween.  Yeah, I know.  It needs to be posted.  Yesterday.  Or, rather, yesterday last month.

By the way, it's not just chocolate.  It's chocolate drizzled into cheesecake batter. 

I know.  Yesterday last month.

Here We Go

Well, the cookies are under way.  I've got a few doughs made and I'll be baking them off and making more doughs over the rest of the weekend. 

I've made 6 lbs (yes, six) of short dough, flavored with vanilla instead of lemon zest this time, and one batch of Pfeffernusse.  I'll also do the Springerle - five batches.  Not sure what'll be next, but I'll keep you posted.

So much to do!  But I love every bit of it, and, as usual, the baking and the month of December (once we get there) will go by much too quickly.

Anyway, that's what I'm up to at the moment.

In case you were wondering.

Gearing Up

I always plan to be ahead of the game when the holiday baking season is approaching.

Each year, after I've finally managed to ship out all the cookies to everyone far away and to hand out plates or platters to the people near by (have I missed anyone?  panic panic panic), I tell myself I need to get a master list together - of recipients and of ingredients - so I can really PLAN AHEAD the next year.  And then around the end of September, beginning of October, I remind myself of this - "I'd better get myself organized soon!" And then October disappears beneath birthdays and candy wrappers and then suddenly it's the second week of November and I haven't planned or organized a thing.

And my pantry is in, hmmm, how shall I say this...disarray (I'm being kind to myself) and the boxes and boxes of cookie cutters are buried under placemats and plastic containers, and some of the baking ingredients - which ordinarily reside all on their own shelf - have migrated out of necessity to the top shelf, where I keep things like canned tomatoes and pasta, because I put a big glass jar (Stinky's birth jar) on there and haven't put it back in the basement yet and it's taking up a lot of space. 

Well, the other day I suddenly felt, I don't know, GUNG HO about getting organized in there, and while I was at the grocery store going down the aisle where they have things like ironing board covers and moth balls and dangling air fresheners for your car, my gaze happened to fall upon one of those plastic over-the-door shoe organizers.

Hm.

I could use one of those.

But not for my shoes.  I don't care about my shoes that much.  They're fine in a heap in the corner of my closet.

But my pantry...I bet I could use an over-the-door shoe organizer in there somehow.

So I bought one.  Clear plastic.  And when I got home, I set it up (only a little filing on top of the door was needed so the little bracket thingies could fit and still allow the door to close) and filled it with all my extracts and spices and colored sugars and chocolate and other decorative sugary things.

And here it is:

Exciting, isn't it????

It freed up a bunch of space on these little corner shelves Bill had made, and now I've filled them with boxes of pasta, which actually fills the shelves right to the top, which makes me happy.

I've still got more to do, but that was a nice start.

Julia thought so, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Naturally I look to her for approval in everything I do.

Now I just need to learn not to whip that door opened so vigorously.  

It's become dangerous. 

Mise en Place

Mise en place (pronounced "meez-en-plahs") is a French phrase which means, basically, "to put in place," - and what it refers to in professional (and not-so-professional) kitchens is getting all your ingredients measured (or scaled) out, prepped, and ready to go, so that when you actually start cooking or baking, you don't have to suddenly search frantically through your cupboards for the bottle of ground cloves that you could swear you saw up there the other day.

It means being organized. It also keeps your work area tidy, since you aren't stopping to separate eggs in the middle of mixing your dry ingredients because you suddenly realize that you will only be adding the egg yolks to the sugar and butter at first, then incorporating your dry ingredients, and then the whites are whipped separately and folded into the rest of the mixture...and so since you didn't plan ahead for this, you've suddenly got egg white dripping down your arm and a bit of shell in with the creamed butter and sugar.

Tonight, while Bill brewed up an extract batch of Stout, I did my mise en place for 4 more batches of cookies. A double batch of the lebkuchen, and one batch each of almond stars, farmer hats, and butter cookies. Tomorrow throughout the day I'll put the doughs together, and bake them off tomorrow and Sunday. And then we can ship them out on Monday to Bill's brothers and uncle.

I also plan/want to make stollen, which is a German bread studded with raisins and candied orange peel (yes, studded, like they say in restaurant reviews or in cooking magazines) and marzipan...and topped with a heavy dusting of confectioners' sugar. I remember a good friend of my Mom's family, who was Aunt Hilda to me, used to make this and I loved it. With butter on it.

I also want to make shortbread...and a couple of batches of biscotti...my sister-in-law, Nina's recipe, and another recipe that a friend at work handed to me a few weeks ago.

Also want to make chocolate croissants or cinnamon rolls or something like that for Christmas morning...

I still have a little bit of time, I think...

I'll be fine as long as I mise en place...

Okay, this is way past my bedtime...goodnight....