3/4 cup water
2 TBSP olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cup flour
1 3/4 tsp yeast

MIX

preheat oven 400
rest 10 minutes
Bake 12-15 minutes
Add sauce & top
Bake 10-15 minutes more until toppings are just right.

Every now and then, the creative urge strikes, and I hit the kitchen. I am not, technically, any kind of trained gourmet cook. What I am is a Lunatic with an appreciation for good food, a knowledge of the basic working principles of cooking (thank you, Mama), and a willingness to experiment, bearing in mind that some of the experiments might not come out so well.

Today, at 11:30 am, the monitors' retirement party for the lady who's retiring in November happens. (It's a surprise. The e-mail said it's a monitor meeting. The paper invitations that got passed out detail that it's actually a party, who it's for, and what to bring.) We were detailed to bring "finger foods" -- and since I don't want to get up early enough to be able to make it to the store, and I have mentioned that I do make these things occasionally to my salivating co-workers, I opted to make truffles.

I've made two kinds. The first kind is the tried-and-true Irish Cream truffle, where the two ingredients are Irish Cream and semi-sweet chocolate chips. I think I didn't add enough Irish Cream this time, because while they're tasty, they're hardly knee-melting. I melt chocolate chips, pour in Irish Cream, and stir until the thing becomes firm. Then I ball up the boozy chocolate, chill it, then dip it in more melted semi-sweet chocolate chips.

The second kind is an experimental coffee liqueur truffle. I melted semi-sweet chocolate chips, mixed in a certain amount of Turkish-ground coffee, then added coffee liqueur. I shaped, chilled, and dipped the centers in the usual manner. They are tasty. I'll have to do this again.

I had some melted chocolate left over, so I broke out the cherries that have been sitting in rum since February. These are the store-bought maraschino cherries rather than my own stock. I discovered that unfortunately the cherry flavor has diminished, and there is too much rum content and not enough sugar. I dipped them anyway, just to see how they'll do. I broke out the tea jug of my cherries, and scooped up some of the sugar sediment to add to the rum cherries. I think what I'm going to do is drain out the cherry-juice rum and stick it in a bottle or something, then add sedimental sugar and the cherry syrup from the cherries I prepared this summer, to see if the rum cherries can't be salvaged. I strained out my prepared cherries from the tea jug and put them in another container to save space now that they've absorbed all the sugar they're going to absorb.

The cherries have shriveled up, raisin-style, almost. I don't think they'll be suitable for the way I usually have been dipping cherries. Now I'm wondering if I can use an ice cube tray to prepare chocolate forms to make cordial cherries. That could be interesting!

I had in the refrigerator what I estimate to have been perhaps a three pound bag of cherries. I was grimly anticipating the necessity of going out and braving the evening traffic to get perhaps one or two more bags of cherries the same size to pit and sugar.

What I didn't count on was the amount of juice in the cherries, and the way that the juice and the sugar start clinging to each other, and how very much space all the sugar in there takes up. I'll be lucky to not start on the other gallon glass jug with this one bag, I think.

At least until I add the vodka.

I'm contemplating buying a bottle of Everclear so that I can duplicate the Everclear cherry that someone described to me on the phone. (It couldn't have been amberfox, because amberfox and alcohol do not mix. iroshi, was that you?) Evidently the things burn like intense cinnamon. (Was it Dawn? Now I'm going to have to track whoever it was down....)

I wonder if easalle would be up for some chatting while I pit cherries and she cleans. But first, I'm going to finish this bag....


If all goes according to plan, the chocolate-covered cherries this Yule will be wizard.

Sis came over with the Little Fayoumis, detailing all sorts of happy fun things. eris_raven has bonded with Clover, and is really enjoying having the wilds of Colorado partially at her disposal. I showed off my birthday card from Darkside. The Little Fayoumis is reading by himself in his head now, which thrills me.

Tonight was indeed a fried mushroom night with trystan_laryssa. The boys went and washed laundry and played some game involving world domination, dice-rolling, and armies with monsters. I decided we needed chicken to go with the mushrooms; we went out for chicken, and came back with not only chicken, but also Dew, strawberries, cream cheese, chocolate chip cookie dough, and a few other things that are escaping my tired brain.

We had been making crab puffs with the wonton wrappers that were left over from last time. It was late enough that I had gotten even a little past the stage where I think it's hilariously funny to put random things up my nose. (I think Freud does not cover "nasal-retentive" as a developmental stage?) This meant that I had a sudden insight: what if we wrapped up cookie dough in wonton wrappers and deep-fried it? I thought it was an excellent plan. trystan_laryssa thought it was disgusting, and doomed to certain failure, but she was tired enough to entertain the notion.

The cookie puffs were scarily delicious. "These need whipped cream!" she declared. I pointed out that cream cheese was close enough. I experimented with various forms of wrapping. We watched far too much Trigun. It was definitely a slumber party.

The men did not return until nearly 6 in the morning. dustraven wanted to try the cookie puffs. Yay cookie puffs! I am sure that somewhere, someone else has independently come up with cookie puffs, if not by that name. I'm not sure what sort of logic train would lead to that, though, and I'm not entirely sure that I want to.

Things like this demonstrate why I very much do not need drugs. If I can have this kind of insane insight, the sort of insane insight that people usually do not get unless they are stoned out of their little brain cells, while I'm dead sober, then I would probably be dangerous if I were self-medicated and not under the care of a trained professional.

Belated, as this one's been going around the web since Nov 2004... Running cheap-ass nasty vodka through a common household activated charcoal water filter clears out enough of the impurities to make it not actively bad.

This has nice implications for household brewing, as the vodka on my liquor shelf at the moment is distinctly nasty-ass (the cheapest stuff at the store), and it would be nice to have the raw ingredients for certain of my brews be of better quality, even though I do let them age.

All I need is a good filter pitcher and a few extra filters, and I should keep one of those around the household in any case because of the bleedin' Phoenix tap water that most people can't stand.