Fire in a can! (and a baby bird update!)

Lookit!! So cute! When you walk in the back door, sometimes you wake them up and they start squeaking and you see their little mouths bobbing and reaching inside the door to the nest. Then mom (or dad) shows up and all is well. I took this photo a couple days ago, and today I looked in and saw their eyes are starting to open, and they're getting little feathers on the tops of their heads. I also did a little research, and discovered that Carolina Wrens may produce two or three batches of babies over a season. So these little guys might only be the first round...guess we'll see!

Apart from bird-watching, I spent a little time this week working on a plan for our Appalachian Trail hike, which was exciting. My friend Matt was staying with me all week, before heading out on his own AT hike, so I'm looking forward to his report to get me even more excited about my and Jill's trip! Matt showed me how to make a camp stove out of a pineapple juice can. We boiled water in my driveway (even with a sudden dousing of rain), and it only took a handful of twiggy sticks, and a chunk of paper bag.
Forty-seven days until I can take a break from working to just worry about living. Ahhh.....can't wait.

Banana bread, xanthan gum, and peppers

My spring break is winding to a close...sadly. This week of not-working has been a tantalizing reminder of what it's like to not have to spend 8 to 10 (to 12) hours of your day, five days a week, doing something that isn't necessarily what you would choose to spend 8 to 10 (to 12) hours of your day doing if you didn't have to pay rent and make student loan payments. Not that, on the whole, I don't like my job - some days I love it, some days I hate it - but overall I just think sometimes what it would be like to have the hours of my day be all mine, to do with what I want.

I spent last weekend with my Mom visiting here in Charlotte, then drove up to Delaware to visit with my Dad and my brother, stopped in Maryland to see my Nana, Aunt and little cousin, and today I'm back in NC with a whole, glorious day to myself.

So far today I have planted peppers (bell and jalapeno)...

made granola...

and taken my second foray into the world of gluten-free baking with a banana bread recipe I found online.

Here's what I've learned:

1) Xanthan gum is expensive. And Harris Teeter doesn't have it. (It's a binding agent, in lieu of gluten.)
2) Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free All-Purpose Baking Flour is made from, and kind of tastes like, beans.
3) Melted brown sugar makes anything taste better.
4) You can actually make normal-textured baked goods (or quick breads, at least) without gluten.

One of the items I brought home from Delaware with me is a kitchen scale. I was going to buy a digital one online before my dad dug this out of a cabinet. Sexy, no?

I keep reading how it's better to bake by weight when you're doing it gluten-free, because 1 cup of rice flour might weigh something different than 1 cup of almond flour which might weigh something different than 1 cup of buckwheat flour (buckwheat is not wheat). And if you do it by weight, then you can sub in whatever flours you have and like the taste of. And since gluten-free flours are like six bucks for a little one-pound bag, this lets you use what you've got, instead of being a slave to what the recipe calls for. At least so goes the theory.

Since the recipe I used called for a brand-name pastry flour mix, which I didn't have, I used the aforementioned Bob's, plus a little buckwheat flour. Buckwheat is grainy, but it doesn't taste like beans. And in fairness to Bob, his flour didn't really taste too much like beans after I'd combined it with the other flours and turned it into banana bread. Not TOO much like beans.

I haven't had anything remotely bread-like in weeks, so the one slice of banana bread I've had was incredibly filling. And tasted decent, if not remarkable. It wasn't really very banana-y, despite having two whole bananas in it. It was good enough you'd eat a second piece, but not so good you'll eat the whole loaf in a day. You can definitely tell there's something different about it (like, it's made out of BEANS), but it's in the flavor, not the texture, and I feel like the flavor can more easily be tweaked by using other flours.

As much as I'd love to have exact gluten-free replicas of every wheat-y food I've ever loved, I realize that isn't about to happen. I also know that, since I don't have Celiac disease, if I really wanted to eat a baguette or something, I could. I'd just pay for it with joint pain later. I'm hopeful that the longer I go without gluten (and onions, beef, and tomatoes...my other nemeses) the more likely it will be that I can eat them again in small quantities down the road. In the meantime, I will likely stick to foods that don't require xanthan gum to work. Things like roast chicken, and buttery kale, and baked custards, and Rice Chex covered in melted marshmallows a la Rice Krispy Treats.

And roasted red peppers, which hopefully I'll be able to make from my own peppers this summer.

Shrimp (heart) Petroleum

In an antique store in Asheville yesterday, I came across this poster:
After I blinked a couple times, I thought 'Wow, bet they don't have THAT festival anymore.' So, when I got home that afternoon, I googled it. And was wrong. The 2011 Shrimp and Petroleum Festival will be held this September, and claims the title of the "oldest state chartered harvest festival in Louisiana." Besides the bizarreness of the idea of an 'oil harvest,' I just can't quite get my head around the idea of shrimp and oil rigs happily frolicking (pumping?) together in the Gulf like best friends. It's been almost a year since this little event. And I'm pretty sure the little shrimps weren't enjoying their sudden, intimate encounter with their old friend petroleum. Is this some well-known festival that everyone has heard about except for me? Am I the only one who thinks this poster is bizarre and, hindsight being what it is, a bit ominous?