Meine Klein Welt

Disco + Tanktop = Progress in Pictures

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YMCA Feb 6

It’s been a while. I’m sure many of you had given up hope of ever seeing another disco-themed progress report on my ongoing shoulder recovery. Some of you were probably thankful. Rumors abounded that I had run out of tank tops. Today, I put those rumors to rest.

I continue to make a lot of improvement through physical therapy, but still don’t quite have full range of motion. It seems like it’s taking longer to get that last 5-10% of motion than it has to get this far. But I’m sure that’s more perception than reality.

If you’re so inclined you could pray for healing and that I stay motivated to do my stretches everyday. Thanks!

Here they are, my progress in pictures:

YMCA_Week5

YMCA_Week4

YMCA_Week3

YMCA_Week2

YMCA_Week1

BOTM – Tortillas

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The Bread of the Month for January was tortillas. Delicious, delicious tortillas. What happened to November and December you may ask. (Although, probably not 🙂 ) Well, in November I learned how to make pie crust from scratch. Who knew that would be so easy? In December I was pretty focused on cookies. I learned how to make some chocolate biscotti that were pretty yummy. I decided that since those are kind of baked in a loaf, they’d count as bread. It’s cheating a little, but I’m OK with that. Given the holiday craziness in both of those months, I did not do a great job of documenting the process. Not so with tortillas!

Tortilla

My friend Melissa is the resident tortilla expert, so she kindly agreed to come share her knowledge with me. We decided to make both corn and flour tortillas. It was a tortilla making extravaganza!

We’ve both been dreaming of corn tortillas. I thought I’d found masa, but I think maybe it’s just corn flour. It was really fine and the tortillas were decidedly unsuccessful. We did learn a few things along the way, though.

  1. Corn tortillas need to be rolled or pressed very thin.
  2. Wetter dough works better than drier dough.
  3. Steaming the tortilla before frying it is KEY.
  4. Rolling or pressing corn tortillas works better between a thin cloth than it does between plastic.
  5. Salt is important.

Tortillas

We’re not giving up on corn tortillas, but for now, they are out of our reach. Sigh.

The flour tortillas, however, were a huge success. A huge delicious success! We went for the straight white flour tortilla this time, but I’ll be trying for wheat very soon. There really is no excuse for me to buy tortillas ever again. Not only are they ridiculously easy to make, they taste a million times better than store bought. Yes, a million. At least.

Tortillas

Here’s the recipe:

3 cups white flour (2 cups white, 1 cup wheat for wheat tortillas)

1 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup vegetable oil or shortening (we used oil & it was perfect)

1 cup warm water

Combine flour, salt & oil or shortening. Mix until crumbly. Add warm water. Mix until a ball forms. Knead for 5 minutes. Cover and rest for 30 minutes up to 2 hours. Roll out on a floured surface. Be sure to roll them fairly thin. Cook in a nonstick pan.

Note: We tried to cook them in my cast iron pan. This didn’t work very well, but that is most likely because my pan is pretty trashed.

A few more pictures here: Bread of the Month

Mr. VCS 2010

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Mr. VCS

For the second year in a row, our class put on the Mr. VCS Pageant. This year the students decided to create characters to participate in the pageant rather than having someone from each grade compete. It was absolutely hilarious. The guys did a fantastic job of staying in character and ad-libbing throughout the show. Phlato, the Filipino Philosopher, played by Paul, was named Mr. VCS 2010. The class was able to raise about 500 Euro toward their senior trip. It was a really fun night!

There are a ridiculous number of pictures here: Mr. VCS 2010

Best Face

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The theme at I Heart Faces this week is “Best Face Photo.” This week is a little different because it has to be a photo taken in either December ’09 or January ’10. I thought about entering this face, but instead I decided to share a picture of my favorite face in the whole world.

This week I Heart Faces is celebrating their 1st Birthday. There are lots of giveaways and fun things going on there. You should take a peek. You can check out the other entries for this week, too. See it all by clicking on their cute new logo below.