Hot Salsa, Chocolate-Ginger Cookies, and French Bread

After a few weeks hiatus due to just-too-much-work, the Pittsburgh cookie railroad is back on track (ha! I managed to squeeze a pun-like thing in there). I promised to make cookies this week, but didn't feel quite up to the curry cardamom gems that I made last time. And then ate all of them, so I had nothing to deliver. I wanted something chocolate-y, but not chocolate chip. Something exotic.

I had purchased some candied ginger a few weeks ago, at my local Indian grocery. I had plenty of cocoa and chocolate squares, so I went to the trusty Internets and searched for something chocolate and ginger. And I found these:

Chocolate-Ginger Crinkle Cookies

I made up the dough, with minor changes. Just the usual, I didn't have quite enough chocolate, Drew wanted more brown sugar, etc. The dough was really liquidy, more like brownie dough, but I remembered that the regular chocolate crinkles are also like this, so I didn't try to fix it at all.

This morning, the dough was hard as a rock. More like fudge. So, I carved it up a teaspoonful at a time, and set to work baking. They came out awesome!!! I'll definitely be making these again.

Prior to the start of the cookies, I was struggling to come up with something for dinner. I made Indian earlier in the week, so that was out. We thought about grilling, but we need a new chimney coal starter thing, and our local True Value only had a gigantic, overpriced one. (We did pick up a bunch of new plants and some mushroom compost though, so I have a few veggies planted and happy in the back.)

We settled on chicken tacos, but I was out of most veggies that go into my usual salsa. I did have some canned tomatoes from two summers ago, but I was hesitant to use them. They're whole yellow grape and red cherry tomatoes, but I included 1/2 a habanero pepper in each jar, and from previous experience, this made everything I used them in unbearably hot, even when the habanero was not removed prior to cooking.

I ground them up anyway, and threw some fresh garden oregano, onion, and cilantro. It was still insanely hot, but seemed like it was still useable. The rest of the tacos is pretty standard - I use the packet method, and soft corn tortillas - but they were great! The salsa hotness mellowed after sitting for a while, and the taco seasoning stuff worked pretty well to tamp down more of the heat. So I know at least one more use for the remaining two jars sitting in my cupboard.

While the cookies were baking this morning, I got started on some more baguettes, but tried out King Arthur's bread flour and Fannie Farmer's recipe. It's always a challenge for me to not overknead the bread, especially since my trusty Kitchen-Aid mixer tends to make kneading unnecessary anyway. Dough is in first rising now, and my fingers are crossed that it will come out well :)

Good news, everyone!

Most of the last month has been all-about-work for me, either doing it (a lot of imaging on two projects), or stressing out about it (am I making the right decision? Is it going to be enjoyable, or am I going to regret taking an academic post-doc? Or this academic post-doc?) As you can see, my anxiety talent is in over-drive, as usual.

Thankfully, this was broken up by a great visit home for my nephew's birthday. We had lots of cake, a fun time at the birthday place (with slides & lots of inflatable obstacle courses, a museum (where I made full use of my student discount) with bugs & rocks & things & a primo parking spot in Cambridge, lots of games, rock-climbing, & a nice visit with my Dad. I didn't look at any work-related stuff at all, & I came back relaxed & refreshed.

This relaxation was only slightly interrupted at the end of my return trip, when I cam bounding out of the airport, only to realize, I couldn't find my car. I had been runninng late when I got to the airport Thursday morning, and many of the Extended parking spots near the terminal were full. I didn't want to park 1/2 mile away, so I drove to the far side of the entrance & found a good place. Ran into the terminal, and didn't write down the location. D'oh!

But, I did rehearse the location several times (14d, 14d, 14d...) to get it into my head. The only problem is that area 14d was to my right when I exited the airport, and I remembered turning to my right to approach the airport when I came in. I wandered around several regions of the parking lot, unable to get the spatial location, remembered information, and direction of parking spaces to come together the right way. Finally, I went to inspect area 14d, and immediately found my car. The only upside is that I thought quite a bit about the different kinds of memory that we have, and the fact that these types of memory may be encoded/retrieved by brain circuitry that is largely segregated (a topic that is relevant to my dissertation). So, I guess I did do a little bit of work, but not too much :)

At my first day back to work, I collected a ton of imaging data. I have 60 stacks to collect in total, and as of today, I've made it through 42 of them. With two more days to image, I think I should have this project pretty well wrapped up. I'm not entirely sure how to analyze this data, but I'll figure something out.

My other project (which was finished, until we decided to add more cases), has a couple of weeks of imaging left on it, and maybe another month of counting cells. Then, write everything up, have a committee meeting, schedule a due date/defense date, clean up all my notes (including copying them, and reorganizing by topic, not date), and move to Nashville. I'm trying to get down there by the beginning of October, and not relishing how crazy my last month or so in Pittsburgh is going to be.

The good news is that I was selected for a fellowship in Neurogenomics. I have to giggle just a lit bit whenever I say that, as it seems like something someone much smarter would have on their CV. But it's going on mine. It basically just covers my salary & gives me some travel money, and requires me to do a few extra meetings & seminars during the year. And, of course, looks good on paper. So, I'll take it, even if it provokes quite a bit of anxiety over whether I'm taking an opportunity from someone who is more deserving.