We got over a foot of snow yesterday. It was great! N came home from work around noon – and I got enough of the driveway uncovered so that he could get to the garage. Then we had a lovely lazy half day of movies and cookie making. It’s stopped coming down and our street got plowed so he’s at work now, and my exercise for the day will be shoveling. Lots and lots of shoveling.

This week is my spring break. I did nothing at all for school from Friday to Tuesday, but now I’m settling back into the groove. Due to some schedule weirdness, my half semester course in Public Choice ended a week before spring break, so I met with the instructor for my Monetary Policy independent study last week and have some deep reading to do for that. (Macro was a loooooong time ago.) The only silver lining I have seen so far for this economy is that it’s a really exciting time to be studying Monetary Policy.

Functional analysis is still awesome. Now that we’re in the nitty gritty of things, I’m really appreciating my previous teachers who taught things correctly and made few assumptions because now I know what they were going on about.

Bayes is HARD. Partly it’s hard to do a readings class on my own (between this and Monetary Policy, I should be learning some great lessons about self-directed studying) and partly I’m not clicking with the book. Chapter 1 was nice and friendly, but that dropped off into a land of not defining terms and exercises seemingly unrelated to the text. I think I get the big idea of why you would want to use Bayesian techniques, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to get through how they work at a level deeper than “plug into this awful buggy windows program” before the end of the semester.

Now that comps are over, I have to face the fact that I do have to do research! I’m kind of excited about the problem, and I think I even got past my last point of stuck right before comps completely took over my life. I set myself up with a deadline by promising to present my baseline findings at ASA spring meeting – so… I’ve got about a month to get something presentable together.

While I was avoiding thinking about school, I modified this Apple Banana Cupcake recipe to make

Extra Healthy Apple Banana Muffins
375 degrees, 20 minutes, yields 18 muffins
2 mashed bananas
2/3 c oil
2/3 c brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 c milk (or water to make vegan)
1 c all purpose flour
1 c whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 apples, chopped

Once the snow goes away again, I’ll tell you about our garden that we spent all last weekend prepping.

Last August, I got the Bread Bible from the library. The Basic Soft White Sandwich Loaf was the best bread I’ve ever made. For a few weeks, I made it every weekend for our sandwiches, but I eventually decided that it was too rich for every day. (You can taste the lovely lovely butter.) I successfully modified it to use oil instead, and that’s been our regular bread ever since.

In the finest food blog style, here’s my recipe:

1 1/4 c + 1 1/2 Tblsp whole wheat flour
1 c all purpose flour
3/4 tsp yeast
2 Tblsp  + 1 tsp honey
1 3/4 c water

In a large mixing bowl that has a lid,
whisk until smooth, should be a thick batter. Scrape down the sides. RLB calls this the “sponge.”

In a separate bowl, mix together:

2 c all purpose flour
1/2 c dry milk
3/4 tsp yeast

Spread over the batter:

Put the lid on and stick it in the fridge for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.

The next morning, pull it out and let it come to room temperature.

the sponge will have broken through the cover.

Add:
1/2 c vegetable oil
2 1/4 tsp salt
Stir until dough-like

dump onto a floured surface and knead for 5 minutes. Don’t be afraid to keep adding flour to keep it from being too sticky.
Cover the dough with the upturned bowl and let rest for 20 minutes.
Knead for 5 more minutes.
Rise 1: Grease the bowl, put the dough back in and cover. Allow to double in size.
Rise 2: Dump out the dough, give it a few folds to knock around the biggest air bubbles. Stick back in the bowl, recover, and again let double in size.
Shaping: Grease two loaf pans. Divide the dough into two pieces. I’ve started weighing them because you never know which half has all the air bubbles.
Pull the dough into a rough rectangle and then poke it down with your fingers to break up airbubbles. RLB’s term for this is “dimpling.”
 

Fold one side to the center, then bring the other side to meet it.

starting from the top, roll tightly towards yourself, trying to squash the air bubbles.

Hopefully, at this point it will be about the length of a loaf pan. Otherwise, roll and tug out to the full length to avoid short ends of the baked loaf.

Rise 3: Spray oil the tops and cover with cling wrap. Let rise until tops are 1 inch above tops of loaf pans.

Bake: 30 minutes at 350 degrees. Cover with foil and then bake for 20 more minutes.

Allow to cool completely. I suggest freezing the loaf you’re not going to eat immediately.

the recipe all in one place:

Sponge:
1 1/4 c + 1 1/2 Tblsp whole wheat flour
1 c all purpose flour
3/4 tsp yeast
2 Tblsp + 1 tsp honey
1 3/4 c water
Cover:
2 c all purpose flour
1/2 c dry milk
3/4 tsp yeast
Final step:
1/2 c vegetable oil
2 1/4 tsp salt

still in shock. but in a good way!