Mmm. I need to make muffins. I made blueberry syrup to go with our homemade ice cream Christmas present (best present evah!). I've been thinking about blueberry streusel muffins ever since. And this would be a good week to do it, because we're gone a lot, and it would help to have something quick I could grab when needed. Also, I need to do all the prep work for the polenta and for the three bean barley salad early anyway, so I could do the muffins then, in one big cooking extravaganza. And then be done.

I'm getting back on Weight Watchers today. I gained 10 pounds over vacation. I had hot multi-grain cereal for breakfast, I'm going to go get some soup, salad, and fruit for lunch, and I've got tofu kale stir-fry planned for dinner. Plus, I've got some black beans soaking so I can cook them in the crock pot overnight and have beans, swiss chard, and quinoa-amaranth timbales for lunch tomorrow. (Vegan Lunchbox recipes. And technically, it's quinoa-millet timbales, since I couldn't find any amaranth.)

Why does AB prefer corn syrup to sugar? Perhaps a simple syrup would work?

Why does AB prefer corn syrup to sugar?

I haven't gone back and read the transcript, so I'm not sure. He probably thinks it will make a smoother texture, but if that's the case, he's wrong -- sugar helps to break up the ice crystals while you're churning, and smaller ice crystals = smoother richer ice cream.

[eta: And having now read the transcript, he doesn't say. So I'm using sugar next time.]

faux-meara:

More ~ma for ND and Kristin, and her poor bruised body. And ~ma for anyone I'm forgetting.

Nightmares need to cut it out. I dreamed a little the last two days, but they've now run off. The same to everyone else!

I've had blessedly few painkillers in my life (knock wood). When I had the nasty pneumonia, I had a painkiller (someone namechecked it, but it's not one of the big names... gah, how do I forget these things?) and I lost a whole day of my life. Considering it was a day of needles and tubes, I don't miss it. But the drugs were pretty cool.

I've... forgotten anything else.

So, culinary question... I have some eggnog that hasn't gone bad yet (long date + not opening right away = long-lived dairy products), and I'm making yummy eggnog cookies now. Should I 1) make another batch of dough and freeze it (will this work? can you freeze icing too?), 2) man up and make another batch, condemning myself to make cookies all day, or 3) say screw it and just drink the eggnog until it inevitably goes bad?

I also had A Christmas Carol playing this morning while I mixed. It's like Christmas Redux, only with less crap presents and the same amount of snow (none).

I don't think icing would freeze well. Dough would. I'd either roll it into a log, or pre-form the cookies, before freezing the dough, though.

You can freeze cookie dough. I don't think frosting would be as successful.

I figured the icing wouldn't work. There's an eggnog icing, but they'd be just as good with a simple powdered sugar icing.

OK, why am I suddenly defining "icing" and "frosting" as separate things in my brain?

Heh. I almost always call it "frosting," but went to put "icing" in my reply to you, then went back to check what word you used.

You might be able to approximate an eggnoggy flavor in your future icing, if you added some nutmeg (and maybe a little vanilla) to it, Ailleann.

That's a good idea Cindy. I think freezing it will be.

I feel so culinary.

Ooh, Christmas, that's what I was going to meara. All of my Christmas stuff is still up, and I have no immediate plans to take it down. Unless I find some ridiculous eightieth wind and get all my non-holiday cleaning done. As I'm mulling it over after the fact, I think my Christmas season was pretty much pants, and I'm clinging to it in the hopes that I can get some kind of nostalgic love. Where the hell is my snow?!?

::wanders off, muttering to self::