Monday, December 7, 2009

Making Insomnia Productive

I woke up some time between 3 and 4 am,
and I could not get back to sleep.
I lay in bed thinking of the mess my house was in,
and all the tasks I needed to do:
laundry,
dishes,
dustmop floor,
scrub bathrooms,
tidy up.
The list played over and over in my head like a bad record
and finally I decided since I wasn't sleeping anyway
to get up and get some of these things done.

Now, I do have downstairs neighbors
and it would not be kind therefore to start the washing machine,
but I figured I could load the dishwasher pretty quietly
and tidy up the kitchen a bit.
Pretty soon the sink was clear,
the counters wiped off,
everything put neatly back in cupboards and pantry,
even the empty soda bottles filled with water for emergency storage
and ready to take down to the garage.
Then I opened the fridge and started cleaning that out.
I found 3 bottles of salsa,
3 of mayonnaise,
and 2 of ketchup.
I don't even eat ketchup,
but my dad likes it on his scrambled eggs (shudder)
so my parents keep bringing ketchup to my house.
I also noticed that I still had tons of frosting
left over from my post-Thanksgiving cookie party.
Normally I would frost graham crackers,
but not only am I out of graham crackers
(and didn't feel like going to the store),
this was a LOT of frosting.
So I decided to make brownies.
First, the frosting got squeezed out of its piping bags into a kettle:

It looks just like play dough!
(It's basic buttercream: butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, a little milk,
but went grainy with sitting out for several hours/
warming up in plastic bags held in kids' hands.)
Next, add some baking chocolate squares:


After it all melted
(and looked much more like brownie batter)
I added eggs, flour, and a pinch of salt.
At least I hope I remembered the salt...
Then it went into a pan and is now baking in the oven.
I hope they turn out.
I will take them to work with me,
where they will probably be eaten uncritically
by passing students, if not by faculty.
The only downside to all of this is that my sink is now full of kettles again:



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