Ladybugs and Failbread

Yesterday at work I greeted a table and told them my name. The man at the table said "Whew, am I glad you're not blonde!". "Uh, why's that?" I asked. "Because I know someone else named Ashley and she's blonde. That would just be weird." No sir, it is you who is weird. I'm pretty sure every 5th girl born the year I was is named Ashley. Get over it.

Anyway, I got off work last night around 12:40. I drove home, went to my fridge, and checked on my bag of ladybugs to make sure they were all still wiggling. What's that? Oh yes, I forgot to tell you I had a bag of ladybugs in my fridge. Sorry about that, 1500 ladybugs to be exact. It's not really a long story or anything - I just got an aphid infestation on my beautiful lettuce and I bought some ladybugs to help control the bad bugs. You keep the ladybugs in the fridge because it makes them want to crawl instead of fly when you let them out, and you release them at night for the same reason. So I draped a bed sheet over my lettuce plants, cut the top off of their little mesh bag and watched with interest/mild horror as a swarm of tiny red beetles began to coat my patio. For a while I sat with them, picking up the ones that were heading towards the screen door and placing them on the most aphid covered leaves, however, pretty soon there were just too many of them to keep track of so I covered them all with the sheet and went to bed. I wish there had been enough light to snap some pictures when I released them - it was quite a sight.



By morning most of them had found their way out of the container, and the rest I freed. There were plenty all over my salad mix, and slightly fewer aphids than before, but there were also little guys hanging out on most of my other plants and they were forming clusters on the balcony railing. I hope they hang out for a while. They're cool, but I got tired of watching them bumble around after a bit.

Today was supposed to be bread making day. Well, technically it was, I mean, I spent all day doing it, but with no success. I found a recipe for some "easy" ciabatta bread that I could knead with my Kitchen Aid. Excited to make my first loaves of real bread (banana bread doesn't count, it's too easy) I rushed out to Trader Joe's and bought a few interesting spreads and some sandwich fixin's. Once home I threw the ingredients in the mixer and let it go to work, waiting for the dough to start setting up so I could change the mixing attachment. Now, this should have happened after 4 minutes. Not yet... still waiting. 10 minutes. 15. 20. What the heck? I stopped the mixer and checked the dough - no consistency change whatsoever. I browsed over the comments on the website trying to figure out what could have gone wrong? I decided to proof one of my other packets of dry yeast (which should still have a year left before it expires) and found that it was dead. Great. Another trip to the store. This time I bought some foccacia and a baguette just in case. The guy at the checkout counter laughed at me for buying yeast and 2 loaves of bread, and told me to just tell everyone I baked the foccacia.

Back at home I cleaned my mixer, threw out the first batch and started with a new one, measuring very carefully and this time, turning the speed down on the mixer a bit to allow the gluten to develop, and of course proofing the yeast first. 10 minutes in it seemed like the dough was climbing the paddle a little bit, but then nothing happened. I switched to the hook and found that only the dough on the paddle was tough and stretchy, but none of the rest of it. I let the hook do it's thing, but after another 20 minutes of beating at medium speed it was still as thin as pancake batter. I decided to forget about having perfect ciabatta bread and that I would settle for saving the flour and yeast, so I scooped the super sticky dough out, added a bunch of flour and kneaded until it held together, and then covered it to proof for an hour and a half. By 7:30 it had not grown at all. But the yeast was alive! So what happened? I still have no idea. I'll work on this recipe later, but for now I've wasted more than 4 cups of flour and I'm sick of bread making. So much for knowing my way around the kitchen.

I had to use up all of those spreads I bought, so I stuffed some lovely Belgian endives with them and made tofurky sandwiches with the foccacia to have along with a quick Greek-ish-inspired salad. It was a good enough substitute. And I love endives, they're so perfect and delicate - they look like they must be hiding some sneaky treasure inside.



Greek-ish-inspired salad

1 bunch asparagus, trimmed, lightly steamed and cut into 1 inch pieces
1/2 cup red and yellow cherry tomatoes, quartered
1/4 cup kalamata olives, sliced
1/2 red bell pepper, diced small
1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
a few garlic scapes, washed and sliced small
olive oil
balsamic vinegar
zest from 1 lemon
S & P

Mix vegetables in a bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and add a splash or two of vinegar. Add black pepper and salt to taste - not too much. Add zest and feta and mix it all up. Dream of the impending summer while eating straight out of the mixing bowl.

xoxo

me