CinnaPearNut Goodness

Cinnamon, pears, and walnuts.  Three wonderful things.  How could something that combines these three things possibly be bad?

To back up a bit:  Josh has recently decided that he wants to create his own hard cider.  There have been many strange boxes of equipment shipped to our home in the last couple of months, lots of over-sized glass bottles, and a newly acquired (and malfunctioning) full-size freezer.  I'm afraid to step foot into the workshop in our backyard because I'm pretty sure it must resemble some kind of scary science experiment with tubes and hoses and dry ice and beakers.

This weekend I presume that the workshop/brewhouse must be just about up to Josh's brewing standards, as we made a special trip to the orchards down in Willcox to procure fruit and cider.  [And delicious apple cider donuts, although that was entirely for my own appetite and had nothing to do with brewing hard cider.]  Josh figured out that he would be able to purchase unpasteurized apple cider without having to do the dirty work of pressing the apples himself, so we didn't actually buy any apples.  We did, however, buy about 25 pounds of Asian pears.  I love pears.  And given my recent promise to try more baking, I decided to make something yummy with some of the freshly-picked fruit.

At first, I thought that I would try to make a pear pie.  Most of the recipes that I could find online for pear pie seemed to basically be a variation of a standard apple pie, and honestly, that didn't interest me.  So then I found a simple recipe for "pear cake".  With a few tweaks of my own, I made what I am going to call a CinnaPearNut Bread.  With frosting, I might call it a cake.  But without frosting, and with a consistency similar to banana bread... it's a bread, not a cake.  And either way, it's delicious.  Find the recipe below.

The only things I might change about this bread would be to add more cinnamon, use pears that are a little bit more ripe for a bigger flavor, and to chop (but not puree) the pears and walnuts.  I think bigger pieces of fruit and nut would be good.  Overall though, I'm proud of this first attempt.  It's moist and sweet, but still pretty subtle.  (Look at me, trying to sound like some kind of uppity food person.  Ha!)
I'm pretty excited to smear some Nutella on a slice of this stuff for breakfast.

(As for the original part of this post, Josh bottled up some of his cider tonight and did some mad-scientist-y kinds of things in the workshop.  I don't know how long this process takes, but presumably there will be drinkable hard cider in some amount of weeks.  I'll report back about that later.)


CinnaPearNut Bread

Ingredients
4-5 fresh pears
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1 big handful crumbled walnuts
1 tablespoon cinnamon  (not sure how much I used exactly, but it was a lot...)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions
1.  Peel and thinly slice pears.  Mix pears with white sugar, brown sugar, nuts, and cinnamon.  Let sit for 1-2 hours, then puree in a blender (you may opt to skip the puree step... I did it this time, but probably will choose to leave it chunky next time!).
2.  Preheat oven to 350 and prep either a cake pan or a couple of bread loaf pans (I used bread pans, and it worked really well).
3.  Stir (by hand) the flour, salt, and baking soda until mixed.  Add these dry ingredients to the pear mixture and also add the oil, vanilla, and eggs- mixing by hand until evenly blended.
4.  Pour batter into prepared pan, and bake at 350 degrees for approximately 45 minutes to an hour (keep an eye on it- I originally set a timer for an hour, but everything was done after 45).

Workin' on the highway

I assume that most people would not be enthused about a job that puts you working within feet of a busy highway and requires you to wear a neon-colored safety vest at all times.  Clearly, I'm not most people.

I've returned from my first work session along Highway 491, and am happy to report that I think I'm really going to enjoy this project.  Fun people, cool archaeology, and cooler temperatures.  And, I get to stay in this swanky (with heavy sarcastic emphasis on that word) hotel room with a full wall of mirrors.

We have a whole bunch of prehistoric sites (like 25 or so) on this project, and while they're not all incredibly interesting, it's going to be cool to be able to work on that many different sites ranging from Archaic lithic scatters to Pueblo roomblocks and up through historic Navajo roasting pits and hogans.  And maybe if I'm lucky, there will be some additional work in the way of ceramics for me to analyze after this fieldwork is all wrapped up.  

For your reference, these are photos from interesting sites:

And this is a photo from a very non-interesting site:

Heading back out again on Monday!  More photos and updates later.

Employment!

I really love New Mexico, and I really love being in the field.  Lucky me, I found a job which incorporates both!

After almost a month of unsuccessfully trying to find work around the Tucson/Phoenix area, I finally decided to start inquiring about work in other areas.  A friend in Albuquerque suggested that I get in touch with SRI, a large cultural resource company that has offices in both ABQ and Tucson (among other places), because he knew that they had a large-scale highway project in the works.  A few emails and 24 hours later, I had a job!

Back in the summer of 2008, after my first year of grad school here in Tucson, I was supposed to return to Albuquerque to work on a large highway project with OCA, the company I had previously worked for before moving to Arizona.  The project got put on indefinite hold due to bureaucratic issues and I instead got a job with the Forest Service for the summer.  As it turns out, the project I was just hired to join is the same project, now under the contract of a different company.  Funny how things work out.

I leave for Gallup on Monday morning, and will be working a new schedule of eight 10-hour workdays on, followed by six days off.  Chances are, this schedule will continue for at least a few months.  It will be hard only being home every other week, but if I've got to be working in a different state, this sort of schedule is pretty ideal (definitely better than being gone for a month at a time, anyway!).  I'll be living out of a hotel in Gallup, and working just north of town along the highway to Shiprock.

This is an area of New Mexico that I love, in terms of the archaeology, and as the season changes (in New Mexico, unlike Tucson, there are actually seasonal changes!) I know the weather and scenery will be beautiful.  The hours will be tough, and I will probably complain of exhaustion at times, but I'm excited about it.  Fieldwork = Happy.  Pretty simple equation.

Cinnamon Cheesecake. 'Nuff said.

Uh-oh.  She's breaking out the apron.  You might want to get the fire extinguisher ready.

I have spent the last month doing a lot of nothing.  Floating between jobs, without money to spend, and not willing to venture out into the Tucson summer heat, I've been spending the vast majority of my time sitting around the house.  Two days ago I secured a new job [Hooray!  I'll write more about this later...], and found myself suddenly inspired to actually do something with my ample-yet-fleeting free time.  Still facing the issues of low funds and high temperatures, I decided that I was in a mood to bake something.  So, last night I baked some homemade bread, baked a tasty dinner of chicken parmesan with spaghetti, AND made a cinnamon cheesecake.  I still don't really know what got into me.

Who knew bread was so easy to make?  Between that and the chicken parm (also surprisingly easy and tasty), we dined quite well last night.  And cinnamon cheesecake?  Ohmygod... SO GOOD.  And easy!  Of course, I typically take triple the amount of time necessary to bake anything because I'm so slow and un-confident about my abilities in the kitchen, but it was three hours well spent.  And the cheesecake is spectacular as a breakfast food.  (Have I ever mentioned that I recently discovered I am slightly allergic to cinnamon? I am indeed, and I don't care.  I love the stuff.)

I plan to start putting more effort into cooking and baking.  I know I say that every few months, but I'm pretty serious about it this time.  My schedule is going to be funky for the next few months, but I aim to make time for trying new things in the kitchen.  If this experiment is any indication, most things actually are quite a bit easier to make than I've always believed.  You've just got to strap on the apron, turn up the tunes, and get to cookin'.  Because cake for breakfast... I mean, that really makes everything worthwhile, doesn't it?

Favicon

While looking through my blog options today, I noticed the option to upload my own personal Favicon to my webpage.  Having never heard this term, I had to look it up.  Apparently, a favicon is the little picture that shows up next to the URL in your web address bar, and also appears next to the title of the webpage once a site has been put onto your favorites list.  This handy image explains:

While I was looking up the definition of a favicon, I also found that you can easily make your own by using online "favicon generators".  Naturally, I needed to make one.  If you can't see it already, my new favicon is (or, is supposed to look like) a Nalgene filled with red wine.  As if I had any other choice-- I mean, really.