Perfect, elastic dough; delicious, slightly salty taste.
Ingredients
1 cup lukewarm water
3 cups bread flour
2 tbsp. dry milk
3 1/2 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. olive oil
handful of chopped sundried tomatoes
(topping: 1 1/2 tsp. dried rosemary; 3/4 tsp. garlic salt or garlic powder; 2 tbsp. romano or parmesean cheese)
Tools
Breadmaker
Big Bowl
Pizza stone
Steps
Add the water, flour, dry milk, sugar, salt, OO and tomatoes to the breadmaker. Mix it at the dough setting. On my breadmaker, it's about 90 minutes.
Remove the dough and knead on a well floured surface for at least a minute. The dough should be elastic and slightly sticky (the floured surface will help).
Put the dough into an oiled bowl - fli it around a few times so that the entire surface is coated.
Place a damp towel over the bowl and let sit for 15-30 minutes. It should get much bigger.
Lightly sprinkle corn meal on the pizza stone. Roll out the dough to the edges of the stone. Spray olive oil over the dough, and lightly poke the dough with the handle part of a wooden spoon or the handle part of the rolling pin. "Dot" it well! otherwise you'll get gigantic pockets in the final baked bread.
Cover again with a damp towl and let sit for at least 30 minutes. I set mine on top of the stove, and preheat the oven for the final 10 minutes.
Remove the towel and sprinkle the rosemary, garlic and cheese over the top. Other combinations of spices would work - use your imagination.
Bake at 400 for 15 minutes or until browned. Slice into squares or strips for serving; use a selection of toppings (tapenade? ), spiced olive oil for dipping, or melted cheese for snacky goodness. This also goes well with soup .

I just took this test from the University of Newcastle - a music test -
The test asks you to listen to 30 pairs of short melodies; some match exactly, the rest are slightly different. I correctly identified 24 out of 30, which is well short of perfect, but much better than pure guessing. If I didn't have American Idol on in the background, I might have scored better.
This brings me to my newest weekend hobby: piano playin'. J's parents have a piano, and I've brought the few piano/sheet music books I have down there to start practicing. I never took formal piano lessons, but with 8 years of flute playing, and a few years of piccolo and oboe for good measure, I know about notes and phrasing and stuff. Being able to hear when a note is wrong helps a bunch. I find it entertaining to keep asking "give me a song!" and then picking out the notes. As I told a friend today - once I learn my chords, and how to keep my left hand moving, I'll be dangerous.
Anyway, I can noodle through a few Tori Amos songs if I drop out occasional chords and the really tricky parts. J's mom has a large collection of sheet music, ranging from the best of the 70s to 50's standards. I do best with the songs that I know by heart, so the score for Les Miserables and the 80s commercial tunes are also good to practice on.
Does anyone know of any good online sources for sheet music that people have already transposed?

Easter's just a few months away.
I give you links related to original peeps
- Peep Research , with a new special of Peep Surgery
- An American Peep in Paris
and of course,
- Lord of the Peeps

Purple peeps are my favorite, though it hurts my stomach and teeth to eat more than one at a time.

I have been privileged to work with the Ronald McDonald House for the past few months on a Web site redesign. After being invited to join their marketing committee by someone with whom I work (and president of their board), I took over the responsibility of updating their site, and introduced a plan to recreate their site using weblog software .
Implementing it took on a sense of urgency in the past few days, as they are announcing the new site in their next newsletter. So, aside from a few behind-the-scenes tweaks, it is set to go.
The Ronald McDonald House of Buffalo gives children and their families a welcoming, supportive "home away from home" while being treated at local hospitals. People come from around the world to receive medical care in our region, and staying in a hotel for days - or weeks - at a time isn't always an option. The RMH provides so much more - the chance to connect with other families in similar situations, a real kitchen, and dozens of other amenities make an otherwise traumatic time a little less burdensome.
The Ronald McDonald House is there for those families who live out of town and who are depending on Buffalo hospitals to keep them alive. Imagine that a child in your family is injured in a car crash and requires months of intensive care. Or is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, and needs weeks of chemotherapy injections. Could your family afford that hotel bill? Could they travel from their hometown to the hospital every day? Would they have any type of support system in another city? My guess is no.
I feel honored to have been part of this, and look forward to adding new features and content. If it means that one family sees information on that site and it helps them, it has been worth it.
For those of you who eat at McDonalds, the Help with all your Heart campaign will continue through February 14. Pitch in a buck or three when you place your order; these funds stay in the area to make this House possible.

Goes good with chili or meatballs, the recipes for which I will post soon. For the meatballs, it works particularly well, since those also have to be in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes. I modified this from the directions on the back of the (Quaker) corn meal package.
Ingredients
1 cup ap flour
1 cup corn meal
1 cup milk
1/4 cup vanilla sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tbsp. honey
1 egg
splash of veg. oil
Tools
Big bowl
Spoon
8 x 8 pan
olive oil spray
Steps
Combine all ingredients, mix well
Pour into greased 8 x8 pan
Bake in a preheated oven at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes.