Very Christmas

Mom loves playing with pine cones.  She used to pick her own pine cones from no where and decorated it with ribbons and glitter dust.  She used to collect different kinds of pine cones as well, from those regular Lodgepole pine cones to those I can't even name (over 10" in length).  I've taken some pictures of her art work which she did years back then. 

 Don't get me wrong, I took this picture outside Loblaws one day.

 ...and this picture too, took it right outside Loblaws.

 Sprinkling glitter dust on the flower looks nice but I don't think it's healthy to the flower.

This plant, I don't know its name, but always remind  me of Christmas.  =)

 My Mom used to sell these decorated pine cones and donate all the money to the charity.

 I don't know how she made these things here...

 She made these things over 10 years ago and now she is only keeping a few for herself.

 She was cleaning up her house and found these pine cones.  I'd got nothing much to post on my blog (seriously) so I went over and took a few shots of these cones before she throw them away.

I'm surprise that these glitter dust still glued to the cone after all these years.

 This picture is taken from her giant pine cone...

 Her giant pine cone is over 10 inches long!

 It's fund to take pictures of these stuff here! =)

One of the giant pine cone that hasn't been decorated yet.

Black Sesame Bread (Dough Starter) 黑芝麻麵包（天然酵頭）

I made my own dough starter using grapes a week ago, and now my starter is sort of fermented, so I decided to try using it to make my first starter bun.  Grabbing a bread recipe randomly from a Jap site, I've mixed 200g all-purpose flour; 80g dough starter; 10g sugar; 4g salt, 1 pack of instant sesame drink powder (not in original recipe), 1/4 tsp instant yeast (I cheated, just in case if my starter didn't work), adequate water (I didn't measure) together to form a dough.  Well, the bread didn't turn out too bad except it's a bit too dry.  Also, I should have used bread flour instead of all-purpose flour...

Mixing everything together according to the recipe except I've added my own sesame drink powder and a little dry yeast.

Looks like a marble!  LOL!

Here is a closer shot at my dough.  It smells nice with the sesame powder.  =)

Dough looks like this after 3 hours, and I've poked it with my finger to see if it's 'done' or not...

Here is a closer shot.

I've flattened the dough, rolled it up and divided it into 6 portions...  I've even sprayed the dough with water so that it won't get too dry...  Geez...what am I doing here...@@

I was trying to create my own 排包...

2 hours later it has become like this!

At least it proves that my dough starter is working!  HAHAHHAHAHA!!!  Or the instant yeast...  Time to dump it into the oven!  =)

Looks like it's not really rising although I've put the container on the preheated baking stone...

30 minutes later - done!!

At least it's not a flat bread this time!  HAHHAHAHAHAH!!!!

Here is what it looks like inside.

Here is a closer shot, doesn't look like it has the 'bread' texture...

It was a bit dry, tasted very similar to what the sesame powder drink tastes like, not enough sweetness, didn't taste any 'dough starter' at all (I'm surprised!).

I ate it with salmon flavor cream cheese!  Mmmmmm.....

Picture of My Day - Balcony View

My balcony faces North and this is what I see every morning when I get up...  Fresh and relaxing huh?!  Sometimes I can see a Re/Max balloon in the sky too!!  From my balcony, I can easily see Richmond Hill (of course), Markham (used to be able to see Times Square as well), Thornhill & Vaughan (I can spot the roller coasters in Wonderland!).  Now my views are shrinking as there are more and more high rises condos built right in front of my place !!  Aiya!!  I wonder when these new buildings are gonna block my view completely!!  ...And by then I will probably get fed up and moved to another place~~

♡ Nutty Hamster ♡

I like cracking walnuts from time to time and when I do so, I give my hamster half of it.  It's always cute looking at a hamster while its eating a walnut.  From my past experience, they will try to dig, drag and pull the walnut until they get the meat out of the half cracked walnut.  This hamster here is a lazy bum...he didn't even bother trying hard to eat the nut!!  I have to get the meat out from the shell and place it right in front of him for him to grab!  What a spoiled brat!

 He can't crack a whole walnut, so I'm only giving him half here.

 He was focusing on the walnut in the first several minutes.

 My hamster eats everything, nuts, assorted fruits & veggies, cheese, ham, bread, crackers, pasta, noodles, rice...

 Munching

 The only thing he doesn't like eating is mushroom! LOL!

 He is spoiled by me I admit, he doesn't like eating his own hamster food...

 Some noises has distracted him, he stopped eating but listening.

 OKay, back on his track now!

 Fed up, he can't get no meat from the walnut....

...he stopped eating and started cleaning himself up (that involves rubbing both his hands first as seen here, then his nose, then his head/ears; I call it 洗嘴洗頭).

 Something else has distracted him again!

 I dig a small piece of walnut out from the shell and handed to him, now he started eating again!

 Hello~~~~~??!!  Keep eating la!!  ~.~"  (My husband was vacuuming outside, that's why the noise distracted him all the time.)

 He doesn't wanna give up after eating that small piece of walnut...'coz there is still a big chunk inside.

 Now he started to stuff the walnut into his pouch.

 There is no more man....

No more la!!!

Catching Wild Yeast

Mom sent me an interesting website about making your own wild yeast starter, so I followed the instruction and made my own starter by using an apple.  It was quite interesting in seeing how the yeast develop, yet I ain't sure if I've done the right thing or not 'coz I didn't really follow the instruction thoroughly...  Worse of all, I always think my starter has turned bad 'coz it really has a strong sour smell.. Anyway, I will still give it a try!  =)

 Dec 3 - I've used a medium size apple here.  Instead of chopping it into smaller pieces, I just use a blender to dice it up.

 1 medium apple + 3 large spoonful of sugar + 8 large spoonful of water (preferred distilled water).

It smells really nice!  =)

 Dec 5 - 2 days later bubble has developed and you can smell 'wine'.

 Here is a closer shot at the bubbles.

 Dec 6 - 3 days later, I've made natural apple soda!!  Hahahahah!!!

More bubbles and smelled more 'wine'!

 Get your ear close to the jar and you can hear the bubbles going 'Ssaaaaaaa......'!!  This liquid is ready to be used.

 Dec 7 - I should have added the flour in yesterday...today's bubble wasn't as bubbly as yesterdays.  My recipe says only take 160g of juice and add in 80g of flour.

 Once the flour and the juice are mixed together, it became like this.

 Dec 8 - this culture didn't look that bad though there were some flour settled at the bottom of the jar.

This is the view from the top, it has a very strong sour smell...that's why I thought this culture must have turned bad....

 Dec 9 - I've fed this thing with 1/3 cup of water & flour.

 This is what its look like from the top.

 Dec 10 - my culture looks like this...  It's a bit watery, strong sour smell, and it's sort of brown in color??!

 At least it has developed the gluten here...