15 posts tagged “baking”
Sure, I've been sick for a week and a half now with a cold that is holding on like a pit bull. And swine flu has hit the kids' school (not my kids luckily). But there are the graces in life that make it all ok.
I've been so busy lately I've barely had a moment to bake. My family is so used to having homemade goodies around the house. Poor Steve asked what I had for dessert last night and all I had to offer him was some Mini Oreos.
Perhaps if I updated more frequently, I wouldn't feel the need to write a "Reader's Digest Condensed Version" type blog post every week or two. Speaking of Reader's Digest Condensed Books, my mom had a bunch of those things. I probably ought to see if they condensed War and Peace. I still haven't conquered it. But I have read the first chapter twice.
I've really been taking advantage of the long days of Summer. During the school year, there isn't much time for meal preparation. We eat a lot of easy meals like spaghetti with meat sauce, chili, or whatever I remember to throw in the crock pot. But for the summer, I've been really going outside my cooking comfort zone. It probably has something to do with watching a lot of Food Network in the evenings coupled with traveling to places that have great food, but that I can't just up and visit whenever I get a craving for the tasty meals I've had in each place.
I've been on a pretty wild baking kick ever since October hit, even making most of the kids' school snacks from scratch. They've had pumpkin muffins, pear cake, pear oatmeal cookies, peanut butter and jelly cookies, chocolate chip, oatmeal, oatmeal chocolate chip, and the latest pumpkin gooey butter cake. Alex was pretty excited when I told him he could have a piece in his lunch this morning, since it was pretty much gone except for a few pieces I was saving for Steve.
Fast forward to work today, I ask Alex if he brought an extra snack since there was basketball practice and he gets pretty hungry if he doesn't bring a snack. "I brought a piece of pumkin cake." He's digging through his bag, and then says, "Oh yeah! I traded it with Seth!"
Then Sophie asks me if I'm going to bake anything else because she likes to trade my homemade goodies with her friends too. They all love them, she tells me.
Great, their friends all love my baking, it'd just be nice if my kids did!
You bake until you just can't bake anymore....
I missed my Voxiversary. I think it was on Hannah and Esther's birthday, but I can't remember and I'm too lazy to go look.
I'm tired. Actually, I'm downright exhausted. Today was the "October Olympics" at the kids' school. I played School Photographer today for the yearbook and I was determined to get decent pictures. If I can't find any in the 300+ that I took, I'll be surprised. I got down on the ground, in the grass, dirt and hay to get up close. I even found myself coated with a thin coat of flour. I'll blog about the whole experience later, with pictures, but for now I'm too tired to go grab the camera and upload any photos.
After I got home, I put the kids to work. Gave them each a task to do. It makes the house straight real quick if I give them each one chore. Don't think I'm lazy, I did some stuff too. I did the dishes and put a Pear Coffee Cake* in the oven. I had to bake the cake. When I went to the grocery store, I bought a small amount of premade snacks so it would force me to make the rest homemade. I wasn't very happy with myself for doing that today. Although, now that the cake is in the oven, I'm happy about that. This is one tasty cake recipe. Thanks to my in laws, I have an abundance of pears. Their pear tree is overflowing. I think I've pulled at least 5 dozen off the tree in the past month. And I'm not the only one. I'm always trying to talk people into taking a bagful of pears too. Seriously, they are free. And I've finally got a couple of awesome pear recipes. I'm kinda sad that in a week or two, pear season will be over. Although my family might just be on pear overload.
That was a creamy pear pie that I made for the potluck before the "October Olympics". I think I'll make a couple more later in the week after my Pear Coffee Cake is gone.
Ok, it's officially pajama time. I'm outta here!
*I only used pears in this recipe. I left out the coconut, dates and nuts and used 6 cups of pears instead. It was ridiculously good.
or really really bad. Either way, I think I'm going to whip up my homemade cinnamon roll recipe this week and make 'em like this.
Steve and I had a little date night last night. I knew I could rope him into it if I suggested eating at Ray's Hell Burger up in Arlington. It's kinda funny how we live so close to the state line that we end up in Virginia a lot. It's kinda nice, cheaper to live in Southern Maryland, but if we want to have a nice night out, we can just hop on over to DC/VA. Yup, I like it here.
Anyway, we ate at Ray's. I had the Big Poppa. Peppercorn encrusted burger, medium rare, with onions and mushrooms sauteed in cognac, danish bleu cheese, lettuce and tomato. So good. It's my favorite. I've gone with peppercorn encrusted with bacon and avocado before. These burgers are just ridiculous. I'm usually not a medium rare kinda gal, but these burgers aren't your usual burgers. They added sides to the menu. I tried the mac and cheese. It was eh. Next time, I'll just get a burger. It's huge anyway and even if the mac and cheese had been spectacular, I wouldn't have been able to eat the burger and the mac and cheese.
I had wanted to walk around some of the monuments after dinner, but it was kinda late. We drove by the Iwo Jima Memorial. Neither of us had ever gotten out to look at it, so we stopped off and walked around a bit. It's huge. Like ridiculously huge. I had no clue as to it's hugeness (sure that's a word, deal with it!). I'll let Steve post the picture of me standing in front of it look all dwarfed by the magnitude of it.
I think in my old age I am getting paranoid. It was just Steve and I, and it was 10ish. I was really worried about getting mugged or something. I didn't, but I just didn't like being there in the dark so late at night. I think it has something to do with the last time we were at the Jefferson Memorial at night, someone was stabbed the following weekend (at night).
We had the movie, "Flags of Our Fathers" sitting at home, so we thought it would be a fitting thing to come home and watch after going to the memorial. Kinda depressing. We really need to add some comedies to our Netflix queue. (I love the word "queue". It makes me really happen to have a reason to type it. Americans need to use it more often, like the English do. It makes you sound smarter. Heh. And the word, "daft". I really like that one too.)
Today, we are just kinda doing whatever. I think I'll break into my huge supply of flour and sugar and make something tasty to take to church in the morning. Homemade cinnamon rolls seemed to go over well when I made them a few weeks ago. I think I'll try my hand at them again.
I'm going to need new jeans by the end of the month if I don't stop baking. I made peanut butter and jam thumbprint cookies on Thursday. Ridiculous. Just 1 cup of peanut butter, 1 cup sugar (I did 1/2 brown, 1/2 white), 1 egg and a tsp of vanilla. I used my cookie scoop to make them into 1 inch balls, stuck my thumb in them, dropped a little grape jam (not jelly). Baked 'em at 350 for 8 minutes. Heavenly.
I bought some seedless boysenberry jam at a roadside produce yesterday after my brother in law suggested it for the cookies. It was really yummy slathered on my pancakes with some butter this morning.
The kids are outside playing volleyball and making shelters a la "Man Vs. Wild". As much as Bear Grylls disgusts me when he does something like drink his own urine, eat a raw fish, or climb into the skin of a dead animal to keep warm for survival, he keeps my kids thinking and learning. We would definetely survive in the wild, that's for sure.
So yeah, that's all my random junk for today. I'm going to go add my complaint for the day to my "Dwight Schrute" notepad that I am just so happy with. It's the little things people, the little things.
I bought 20 lbs of sugar of today. I also bought 25 lbs of white sugar and 4 lbs of brown sugar. I'm figuring it was a wise investment since I went through over 10 lbs of flour alone last pay period. I'm hoping I don't lose my baking mojo now that I've plopped down a chunk of my grocery budget to dry ingredients. Although, I don't really have a choice but to bake and create since I purposely didn't buy enough snacks for the kids' lunches. That will force me to bake. Yup, it will. Hungry whiny kids always force me into the kitchen. Feeding them is the only way to shut them up.
