bread

February Goals Round Up

I am a little late getting this post up but it’s time to review how the month went.

Health/Personal

  • I only lost about four pounds this month and definitely was not as consistent with my fitness, but with reason. Unfortunately, I caught a nasty virus, but luckily, it was not covid, flu, or strep. The downside of having asthma, however, is that colds/respiratory illnesses hit me like a ton of bricks and linger forever. We also had an appendicitis scare (false alarm) with one of the kids, who also ended up needing a CT and was diagnosed with mild pneumonia, so February and health were not getting along at all.
  • Overall, I think my biggest take-away from the month is that I need to stay on track mentally and physically, even when the train gets derailed. We had quite a few unscheduled events and detours from our usual routines, and I need to not let those subdue momentum. But, progress is still progress, and I am feeling good.

 

 

Kitchen

  • Baking: Another NINE new recipes tried, so I’m calling that a success for baking practice. I made: Copycat Biscoff Crumbl Cookies (kids really liked them), Cinnamon Sugar St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake (meh, just like a basic coffee cake but more work), Copycat Crumbl Snickerdoodles (a bit dense but good), Copycat Crumbl Red Velvet Cookies (also a bit dense), Red Velvet Cake (good, basic recipe), and the following cookie recipes from the King Arthur Cookie Companion book that I could not find exact matches for online: Fudgy Brownies (kids loved big time), Tender Toffee Rounds (husband liked, kids thought they were bitter from the dark chocolate), Soft Oatmeal Cookies (weird, ends up more like rounds than cookies), and Sugar and Spice Drops (interesting and perfect for fall). I am loving this book, but most of the recipes from it have not been published online by King Arthur, so I can’t link them. The book is worth purchasing, in my opinion.
  • I rebooted the sourdough starter after Bear murdered the last attempt, and it was a success! I still have a long way to go and much more practice ahead, but I think I now understand the fundamentals. The Pantry Mama website gave me a lot of good info and insight, so if you want to jump on the bandwagon, that’s a good place to start.
  • More pasta practice went down this month as well. I ordered a ravioli tool to make the process a wee bit faster for me, and it was totally worth the $13 I spent. I can’t tell you how much easier it was than the trying to fill individual mezzalunas. I made a filling of ground chicken, ricotta, parmesan and herbs, then served the ravioli in a tomato sauce with just a touch of cream to mellow it out. It’s also still a learning process, but I love cultivating new skillsets when it comes to carbs.
  • I tried six new recipes this month, and two were simply me freestyling dinner like a madwoman. The others included BBQ Chicken Fajitas (everyone liked this, and it was a nice spin on taco night), Lemon Butter Dijon Chicken and Orzo (It was descent; I liked it more than the kids and husband but not by much), Skillet Beef Enchiladas (this was a “meh” all around. They didn’t like the texture), and Creamy Italian Sausage One Pot Pasta (This will be a weeknight keeper. Everyone liked it and it’s very easy to prepare).

Books

I read another six books this month:

  • Twisted Hate by Ana Huang (not pictured)-Basically this was an enemies-to-lovers romance, and honestly, I felt like I slogged through it. The hero had the personality of a fencepost, and seemed immature to the point of unlikable. Definitely not my favorite.
  • Twisted Lies by Ana Huang (not pictured)-Yes, I am a glutton for punishment. I was intrigued by side characters she set up in the last book, so I decided to check out their story. It was better than the previous, but still just one-note for me.
  • To Boldly Grow-A non-fiction work that tells the story of Tamar and her husband as they work to source as much of their food locally as possible through gardening, hunting, foraging, fishing, etc. Kind of like Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I enjoyed it. She really highlights the learning curves, successes, and failures in a relatable way.
  • In the Middle of Hickory Lane-I confess, I am a huge Heather Webber fan, whose works remind me of Sarah Addison Allen, and this book was just as good as her last. I love modern magic realism, so this one got a big thumbs up.
  • Home to Cypress Bayou-Ok, I have a soft spot for this soapy little book, mostly because it’s set in the fictional Cypress Bayou, which is based on my former home of Natchitoches, Louisiana. It’s more like cotton candy for your brain than compelling fiction, and because of the setting, it charmed me more than it probably should. The writing could be more polished, but I still liked it.
  • The Vineyards of Champagne-Honestly, as much as I wanted to enjoy this one, I thought it was terribly slow, the plot contrived, and the main character and her lack of self-awareness grew tedious quickly. While it was very well-researched, I don’t get the glowing reviews (although many others agreed with me).

Fiber Arts

  • I finally finished the damn sweater! Scottish Ale sat on the needles forever because I hated knitting it (have learned that seamed sweaters are not my thing). G-Man loves it, so that’s what counts, but man, am I happy to see that thing done.
  • I also finished The Shift Cowl. This was an easy pattern to knit, but I’m on the fence about my yarn choice. Both the sweater and the cowl are projects that have been sitting in my UFO bin for a while, so getting these finished definitely ticked off a goal on my fiber arts to-do list.
  • I started and am about 3/4 of the way through the Chilton Cowl using a set of Blue Sky Fibers Woolstok Holiday Frost mini-skeins from my stash, so I am still sticking to my knit-from-stash goal for the year. I also have three more from-stash projects in the pipeline.
  • As for spinning, I confess I haven’t made much progress. I continued to struggle with the Malabrigo Nube fiber, so I finally abandoned it, and have switched to practicing with Ashford Silk Merino Silver. I’m still can’t get my drafting under control, and my attempts are getting seriously over-twisted. I know it’s going to take time and lots of practice, but even after watching a bagillion YouTube videos, I still feel like it’s just not clicking with me. I’m going to keep at it though, because I know it’s going to be like learning to knit–time, practice, muscle memory, and education.
  • Finally, I haven’t put as much work into the needlepoint stocking for Bean, and I think both that and spinning practice are areas where I need to focus more time.

So, that was February. Good forward progress all around, but I see room for improvement in a few areas. Now it’s time to gird the loins, because guess what this week is? Regional Science Fair. Y’all……there’s not enough margaritas in the world shine a light at the end of that tunnel. Pray for me and send tequila.

Tasty Tuesday–Pumpkin Bread

bread 2After three months of no rain, magic water fell from the sky this weekend, finally allowing temperatures to drop below 80 degrees. We procured Halloween costumes for the Heathens, put in more work on planning the school Halloween carnival, and celebrated the return of the braised pork and roasted butternut squash pizza from our favorite restaurant. This week is shaping up to be busy beyond belief with carnival preparations, but I decided to hit the pause button yesterday and whip up that pumpkin bread I’ve been longing for. This recipe is super easy, an since it makes two loaves, you can surprise someone special who also needs a little autumn pick-me-up.

Pumpkin Bread

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Notes

Ingredients
  • 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • 2/3 cup water
  • 3 cups white sugar
  • 3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1-1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ground nutmeg
  • ½ tsp ground cloves
  • ¼ tsp ground ginger
Procedure
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two standard size loaf pans.
  2. In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar until well blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended. Pour into the prepared pans.
  3. Bake for about 50 to 55 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
This bread tastes better the next day. Serve warm with a little softened butter and bask in the flavors of fall!
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!

 

Slow-Down Sunday and an Unexpected Macaroni Grill Copycat

After several hectic weeks, and an unfortunate tendency to overbook, overdo and overanalyze everything, we slowed things down around our house this weekend. I always seem to forget how fine the line is between “active” and “overwhelmed,” until I’ve jumped past it into the land of Stressville.

Yesterday started with a marathon canning session, because our garden is producing food faster than we can eat it. My husband has managed to keep the garden healthy despite the continuing drought, and I’ve kept my green-thumb-of-death far away from it. The tomatoes, eggplant and cantaloupe aren’t quite ready yet, but we have jalapenos and cucumbers coming out of our ears. After five more jars of jalapeno jelly, I tried my hand at sweet pickles:

That was certainly an adventure, because as a pickling virgin, I was unprepared for the otherwise predictable fact that cucumbers float. How in the heck do people keep them from popping above the rim and contaminating the lip of the jar before they can get the lid on? Am I missing something here? Anyway, these jars will have to cure about four to six weeks before I can taste- test them to see whether my first foray into pickles was epic success or depressing failure. As a relative canning newbie, the odds are split pretty evenly between these possibilities. Meanwhile during my canning sprint, the heathens goofed off, as they are wont to do:

Yes, that was my child wearing gloves, when the temperature outside was roughly 98 degrees. Furthermore, you should note that he cut all the fingers of said gloves off, which apparently occurred WITH MY HUSBAND’S BLESSING. My oldest has since been notified that he should run all scissor-generated wardrobe modifications by ME, before undertaking them…sigh. His brother managed to contain his amusement:

Probably because he was thinking, “better you than me!”

We watched a rare late afternoon storm from the shelter of our front porch:

And then headed inside for dinner.

Perhaps the best part of the day was my surprisingly successful bread experiment. In last month’s Food Network Magazine, I saw a recipe for something similar to Macaroni Grill’s bread. Since my youngest heathen loves this bread and can eat his weight in it, I decided this copycat recipe was worth a try. After all, I was in the need for some cool mom points to start my week off right. I mixed up the dough in my stand mixer, and let it rise in our laundry room, since the heat in humidity in that room cuts our rising time in half:

Forming the loaves was easy, because this dough was very forgiving and not at all sticky:

The finished product was perfect:

So, yes, I did in fact rack up some cool mom credit. The only way I deviated from the recipe was by omitting the additional sprinkling of rosemary over the top of the loaves. Rosemary is a strong enough herb in this recipe that the flavor already comes through well enough, and the additional rosemary garnish probably would have freaked the heathens out anyway. Want to try it? Here’s the recipe I found at Food Network:

Almost Famous Rosemary Bread

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Notes

Ingredients
  • 1 1/4-ounce packet active dry yeast
  • 2 teaspoons sugar
  • 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for brushing and serving
  • 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
  • 2 tablespoons dried rosemary
  • 1 teaspoon fine salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt Freshly ground pepper
Directions
Stir the yeast, sugar and 1/4 cup warm water in a large bowl (or in the bowl of a stand mixer). Let sit until foamy, about 5 minutes.
Add 1 tablespoon olive oil, the flour, 1 1/2 tablespoons rosemary, the fine salt and 3/4 cup warm water; stir with a wooden spoon (or with the dough hook if using a mixer) until a dough forms.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead, dusting lightly with flour if necessary, until smooth and elastic, about 10 minutes. (Or knead with the dough hook on medium-high speed, adding a little flour if the dough sticks to the bowl, about 8 minutes.)
Brush a large bowl with olive oil. Add the dough, cover with plastic wrap and let stand at room temperature until more than doubled, about 2 hours.
Brush 2 baking sheets with olive oil. Generously flour a work surface; turn the dough out onto the flour and divide into 4 pieces. Working with one piece at a time, sprinkle some flour on the dough, then fold the top and bottom portions into the middle. Fold in the sides to make a free-form square. Use a spatula to turn the dough over, then tuck the corners under to form a ball. Place seam-side down on a prepared baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough, putting 2 balls on each baking sheet. Let stand, uncovered, until more than doubled, about 2 hours.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Bake the loaves 10 minutes; brush with the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil and sprinkle with the kosher salt and the remaining 1/2 tablespoon rosemary. Continue baking until golden brown, about 10 more minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool. Serve with olive oil seasoned with pepper.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!