Showing posts with label baking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baking. Show all posts

Saturday, March 17, 2012

The Greatest Thing...


... since sliced bread is, well, bread that you slice yourself. Have recently settled on two versions of a basic recipe that I think will keep me from buying bread at the store for the foreseeable future.


... about baking bread at home is a bread machine to do most of the dirty work. Still loving my investment of almost two years ago.


... about birthday presents you pick yourself (and your husband sweetly orders as a "surprise") is getting to play with them early. This year: pizza peel and pizza stone. I have cracked the code. More tweaking necessary for sure, but already my first attempt was better than anything that can be found in these here southern regions.


... about this picture is that I really was this close to this pelican. He was not about to move. If I lived in his little corner of the world I wouldn't move either.


... about living in the south is that even though we were dressed like this:


two weeks ago, it is now 80 degrees and it appears spring (or summer?) is here to stay. (Yes, those are the blue trays on the shelf!)


... about little photographers is the angles that they capture. Above: our friendly little Beatta and his buddy Ellie Alligator the Algae Eater (she's hard to see). In six years I have never taken a decent picture of a fish tank. Below: Mister Blue's bluer-than-blue shoes. Photo credits for both go to Amy.


... about a catch-all blog post is including awesome little moments like this from two weekends ago:




Yes, my husband pulled my children around the backyard in the kayak. It was wonderful.






... and those munchkins? Yes, pretty much the greatest things of all.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Happiness Is...


... a full cookie jar. Of these, made with this. Only I didn't make them jumbo - just regular cookie size, so it is perfectly acceptable to eat 3 or 4 or 5 in a day... right? And I must say: organic butter tastes SO much better than the regular stuff. I have turned into a complete cookie snob. I actually threw out half a box of store-made "bakery" cookies that were, honestly, terrible. My 2012 goal: to become a homemade-snob about more of the things we eat everyday. Secondary goal: find a better word than "snob" to describe what I'm going for here... any thoughts?

Anyway, where was I?

Happiness is... a little bag for Amy's dance shoes (!). Whipped up in less than 45 minutes this afternoon by yours truly. With fabric and ribbon already on-hand. And I performed the how-to-sew-a-lined-bag mental cartwheel without having to look at a pattern. Go me.




Happiness is pulling off both these things on back-to-back days. I might just be on a roll!

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Groundhog Day

Groundhog Day was yesterday, you say? Then apparently you haven't seen the movie. Around here we just keep doing the same kind of day until we get it right. But that's really not a bad thing, as our days are, for the most part, quite pleasant.


I know of a little boy who is *this* close to out-right crawling, and will soon be into EVERYTHING that he isn't into already. This same little boy also cut his first two bottom teeth this week...


... likes to hold boxes or books up to his face and laugh...


... wants desperately to take part in anything his big sister is doing...


... and generally charms my pants off whenever he gets the chance. Including the hours of 12, 3, and 6 am. He has also grown (by my measurement) two inches in less than two months, so maybe I can give him a pass on all those middle-of-the-night feedings... maybe.


I also know of a not-so-little girl who still loves to dress up like Cinderella, and sort through my scrap basket...


... and help me with any project at hand. This project would be going through my bottom dresser drawer and saying things like "have I ever worn this pair of fuzzy Santa socks?"


I have also declared my sewing room re-organization complete (post to come) and we are now open for business. First project up: Curious George Napping Pants for my little man. Found this on the remnant pile before Christmas and snatched it up because Amy L.O.V.E.S. Curious George, but realized it would be the perfect fabric to make some comfy pants to change William into when he goes down for naps. I made a similar pair for Amy (of different fabric) back in her napping day and they saw tons of wear.


Lots of baking has been happening as well, as I've made it my personal resolution to keep our family in homemade cookies at all times. Shown above are a variation on a pan cookie, which, with the addition of applesauce and quick-cook oats turned into a very moist and cake-like cookie-bar creation. Yum.

So there you have it. A quick catch-up on our many Groundhog Days this winter. Despite the moments when I might get a bit nutty from the "rinse, repeat" feeling, I really do treasure the chance to soak up all these daily moments, and I wouldn't trade any of it for the world.


Monday, December 20, 2010

Cookies, Cookies, Cookies


Christmas baking season has arrived at the perfect time; I recently have eased up on the dairy restrictions to allow for butter and other minor milk ingredients, since William does not seem to be having any more issues. In fact he's looking like he could really use a cookie himself these days.


Every year for as long as I can remember my mom has made the cookies that we refer to as simply The Christmas Cookies. The dough is stiff; even my (finally!) repaired stand mixer can't handle all the flour. No problem, because a little kneading turns it into the most wonderful kind of grown-up Playdoh that rolls out better than any other cookie dough I've ever made.



This year I made gingerbread for the first time. Gingerbread has never really been my favorite thing, but Amy suggested it so I found this recipe and we gave it a go. I added an additional half-cup of flour over what this calls for, and still did the rolling between wax paper. Very sticky dough. But it cooperated and she and I had fun with some purchased frosting (which looked quite like a bottle of Elmer's glue), so I'd call the gingerbread folks a success.



Back to The Christmas Cookies. Every year there is the great debate: to frost or not to frost. The Christmas cookies of my childhood were always frosted, but as the years went on Mom took to simply baking them with an egg wash and sprinkles instead. That is how I've done them since, but taking my junior decorator into consideration, I thought we'd have better luck if Amy could just add sprinkles to the frosting as she liked, rather than dumping them all over unbaked cookies.



I did the frosting, she did the sprinkling, and I think they are quite pretty. Of course there never seems to be quite enough of this very favorite cookie of mine, so tonight I whipped off another batch in quiet solitude. I don't even want to think about how many pounds of butter have passed through my refrigerator in the last two weeks, but now we have plenty to share with friends, dinner guests, and of course, Santa!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Daily Bread

Oh my! We've been back home for well over a week now and I have not written a word in this space. Busy busy with all the usual around here...



However I have been wanting to share my bread making/bread machine progress for quite some time, so here 'goes.

Several months ago I purchased this (for less than the current price) and have tried out a handful of recipes. My foray into bread making has been motivated by the current no-dairy no-soy situation, since almost all packaged bread has one or both of those ingredients. I decided to spring for a bread machine because, as I described here, making bread totally by hand is not really my favorite thing.


(photography note - hate the yellow cast the fluorescent light in the kitchen gives pictures... need to learn about white balance and other camera tricks)

Anyway, I have a HUGE book of bread-machine-specific recipes but have only tried a few since many call for butter and/or milk (or cheese! or chocolate!). For now my big mission has been to settle on a recipe for a basic whole wheat bread that would be suitable for everyday toast and sandwiches. I ended up combing two recipes from the instruction booklet to make this bread - it's not terribly exciting, but that's what I was looking for. It even passed the Amy test - she didn't comment on it. This recipe makes 2 pounds of dough, and right now I am happy with the results I get from simply using the dough cycle, then dividing the dough into two loaf pans, giving it one final (long) rise, and baking it in the regular oven. A bit more labor, but still heaps easier than going all of the way from scratch.

Basic Honey-Wheat Bread:

1 1/4c. water
2 Tbsp honey
2 Tbsp canola oil
1 1/4 tsp salt
2 c. whole wheat flour
2 c. bread flour
3 Tbsp vital wheat gluten
2 1/2 tsp bread machine yeast

Add to the pan in your machine's recommended order (usually liquids first, yeast last). My machine's dough cycle lasts hour and a half, at which point I remove and divide the dough, shape it into two loaves and let it rise in two greased loaf pans for a full 90 minutes. The extra rise time really helps make it light. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

Also, I have recently discovered what a difference vital wheat gluten makes - it makes homemade bread behave and do all the things bread is supposed to do. Who knew.

Now, under the category "Ways to Fall Off the Wagon":


Sugar cookies made my me and Amy this weekend. It is possible I've had one (or six)... However, William has seemed no worse for those transgressions - we might be starting to turn the corner. He's going on five months old now, and my girl will be three YEARS old in just a few weeks. Oh my, oh my...


Tuesday, August 3, 2010

My Days



... are pretty much consumed by these two kiddos. Every day I have high hopes that I'll get caught up with something else, but by the time 8pm rolls around and everyone is in bed my free time is too often spent with a little internet time, a little TV, a decision that surely I'll have more time/energy tomorrow.


But despite the annoyingly uncrossed-off to-do list I have squeezed in a few extras on most days. This week my project has been the kitchen: rearranging a few things to free up counter space and make better use of limited storage, and making room for more ingredients and less ready-made food. My evolving diet experiment has now become a rather pleasant challenge, and since allergies and diet-restrictions are very in right now it's easy to find substitute ingredients and recipes. Like these wheat-dairy-egg-free banana muffins.


And my happy, smiley boy actually seems to be a bit improved in the diaper department, so I am cautiously optimistic that we are finally making progress. He's still gaining weight like a champ, sleeping well, and getting stronger and more fun by the minute. We did manage to get an appointment to see the pediatric GI specialist next week, so I'm hoping that will provide confirmation that we are on the right course.


All this allergy business should start to clear up by the time he is six months or so, and I'm happy to stick it out until then. The time is flying, anyway!

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Sourdough

In the midst of all this crazy limited-diet business I've gotten to thinking about the types of food we eat as a family, and have been considering ways to improve on all of it. From a nutrition standpoint, we are pretty balanced eaters, and we have the good genes and youth that make the occasional package of Oreos (consumed by two people in two days) not matter a whole lot. Like most people I know I'm starting to buy organic foods when I have the option, and trying to fit more fruit and vegetables of all kinds into our meals.

But my month of reading EVERY ingredient on food labels has had me thinking that packaged, processed food needs to find its way out of our kitchen. My best example of this is bread. It is difficult to find a loaf of bread in the grocery store that does not contain milk ingredients. It is impossible to find one that does not contain soy. Most basic bread recipes in my baking book do not contain either (or can be easily modified, in the case of milk products). So I have revisited the homely task of bread baking.

Making bread from scratch is, for me, a bit like knitting - I always think it's going to be much more fun than it turns out to be when I'm actually in the middle of it. In my tiny kitchen in my tiny free time making bread is one big sticky, floury, hasty mess. And I am not usually a sticky, messy, hasty person, so this bothers me.

About two weeks ago I made a sourdough starter. (I should include the recipe, but I simply don't have the energy for that tonight). This actually worked quite nicely. I left the yeasty mix on top of the dryer for over a week, and sure enough, it fermented and smells like beer. I used some of the starter to make a basic sourdough bread yesterday. This is where the messy part came in. No amount of flour made the dough workable in this humidity, and after letting it rise I didn't have the enthusiasm to knead it again so I just plopped it (in what was supposed to be two rounds) on a baking sheet and tossed it in the oven, and, well...


But it actually tasted great! Despite almost giving up on it, this was probably the best loaf (loaves?) of bread I have ever made. Go figure.

So maybe my dream of baking all my own bread still stands a chance. Perhaps a bread machine would be a nice compromise? I'm still thinking it out. Consider this the first installment of The Rudy Family Goes Natural...

Monday, December 21, 2009

The Naughty and The Nice

A Christmas Riddle:
What is funny the first time, makes you get the camera the second time, and by the thirtieth time makes you want to say "oh please, can't Christmas be over so I can put all this away?"

Answer: A cat climbing the Christmas tree.
Over and over and over...


This poor tree has been through enough as it is. I spent fifteen futile minutes trying to correct its terrible lean (now it just leans the other way), and I am praying it makes it to Christmas. I've already decided to take all the ornaments off right after the big day so if Ollie manages to take out the whole tree while we are gone at least nothing else will break. The worst part is that the more I scold, the more he climbs - Naughty!

Now for the Nice: My darling helper and I baked [some of the] Christmas cookies this afternoon. Amy helped with the whole operation: rolling, cutting, and sprinkling - that was her favorite part. I had to keep a hand on the sprinkle shakers to prevent huge blobs of color on each cookie. But she did a really good job and I'm proud of her for helping!