Bread

I am really into bread. I was always into carbs even when the no carb craze was at it's peak. How could I say no to potatoes? Bagels? Bread to hug my sandwich? I never got into that craze. Actually, I've never really been into any diet craze. Too time consuming. I do well with just eating when I have physical hunger and stopping just before I'm full. That's it. It's hard sometimes, but it truly works. I can't make the food behave (i.e. take out all the fat, carbs, sugars, and eat 'diet' food), but I can make me behave. 'Me' is always at the heart of the matter, right?

Ouch. I get another little stab when I see that all typed out. So true. In my case, really.

Well, my therapy lately has been a quest to discover how to make bread. Really, REALLY good bread. I'm discovering that I will ultimately need a wood-fired oven in my back yard (I have already downloaded plans for one). Until then, my little oven and I are trying to figure it out.

Bread baking is truly a science and an art. I can weigh my ingredients, have a gorgeous starter going, only to have one batch turn out drastically different than the other. That is, I feel, also the beauty of baking.

Like sketching or knitting, I sometimes just need to feel the repetitive motion with my fingers. I enjoy the scritch/scratch of the lead on paper, the click of my needles and the feel of the dough in between my fingers.

After many batches of ciabatta, I can almost feel the dough and know if it's not going to have those huge holes and crunchy crust. I have only tried the bagels twice. The first time I didn't have enough flour and the dough was too soft and sticky.

The second time I let them get a little two brown and used salt grains that were too large. So that batch ended up looking more like round pretzels than bagels. Both batches tasted really nice.


I've been doing all of my bread baking lately out of this wonderful book. It is not the easy route, let me tell you. But I really wanted to do artisan breads and no matter what the recipes say, I think that most true rustic, artisan bread can't be done in a few hours. Also why I want one of these.

I was never a fan of the bread machine but I understood why it was popular. It wasn't that the bread was bad, but it wasn't good either. I liked the crust, the smell of the yeast, the heat of the oven. Sometimes my mom would decide to bake bread and it was a lovely smell.


Now we're still trying to eat up my experiments here at home and I'm really itching to try this lovely recipe for babka. I just have to empty out a few tomato cans and I'm all set!

On the path...

Mommy Guilt and Easy Toddler Aprons

I often struggle with Mommy-guilt. Don't we all? Am I paying enough attention to my kids? Am I paying too much attention? Are they learning enough? Do they feel loved enough? Are they getting a balanced meal at least once a day? Will they someday be telling their therapist about the time Mommy made them wear dirty pajamas because she didn't do the laundry? Am I doing ENOUGH? All the magazines tell us to give ourselves a break, but honestly ladies, I really think we're hardwired as moms to beat ourselves up from time to time. For those of you who never do, please send me a link to your blogs! I will need to read your personal guilt-free mantras when I get in these moods.

Anyway, these times always inspire me to do something really fun with my kids. Not out of guilt per se, but out of a need to have some fun and forget about my worries. So, I decided to have a cookie-making session one afternoon recently.

Nothing about that sounds particularly exciting but it was the BEST for my kids. They love to help out in the kitchen and my son will sometimes cry if he can't help me out (Frying wontons in hot oil? I don't think so.), but will be a busy bee when he can (Topping the pizza? Yes!). Now that he loves helping in the kitchen, his sister has to do it too. If she can't be all up in his business all the time, then she is not happy. This activity makes them both happy.

First, we donned our special toddler aprons for the occasion. They were both so proud and these were very easy and quick to make! I didn't have enough contrasting fabric for my son's apron so he had Thomas the Tank Engine on both sides and of course, he didn't mind.

They never stand this still for me, but I'd like to think that they were admiring the superb construction of their aprons. Or they were just being still for just a split second.

We made fairy cookies! You can find the recipe here, and please take a moment to read this blog. I love catching up on all of the crafty bits as well as all the exciting things happening on their farm.

So, Chandler was in charge of cutting the cookies. He is holding a plastic Zyliss salad knife. Doesn't cut the skin, but is strong enough for soft things like potatoes, lettuce, soft cheese and of course, cookie dough. See how carefully he holds the knife?

We are learning how important it is to be safe with a knife while you are using it in the kitchen. Once he cut a cookie, it was then passed off to his sister who took a lot of time and care to arrange each piece on the cookie sheet.

She would put one down, take a look, rearrange and then rearrange them again. I didn't touch them and into the oven they went. I can't say they turned out as good-looking as the recipe at Jelly Wares, but they were tasty!

On the path...

Catching Up

There is nothing like knitting a dishcloth to soothe the troubled mind. You can quote me on that. This week has been full of meetings and mind-bending spreadsheets and mountains of paper and products. Whew. So hopefully by the end of the week I'll have a finished dishcloth to show you. However, I did want to share an FO with you:

Ava's dress!


This was so much fun to knit and despite it's size, very quick as well. In between busy-ness and working to accomplish other pressing items, I would just pick this up and start stockinette in the round over and over and over.... repetitive and soothing. I received a bag of varying colored yarn for Christmas and the dress was the end result. I have yet to weave in the many ends, but I hope to get it on my little model soon for a photo shoot.

The cookies at the beginning of the post were baked on Monday right before I left on my business trip. I left the surprise for my husband and children under the glass cake stand on the kitchen table. Judging from last night's call home, I think that they are almost gone.

I also did a little bit of scrapbooking (I am NOT a scrapbooker) and made a laminated page for each of my babies to find in their beds when they went to sleep that night.

Each card featured a picture of me with each child on the front and some more photos on the back with as many colorful stickers that I could manage to put on the extra space.

My husband told me that when Chandler picked up his card, he was very excited and after examining it for a moment, he said in a grave tone, "Daddy, this card is very, very special." (melting heart here...)

On the path (back home) ...

I'm Back!

Honestly, was I going to go a whole month without a blog post? I was very worried for a little while that might just happen. So, unfortunately summer is my absolute busiest time for work and even though I still tried to do some crafting for sanity, I really didn't get much done around here other than work. AND I mean WORK! Wow. What a whirlwind. I worked all day and started up again in the evening. A couple of times I actually had to work until 5 or 6 in the morning! Seriously. Ugh.

Well, enough of that. I can't cry about it because I got paid and anyway, I feel much better now that I have a few big projects all packed up and sent away. Yea! So I'm back in blog-land and feeling good. Shall we start?

Ava, my dear, sweet girl with the screech that could rival the tornado siren here in town, turned one on July 12th. It was so much fun and we all had a good time. As always, the baby dolls are invited to the party.


Here is the birthday girl with her proud mama:


Things are finally starting to bloom and flourish around here. June was such a weird month with hardly any sun, cooler days and lots of rain. Which is good, but when it's not followed by some hot sun, the plants go into hibernation. My veggies in pots are doing that now.





And yes, I have been knitting! Alas, it turns out that Debbie and I can no longer see each other. Remember the ill-fated toddler hoodie? Well, that was from this book by Debbie Bliss. I remember being so excited when I swiped it from the Barnes and Noble shelf, lapping up all of the beautiful pictures and planning my knitting for the next two years. Ah, no more.

I really wanted it to work out. Debbie and I seemed like we would get along so well! Remember this dress I was working on? Well, it turns out that when I finally got to the part where you normally just knit the armholes and finish off the straps the pattern directions really got all wonky. Deb had to be difficult. Even the OWNER of my lys couldn't figure the pattern out for me. Sadly, we have to break up. It's time. I found a new pattern for a cute girl's tank top. And this is what is happening to that stupid dress back:



And finally, FINALLY, today I got to do some baking. My sweet hubby is grilling some great burgers tomorrow so I made up some loaves of french bread (my first try) for the sandwiches. Yum! Apparently, I need to use a sharper blade for the slits - oh well.


I also bought these lovelies at the farmer's market. Aren't they pretty?




So often I will buy something at the FM just because it is so pretty and then I'll figure out what to do with it later. I found a fabulous recipe for Red Currant Pie. So good!





I am also trying to finish a quilt as a gift for someone who loves blue. It's almost halfway there...



I ALSO joined the Sassy Apron Swap for fall. I'm very excited - this will be my first swap! I love aprons and the thought of having someone make me one is so exciting. I can only hope that mine will be as good as theirs. Sign up is still open until July 25th so hurry up and get on the list! Maybe you and I will be swap partners?

I ALSO also (tired of the "alsos" yet?) finished off another bean bag for my shop. See my sidebar for details. Whew!

I'm back on the path!

Gooey Goodness...

I notice that a lot of bloggers are feeling the pinch. The pinch when they try to get into their pants, that is. At least I am! Some are swearing off sugar, others are trying to eat smaller portions (good luck with that one - you are more woman than I am) and still some are just heading for the diet section of Barnes & Noble.

I'm back to watching my points, since I have some of the literature from long ago and I'm receiving wonderful update emails from this site. It's chock full of great recipes that taste great and are low in points (i.e. calories and fat). So, for all of you out there that are thinking about eating healthier while ogling a death-by-chocolate pound cake under glass in your local coffee house, I give you this great recipe. I've modified it a bit (the original calls for peanut butter - that's good too!) but it's from hungry-girl.com and each mini-muffin is less than 1 point on the Weight Watchers Scale. Now, this doesn't mean that they're free, so if I eat two, I count 1 point. Seriously.


Now, this recipe is really hard, so please pay attention:

Rockin' Awesome Brownie Bites

Ingredients:
1 Box Reduced Fat Brownie Mix
1 Can Libby's Pumpkin Puree (not pumpkin pie filling ... that's cheating)

Preheat oven to 350. Spray mini muffin tin with non-fat or low-cal cooking oil. Open box and dump contents into a bowl. Open can and dump contents into the same bowl. Mix thoroughly. Drop by the spoon full or use a small scoop into a mini muffin tin. Wait for oven to heat up because you're already done with the prep work.

Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes or until desired consistency. Bake less if you want a fudgy bite, or more if you want them more cake-like. Just test them out as you go.

Eat. Enjoy.

Yum! As you have probably guessed, these went really fast in our house. My two-year old kept asking for more even before he was done chewing. He looked just like a chipmunk with each cheek full of brownie bite.

Oh, and I'm still working very hard on this pattern/idea that's been stuck in my head for ages. I've just been too scared to make the first cut.


Until now...



Here I go!

The Cookies ...

Are frosted. Finally! I had a little too much fun with the pastry bags and toothpicks. But that's how you dress up a cookie that's lost its shape in the baking process.

I hope everyone is having a great and productive weekend!

On the path...