A Day in the Life: Cooking

The other day, I'd promised my husband stew and homemade bread for dinner. Not such a hard thing. Stew is easy, bread time consuming but also easy.

I had a doctor's appointment in the morning but I figured I'd have the afternoon to cook. Yeah, you know what they say about the  best laid plans. So here is three-o'clock and no bread is started. Still determined, I decided to search online for a better recipe than I have now.

I found a recipe for beer bread. A light goes off. We have a lot of beer left over from the holidays. My husband and I aren't big drinkers and it seemed like everyone brought some beer to the festivities we hosted here. I have raspberry, orange, regular beer and even some pumpkin variety. You get the idea.

But better yet, this loaf does not have to rise and bakes in an hour. The entire prep took less than fifteen minutes. I had plenty of time.

Oh. My. Gosh.

This bread was good! I mean really good. Why don't I have a picture to show you? Because it was gone before I could get my camera out. But my husband and I were calculating how many loaves we could make with the remaining left-over beer so chances are, I will be able to post one later.

It gets 5 out of 5 stars from me!

If you want the recipe, just let me know in a comment.

A Day in the Life: Chocolate, peanut butter cookies

My husband has a sweet tooth. That suites me just fine because I love to bake. It's one of those reasons we were made for each other. But not only does he have a sweet tooth, he appreciates my taking a recipe, deconstructing it and putting it back together in a completely different form.

The look of enjoyment on my husband's face is really all the inspiration I need. That he calls me a Sweet Genius doesn't hurt. Of course it is in his best interests that I continue baking but let's not go there. ; )

Take these cookies for instance (And note the awesome silicone baking sheets my husband bought me for Christmas. I'm honestly not sure how I baked without them...okay that's stretching it a little, but they make clean up so easy!)

Sorry, got sidetracked.

These cookies are from a lemon cookie recipe. Yup. I looked at the recipe and thought it would work with chocolate and then, as I was craving peanut butter, I poured in some Reeces Pieces and there you go. Divine. Oh, did I mention easy? As in it takes longer to bake then to whip together?

Yup.

Leave a comment if you want the recipe, I'll  gladly share.

A Day in the Life: Gardening

Okay, as promised, here are the pictures of my garden. It pains me to reveal these, really it does.
So you have a better idea of the problem, here is a comparison.

Before:

After:

The second picture is taken later in the year but... yeah, pretty bad.

Here's another. (It's like ripping off a bandaid!)

I am hoping to post a few pictures of my progress in a few weeks. Wish me time, folks!

Have you ever let anything go so long you wondered if you'd ever catch up? Considered trashing it and starting over?

A Day in the Life: Gardening

Those of you who know me, know I love to garden. For me, it’s not a chore...well, most of the time its not. Pulling weeds is cathartic and has from time to time, has been inspiration for a story idea. I think because it’s fairly mindless. I mean if you know the difference between a weed and a flower, or just what you want growing where (some weeds are gorgeous) you don’t really have to think about what you’re doing. This quasi- comatose state is when most of my really good ideas have hit me. That or the shower/right before I fall asleep but that’s another post.

And I love to go out in the garden and watch the changing of the seasons by which flowers are blooming. For me, it’s an exquisite combination of pride and wonder.  I may have trimmed, weeded, fed and watered, but I didn’t create the plant or cause to it to grow.

At the risk of sounding like a kook, I think each plant has its own personality and after awhile they feel like old friends. This was my garden last year.

That’s why it’s hard to walk into my garden now. Toward the end of my pregnancy, I couldn’t go out there and weed. Then there was a newborn and now? 6 months of neglect means weeds as tall as my roses. There is almost as much grass in the flower beds as in the lawn. Everything is overgrown. There are more dead flowers on stems than live ones and my neighbor’s blackberries are once again threatening everything in the east bed.  That and I lost many container plants. Some of them old friends.

I’m not feeling sorry for myself. I’ll regroup. This winter when everything is dormant, I can go out there and reclaim my garden. It was a choice I had to make. A hard choice but a choice. So this winter, if you like, you can follow me in the reclaim the garden marathon. I’m pretty sure it will take all winter. I will *gulp* take some pictures of now so we can track the progress.

Have you had to let something go recently? A hobby? Job? Pastime?

A Day in the Life: What's cooking?

What’s cooking?

Recently we celebrated my husband’s birthday. He’s quite the foodie. We watch several cooking shows together and he had a subscription to Food Network Magazine, which he loves!

When I asked him what cake he wanted for his birthday, he grabbed the magazines, picked half a dozen contenders (not just cake but pie and crumbles, etc) then asked me to surprise him.

After going through the recipes, and based on the look in his eye as he was pointing them out, I chose a peanut-butter-cream-filled cupcake with a chocolate ganache frosting and topped with a salty peanut garnish. A bit labor intensive...as compared to a plainer cupcake but oh-my-gosh so worth it.

But unbeknownst to him, I’d also decided to take cupcakes to soccer practice that day. My husband is a coach. So because it’s one of his favorite drinks, I created a raspberry lemonade cupcake. It’s a lemon cake with a raspberry filling and topped with a cream cheese/butter cream frosting.

I totally cheated with this one. It really couldn’t be easier. I blended box and homemade but if I didn’t tell you, you wouldn’t be able to tell. Serious yum!

So what's cooking in your home? Any recipes you'd like to share?