It's over

So this weekend I happily set about to improve upon the merely so-so corndog cupcakes I made a few weeks ago. This time (due to the acquisition of the 5 qt. chicken fryer) I made corndog pie. Miss Z delighted in cutting up the hot dogs and adding them to the batter. As you can see from the photographs, the pie was lovely to behold. And here begins our problem. Oldest daughter and hubby (no matter how pretty it turns out or how much fun it was to make) don’t like cornbread. After two meals of watching daughter and husband pick the hot dog bits and leave behind a giant pile of cornbread, I decided it was time to give up. Owing to a desire for frugality (and you know you are cheap when you will do something like this) I picked all of the hotdogs out of the other half of the pie (couldn’t bear to waste them) and crumbled up the rest of the cornbread for the dog. I am not giving up on cornbread. I will find a recipe they like and I assume that will require the addition of copious amounts of sugar or some other sweet substance. But unfortunately, this will be the last mention of corndog confections on the old blog. Sigh (insert a single tear here if you wish).

I also made a couple of new quick bread recipes. You might have noticed I am a bit obsessed with quick bread of late. I do enjoy baking yeast bread, but the time it takes to wait for the dough to rise is often prohibitive to the actual eating of it. So I like quick bread.

This recipe for whole wheat quick bread has got the husband to saying it is his favorite so far. It has a texture that is the most like store bought, soft sandwich loaves. I think that is why he likes it. I used molasses instead of honey in the recipe, but it is super easy.

Tip: By the way, whenever I bake bread, in addition to greasing the pan, I always add a piece of parchment at the bottom of the pan. This ensures that I will be able to get the loaf out in one piece.

What follows is not a hedgehog or a porcupine. It is a loaf of bread. Miss Z says it is spiky bread.

Tastes good but is a bit crumbly to make truly successful toast without at least a little cursing.

I also made little baby hamburger buns for sloppy joes later this week. Miss Tiny gobbled them and she doesn’t eat anything, so I take that as a good sign. Mostly I made the tiny ones because I couldn’t find anything that was regular bun sized to use as a cutter. Will let you know how well they worked.

Raw:

Cooked:

And this is one of those concoctions that makes me realize recipes exist for a reason. I took this recipe for chewy granola bars and changed everything. I used puffed millet and rice crispies combined with the oatmeal and sugar instead of honey cuz I didn’t have enough and I just switched too much around. I had to add water after they had baked a little because they obviously weren’t going to stick together and then they came out pretty crumbly anyway. I like them, but the hubz described them as “too earthy” and the kids won’t touch them. So next time I will go by the recipe, but I still believe in taking chances.

Here is a picture of me and Z. I made this dress myself. I started it over a year ago and never had time to finish. On Saturday, I forced the hubz into full duty as the caregiver and whipped out the rest so I could wear it for a dinner out with friends. I think it turned out great. It is a vintage pattern. Not a reproduction of a vintage pattern but the real deal. I kind of look like I am wearing a giant apron, but I still like it.

And here is a picture of my girls sleeping. My sister makes fun of me for taking so many pictures of them asleep, but they are so cute. Don’t they look like they just love each other? They do love each other, but the awake kind of love involves a lot of hair pulling and screaming. This is peaceful, quiet sister love.

Have a good week.

me

p.s. The continued sabbath observance (aka- day of rest) experiment was a dismal failure this week. Will try again next week.