After stockpiling delicious seasonal homegrown and foraged foods over the past weeks, this weekend was spent cooking and baking. For dinner one weeknight, I made the incredibly comforting cheddar rice from this cookbook using the last of the paste tomatoes from my garden. Another night, we had a meaty skillet pizza, using up the last of a large batch of pizza dough I’d stashed in the freezer. After watching the latest episode of The Great British Bake Off Friday, Saturday was all about baking. There's nothing quite as good as fresh baked bread, still warm from the oven, and the white bread with poolish from Flour Water Salt Yeast has become my new favorite. It’s basically baguette in a loaf form, and I've finally baked it enough that it’s begun to feel easy and familiar, something I can throw together on a lazy weekend with what feels like little effort. Between steps in the bread making process, I also made a tart, using upsome of the pounds of alpine blueberries we’ve harvested over the past weeks. It’s mostly improvised, so sadly I have no recipe to share, but then I think these berries are delicious in any form, so really no recipe is needed!
Read moreLife: Week 48
It gets dark so early these days. Somehow work has managed to stay busy, even though we should be well into our holiday season lull, so I've mostly been cooped up inside, especially during daylight hours. To compensate for all the darkness, I've been burning lots of candles, and even finally got around to using the pretty glass oil lamps we inherited from Andy's grandparents. I had my annual holiday craft party on Sunday, where I get together with friends to watch Christmas movies and work on our various craft projects. That meant spending most of Saturday baking and cleaning in preparation. I baked cookies, the Winning Hearts and Minds cake, and my favorite - pulla. Pulla is a Finnish cardamom bread that my family has had every year at Christmas for as long as I can remember. Instead of cookies for Santa, my sister and I would leave a plate of pulla. Last year, I didn't have the time to make pulla at all, so I'm enjoying it even more this year! I might even have time to make another batch before Christmas!
Read moreLife: Week 19
One of the new additions to my May calendar compared to previous years was the first birthday or a certain adorable niece of mine. Saturday was her birthday party, to which I contributed a delicious funfetti cake made using this recipe. I don't think it's possible to go wrong with funfetti, but this one definitely didn't disappoint! While it's hard to tell from the photos I have of the week, most of it was hot and sunny, continuing to feel decidedly un-springlike. Still, I managed to make it out for a few runs to break in my new running shoes! I'll have to hope for some good wet weather soon so I can start building up a good solid layer of trail mud on my new shoes.
Sunday, we finally had time for a hike, and we were going - rain be damned! Luckily, while it was overcast all day and rained the entire drive to and from the trailhead, it never rained on the trail. While there were absolutely no views there were plenty of wildflowers blooming, and I certainly got my fix of cloud-obscured ridgelines!
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