Baking Again

Tripp and I have been busy in the kitchen again. First, we made some bread. Honey whole wheat bread to be exact. The first loaf we made was a little too dense for our liking so after reading some reviews, I decided to add a little more yeast and then also did 1 cup bread flour and 2 cups whole wheat (instead of all 3 wheat). It was excellent. I might even go as far as making it on a regular basis for our sandwich bread. But that is taking a step towards being Pioneer Woman or something and I am not sure ready for that. Cause then I would have to start growing vegetables in my back yard, give up refined sugar and only buy meat that is from grass fed, free range, daily manicured and pedicured cows. And not that I have anything against that (I really do not, I promise), I just am not there yet. But it does seem like a slippery slope, and making your own bread might just be the beginning of that slope. So in order to take a step back, I decided to make a recipe that I have been thinking about for a while. Oreo stuffed chocolate chip cookies. I now understand why the recipe calls for more flour than normal. But after using the typical amount, we were all out and I did not feel back to the store again.


So I think I will just do some dividing up, get a cold glass of milk, and enjoy a cookie inside a cookie.

Strawberry Pizza

Although I am not the biggest fan of fruity desserts, when Aldi has a sale on strawberries for $0.89 for a quart, it is hard to pass up making something fruity (and it was also about time for me to make something with some fruit in it for Nelson cause he loves fruity dessert). So I decided upon a Strawberry Pizza, inspired by one of the desserts my co-worker brought to our dessert potluck a little while back. I couldn't find the exact recipe I was looking for, so I used This one as a starting point and did a little modifying along the way.
Here is the crust:


Then the cream cheese and cool whip layer with strawberries on top:


And finally, the final product, topped with a strawberry glaze:





It's in our fridge cooling, and I'm sure that after an episode of The Good Wife, we will make our way upstairs and enjoy a slice (or two)!

Lots of Cooking

Tripp and I have been busy in the kitchen lately. He really loves being in there, and I love cooking so that means the two of us have been whipping up so tasty things as of late. It's mostly fun for me- sometimes having two extra hands around is hard in our small kitchen, but I am just thankful that he even wants to be around! He has helped me make some tasty dinners, including this Honey Garlic Balsamic Chicken and tonight we made a delicious penne pasta (which actually ended up being a bow tie pasta since I forgot to get penne noodles from the store). He also helped me with the caesar salad, and he was especially concerned about the croutons. He kept reminding me to put them in the salad and in case I was confused as to which thing in the kitchen they were, he reminded me "they're the crunchy things Mommy." He also reminded me "Don't squeeze the bag" since he had to be reminded of that same thing in the grocery store only a few hours earlier.

He is also learning how to set the table, and while it is far from perfect, I am proud of him for putting most things in the right spot. He has even learned to ask Daddy what he wants to drink and will get him whatever drink he asks for. Tonight I let him carry my water glass to the table for the first time, and besides the fact that he drank about half of it before he actually got it to the table, he did a great job.

We also made a fourth of July cake the other day for a "dessert potluck" that we were having at work. Ever since seeing this cake, I knew I had to make it. So one morning, Tripp and I set to baking. We made all the layers and set them out to cool. We had to head out to camp for Tripp and work for me, so I told him that he needed to remind his babysitter, Sally, that they needed to wrap up the cakes as soon as they got home. I fully planned on him forgetting so I texted Sally to let her know. But of course, as she let me know later, in the car on the way home, he reminded her that they needed to wrap up the cakes. He is such the great helper! Then that night, after he was asleep, since I needed full concentration for the assembling part, I put the cake together. Tripp was a little disappointed that I had to take the cake to work the next morning, but I was sure not disappointed when this is what we sat down to at work on the Friday afternoon before a long weekend:

My boss knew how excited I was for my cake and so she made every watch as I cut the first piece. And then we had to take a picture of course!

It is not the best pic, so I was fully intending on taking some pics of the cake when after I got home. But I had to go see a client in the afternoon in the 100 degree weather. I did not think about what this would mean for the icing on my cake so after it sat in the car for two hours, it completely fell apart on the way home. I was a little disappointed to see all our hard work end in such a terrible way, so this morning, Tripp and I took the extra cake (since there is lots of cutting/trimming of layers) and make cake balls! They win no points for style or good looks seeing as a two year old helped me roll them into a shape that somewhat resembles a ball but more closely resembles a blob. They also turned a rather strange color of pink/purple because we were mixing layers of red, white and blue cake. But they win lots of points on taste, which I guess is all that really matters.

I am pretty sure we made banana bread sometime this week as well, but just like the milk in this house, it disappeared faster than what seems humanly possible, so it's hard for me to remember if that was this week or last.

So it's been a busy week in the kitchen for us. But that's a good place to be busy.