Tag Archives: baking

The Kitchen

Here, in the USA, we will be celebrating Thanksgiving next week. It’s a holiday that is always on a Thursday about the third week into November.

It is meant to be a day of giving thanks and gathering with family and/or friends and eating the most delicious comfort/fall foods you can get your hands on.

Unlike Christmas season, Thanksgiving is simple. No gifts. Just fun and food.

Easy.

Until I moved into this “temporary” house with the most annoying kitchen. I’ve lived several places with tiny kitchens. But this one is just annoying.

It’s cute and homey in some ways….. that is, until you start to prepare a meal or bake bread…. or prepare to make your favorite pies .

My rolling pin is longer than the width of the counter.

I could clear my counter space completely, but there is no where to put the things that normally live on the counter. The floor is good (keep dogs out while baking).

Then there’s the day when you decide to overcome your fear of applying icing in a one of those bag things with the tip to make pretty cake tops.

I did not know you had to twist the other end so icing comes out onto the cake and not all over the hand that squeezes the bag and then onto the counter and then the floor…. here doggies….

Frustration. But I will prevail! I will make those pies and those cornmeal crescent rolls and the sausage rolls and whatever! By golly! I will!

And someday soon, I hope, we will move into a house where you can dance in the kitchen and actually smile while you bake.

And then I will even invite friends over to partake of my creations.

Happy Thanksgiving……. Enjoy!

not mine but I have no doubt I can ace this just as well as this gal…..

Cate B

Baking Time!

When the weather was still warm a dear friend dropped off several large and perfect peaches! I set aside a couple for immediate eating pleasure and then peeled and sliced the rest for the freezer and future smoothies and a pie.

Pie day came. I made a single crust and mixed chopped peaches and a few red raspberries with sugar and cinnamon and touch of cardamom. I’ll let the images tell the rest…….

Enjoy! CATE B

I love this rolling pin
individual pies
rollin’ rollin’

I Had a Hankerin’

I have recently changed my eating habits – to the better. It was and still is a major feat. But the results are awesome.

Today I was craving a taste of sweet. Sweetness that was more than an apple. More than jelly on toast. More than, well, you get the idea.

Since I have no laws in my new eating habit, other than to think before I eat and keep the carbs at a minimum, I have a cheat day now and then. Or a cheat moment.

I wanted a donut. So I grabbed the donut pan I use for baked donuts and whipped up a cinnamon batter with raw, organic sugar and a bit of rice flour in place of regular flour (I do love me some gluten). Popped those pups in the oven.

In the meantime, I melted a little butter on the stove so I could gently dip said donuts in the butter so the sugar-cinnamon mixture would stick nicely.

Little did I know that the butter stayed on the flame slightly more than I intended. BUT when I popped a donut hole in my mouth my tastebuds stood up and cheered. I had, unknowingly, browned the butter. The flavor had that hint of caramel goodness.

It’s a keeper!

Baked Donuts:

2 C Flour…. 3/4 C Sugar (I used raw)……. 2 tsp. BP…….some cinnamon

3/4 C buttermilk……. 2 eggs, beaten lightly……. 2 T melted butter

Sift dry ingredients, combine liquids and pour into dry until just combined.

Bake @ 400 degrees F for about 7-9′

cool 4′ and remove from pans. Cool and dip in butter and sugar-cinnamon mixture.

Eat!

Enjoy! Cate B

Baked Donuts

 

 

 

Sit Down For A Cuppa

Welcome New Year – 2016.  Welcome Friends.

Come and sit with me and let me pour you a cup of coffee.  I didn’t make a double chocolate chai pie with real whipped cream for you today……perhaps next time.

Today, I have lovely slices of homemade bread.  Warm.  With butter and/or some local Amish Blackberry Jam.  Help your self.  Eat as much as you want.

As we sit here together let’s chat. I want to tell you how excited I am over the arrival of a new year. I’ve made no resolutions, never do, but I have decided to make my own bread as opposed to buying well-preserved breads in the stores.

I have also decided to get busy.  As some of your know, I care for my grand girls five days a week while my son and his wife attend University.  I’ve done this for about two plus years.  I would do it again in a heartbeat, but it has been a sacrifice in many ways. But I see no greater gift that I could give than to be a part of raising these girls. They have taught me so much and my heart has grown in love.

This year, I decided to write more.  Even help my husband to write the books he needs to along with the one I need to finish. I need to play my ukulele more often – it brings me such joy.

There are other creative and practical things I need to do that will come out along the way.  One thing I know is that I need to do the things that were planted in my heart to do by my best Friend, Jesus.

You see, Life is short.  We’ve all heard that before. But we truly do not know our days. I’ve said goodbye to a dear friend just after Thanksgiving.  I see the news rattling off numbers of deaths in various world events.  All ages.  The anniversary of the loss of our dear daughter is coming up.  You can’t help but reflect on your own life.  The things I’ve put off and just refused to do.  The dreams that I have forgotten.

Here, have another slice of bread and a warm up your coffee……

You see, some dreams may change over the years or even be put on a shelf for a while. Some may be lost on the shelves or in a box in the attack or basement. How about we take them down and dust them off.  How about we search out those that were lost and thought forgotten.

Let’s take them and sit with our God and our friends who believe in us and look them over, shine them up, tweak them here and there and most of all…… Pursue them!   Yes.  Let’s do it.

And that is what my new year is looking like. Pursuit.  How about yours?  Those dreams and ideas are still there.  Those ideas for a business are still there.  Find friends who only encourage and love you enough to help you go forward. Find others who need your encouragement and help in finding and going for their dreams.

I’m cheering for you. Maybe next time I will make that chocolate chai pie for you.

Thanks for stopping by.  In case you want it, here is the bread recipe:

I mixed mine in a Kitchen Aid mixer with dough hook.

Multi-Grain Bread

1 pkg. active dry yeast – or 2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast

1/4 cup warm water

1/2 cup butter – cut up

1/4 cup organic raw cane sugar

1/4 cup Molasses

2 tsp. salt

2 cups boiling water

2 cups Whole Wheat Flour – 1 cup Cornmeal – 1 cup Oats

Enough Unbleached Flour to make a sticky dough – approx. 4 cups

Dissolve yeast in 1/4 cup warm water.

In a smaller bowl I put the butter, sugar, molasses and salt with the boiling water.  Let butter melt and let it cool down so as not to be too hot for the yeast.  I test that by holding my finger in it for a few seconds – if I have to yank my finger out then it is too hot.

Add liquid to yeast along with the WW Flour, cornmeal and oats.  Then mix in White Flour and use that dough hook until all is incorporated.  A good 3-4 minutes of mixing is good.  If dough is too sticky – meaning you cannot pick it up in one ball – then slowly beat in more white flour until right consistency.

Put dough in a lightly oiled bowl and cover with a clean cloth for about 1 and 1/2 hours.

Punch dough down and form into any shapes you like.  Pace on greased baking sheet or greased loaf pans. I chose this:

1003243_10153131639452820_3797718183456318986_n I cut slices in them with kitchen shears.

Cover these with the cloth again and let rise for about 40-45 minutes.

Bake  in a preheated 350 degree F oven for about 40-50 minutes.  Cool out of the pan and you better cut an end off while hot and smother it with butter and eat it!

12400506_10153131639472820_6126526402291979353_n

Enjoy!

Cate B

I May Need to Make a Pie

I love to make pie.  I love to see the faces of people who eat pie.  It’s so wonderful and fulfilling to produce a baked good that gives others such joy!  I had a brilliant – NOT! – idea to make and sell pies.  I made many at Thanksgiving and reaped in the money.  But each time I do that I am constantly thinking, “What, are you crazy?”  It’s a lot of work and I put love and creativity into each one.  I’m not so sure it’s worth it as a very small home business.  I suppose if I had a commercial kitchen and people who loved to make pie as I do we could have a team thing going and really do well.  Not so sure I want to do that.  So, I will make pies whenever the demand for or the orders come to me.  No problem.

So in 2 days I will be in a car with my husband and son and daughter and their daughter (a 2 year old) on a journey to the east coast.  We will stay with our other son and family and I will make them a pie!  And we will eat that pie!  And we will enjoy that pie!  And I will go to the beach and rest and contemplate about that pie and all the joy it brought people and I will be at peace (at piece).

IMG_2878         IMG_2880This one is Strawberry Rhubarb.  One of my most favorite!

 

Enjoy!

cate b.

Focus!

As a creative person I tend to have a hard time focusing on a project.  Heck, I have a hard time typing this sentence because of a miss-spell in the previous sentence.  I must go on and use spell check and not stop every two words to correct on the spot.  FOCUS!

I love to write but have been slacking because I also love to crochet.  I have the opportunity to sell my articles that I crochet and some are now on display in a dear friends boutique.  I can make money.  I can bake pies and sell them.  I started a painting about a month ago and there it sits while I try to decide which of the two rooms I prefer painting in.  Good grief.

I assume this is normal among the creative masses……..is it?  I hope so.  Distractions are everywhere.  I feel like I am surrounded by them. That’s when I can easily say, “Forget it.  I’ll just go read a book or watch a movie.”

So in today’s blog I want …………… Oh, I’m going to have another cup of coffee.

coffee Time

Enjoy!

cate b.