Actual conversation this evening...

Tammy: Hey Honey, which cupcake filling recipe was our favorite? My mom's, or this other one?

Joshua: You'll just have to make them both again.

Tammy: I don't have time for that. I need a kitchen tip for tonight, so I'm gonna tell everyone, "Hey! You can make your own cupcake filling."

Joshua: Hahahahahaha

Tammy: (laughing) Okay, I know. That's a dumb tip. Do you have a better one?

Joshua: How about... go to the local GoodWill store and buy cook books for cheap. Then you can gift them to other people when you're done with them.

Tammy: Hahahahahaha Hey, you know, maybe I should just "recycle" one of my better tips that's a couple years old.

Joshua: Yeah.

I've made my homemade bread twice now here in Washington. The first time, the loaves sunk as they baked and the texture was a little "off" and I also had to add about 1 cup of extra flour for 2 loaves.

These little things were alarming to me, since I was following my recipe exactly as I always did, and I had been making bread often enough (1-3 times a week) that I had it figured out (or so I thought!) and it basically always turned out perfectly.

I made bread again this week, and again the dough was not the right texture (I use the bread machine to knead it, so I know there should have been no difference in the time/intensity of the kneading!), it took extra flour, and the loaves sunk substantially during baking. When I pulled out my bread (this oven has no window) I was shocked to see that my loaves were about half the size they would normally be. The bottom was dense and the top was so bubbly that it had sunk.

What could possibly be so different between here and Ohio?! Sometimes I wish bread-making weren't such a science. If any of you have any ideas for me, I'm ready to hear them. :)

I brought my wheat and grain mill, so the flour should be the same. I couldn't bring my honey, oil, or milk (obviously), but I wouldn't think those would affect the bread very much.

If I were just looking at the bread and trying to diagnose the issue, I'd say it looks like I used soft wheat (pastry flour) instead of hard wheat, since the texture is NOT right. But I was using right from a brown 50-pound bag that was labeled "Prairie Gold Hard White Wheat" so I don't think I could have accidentally gotten the wrong kind of wheat.

So, I spent the day feeling depressed every time I looked at the pathetic loaves that should have been delicious homemade wheat bread.

And then I planned some meals like French toast and grilled cheese, and now the bread is almost gone.

I'm going to try again tomorrow. I have to try again. I mean, I do have a grain mill and wheat. And memories of the bread I made in Ohio... I just hope I can figure it out. When we lived in Missouri (for 2 years) I never could figure out what was wrong about my homemade bread. And when I moved back to Ohio, it was instantly solved and turned out great. Strange!!

Our oatmeal this morning was a disaster. Did you know it was possible to ruin oatmeal? It is. Let me tell you how I did it. ;)

Last night I was getting ready for bed and thought about breakfast for the next day -- oatmeal.

Now, we all know that the really good, truly health-conscious wives and mothers are the ones who soak their grains before they use them.

I had been meaning to try soaking some grain for our breakfast cereal, and here was my chance -- my brain was actually still functioning at 10pm!

I put some steel cut oats in a pan, added enough water to sufficiently cover, stirred, and put the lid on. In the morning, I added some more water (though they weren't dry, I knew they would absorb more water during cooking) and put the pan on the stove to cook.

I stood there stirring until the oatmeal came to a boil, and then cooked and stirred. I added more water. I tasted the oatmeal. It tasted horrible! Starchy, pasty, gooey, blobby. So gross!

I kept stirring, cooking, and tasting. I stirred because my pans are thin and burn easily. I cooked and tasted, hoping that somehow during the cooking process, that awful pastey flavor would disappear.

It didn't. :( The oatmeal was survivable with some salt, brown sugar, and milk. And a little more brown sugar than usual.

Even the boys noticed the odd taste, despite the extra sugar I put in theirs, and opted for a banana instead.

Joshua's reaction? First, he asked where in the world I had gotten the idea to soak the oats. (Yes, I named names -- you know who you are!!!! ;D) Then, after tasting the oatmeal, he said "Never again. This is awful!"

What did I do wrong? Did I totally mess up the process of soaking, or do people actually consume oatmeal that tastes like glue?

Some relatives gave us several huge zucchini from their garden. I decided to try making a zucchini version of my apple crisp. I peeled the zucchini, removed the seeds, and sliced it thinly like apples.

I cooked the zucchini slices in a little water. Then I added lemon juice (6 tablespoons), sugar (1 cup), cinnamon (1 tablespoon), nutmeg (1/4 teaspoon), and some flour/water for thickener.

The result looked very much like apple pie filling, but it didn't really have the taste I was hoping. I sprinkled in a little citric acid, hoping for a more fruity, tangy flavor. It got slightly tart, but still tasted bland.

The sweet and crunchy crumb topping somewhat redeemed the zucchini pie filling.

Joshua asked if he should try a piece and I said "Only if you eat it with the mindset of 'This is zucchini!' and not 'This is supposed to taste like apple crisp!'" :)

Overall, I think it made a nice zucchini dessert... but it falls short of any apple dessert I've made. :)

My sister Bonnie made some zucchini pie (like apple pie) and when I asked her how it was, she said "Well, it did taste like apple pie... but it tasted like other people's apple pies... not ours." :)

But hey... free zucchini, right? :) And my big plate of dessert counts as 2 servings of veggies? :) Okay, maybe not... ;)

Five days ago, I thought I was recovering from being sick. I guess I wasn't really doing as great as I thought! In the process of trying to write that update I actually deleted the whole thing twice. I also used a random food picture, completely forgetting that I had taken a picture of my throat comfort tea to use.

The children and I are finally much better -- just lingering coughs and stuffy noses. Joshua started getting sick on Thursday and seems to be in the worst of it right now.

I think being sick kinda zapped my brain, and when I turned on my computer, the first thing I would see (my Firefox homepage) was my email inbox -- 180 unanswered emails (usually it's under 100)... and when I would view my camera's memory card, there were hundreds of pictures, many being ones I need to write up recipes for... seeing how far behind I was became a little overwhelming so I just shut down for a few days.

Today, my sister Bonnie came over and we tackled a lot of chores. A LOT. It's nice to have a clean car, a clean house, and clean children. All at the same time! Of course, we didn't finish my massive lists. I am a perfectionist and I was feeling pretty motivated when I made those lists.

Plus, we're getting ready for some out-of-state and out-of-country guests in just two days. That's enough to make anyone want to clean, organize, and just generally try to look like they have everything under control, right? ;)

I hope you're all ready for Tammy's Recipes: Breads Edition. I know, I know... wrong time of year to be baking bread every day. I should have ordered my grain mill last Fall. ;)

Today I tried to make hot dog buns. I can't stand hot dog buns from the store, but Joshua likes having that perfectly shaped bun for hot dogs instead of wrapping a slice of bread around it.

We made the dough for our homemade wheat bread. By the way, when you're in any sort of a hurry, it's best to NOT use flour from the refrigerator or freezer. Yeah, I knew that but somehow forgot... until the dough was taking three times as long to rise. At least we didn't forget the yeast, which was my first thought!

Finally it was time to shape my hot dog buns. I already knew not to make them too tall, after my experience with hamburger buns that were like round balls and twice as thick as they should have been when they came out of the oven.

My hot dog buns didn't come out too tall, but they were too big all around. Like a hot dog bun meant to hold two hot dogs.

Or a sub bun.

Oh well, they tasted great! But for future reference: bread dough for one large loaf of bread will make 6 sub buns or 12 hot dog buns. ;)

I know I mentioned that we weren't doing a garden this year, but that got changed. :)

It started with a request that we remove our compost pile. (Long story!) We certainly didn't want to give up composting, and since the landlord didn't care what we did, we moved our compost pile into a bin (aka garbage can). By the way, the bin was almost full after we moved our pile, but it has now sunk to 2/3 or 3/4 full and there are pumpkin plants growing inside... :)

Moving our compost pile, along with some brush, left a bare spot of dark rich dirt in our yard. Garden time!! :)

In years past, we have helped my parents with their garden in return for some of the produce. This year, with three little children to take along, and the price of gas, I wasn't going to try to go over there to do a garden.

So, we decided we'd have our own little garden. And the learning process began... ;) (read more)

We made this two-layer chocolate cake for dessert to serve to our guests today. We had grand plans of making a beautiful chocolate cake with a layer of cream filling, covered in fluffy homemade frosting.

We don't have any cake pans (aside from our springform pans, which are all different sizes!), so we put the batter on a jelly roll pan, planning to cut the cake in half and stack it up after it was cool.

The jelly roll pan buckled while baking, so the cake came out very not-level. That might have been workable enough, if Eliyahu (2) hadn't decided to pick in the cake as it was cooling on the counter. Cakes with holes in them tend to fall apart when being moved.

Our filling didn't turn out (new recipe we were trying), but the frosting did. We stacked and frostened the cakes as best we could.

When our guests arrived, we informed them that we had a disaster to serve for dessert, and told them of the many things that had gone wrong with our lovely cake.

After we ate, Joshua put the cake on the table to be cut. Our (kind) guests suppressed their laughter, and one even remarked, "It doesn't look bad!"

Joshua and I were rolling with laughter at that comment/compliment, so she added "Well, I mean... after how you described it, I was expecting something a lot worse!"

It did taste good. I think we're going to give up on two-layer cakes until we get some better pans. Our last two-layer cake (a few weeks ago) was made in our springform pans and looked almost as laughable -- though it tasted fabulous. (Recipe coming later today if I have time!!)

Coarse ground kosher salt doesn't really go very well in oatmeal cookies.

Don't ask me what I was thinking! (If only iodized table salt didn't contain sodium silicoaluminate.)

The cookies aren't a complete disaster. Every few bites, there's a blast of salt, but we won't let that stop us from eating them... :)

Joshua made this banana cream pie, but it didn't go so well for us. We followed the recipe exactly.

This is more what it looked like. Banana cream disaster. ;) And we tried to take out a piece very carefully for a picture. :)

Neither of us thought that the cinnamon in the pudding part was the right flavor for a banana cream pie. The pudding was nice and thick, but after being mixed with whipping cream, it just wouldn't hold its shape, even after being refrigerated overnight. The bananas turned black -- though I don't suppose there's a way around that, when you're using real bananas instead of artificial banana-flavored pudding.

I'm not sure what all we plan to do differently next time. Banana cream pie isn't really my favorite pie, anyway -- which explains why Joshua did 95% of the work of making this one... :)