Summer Baking

There is always a high demand for sweets in our home. Apparently I don't provide them enough, because sometimes Ryan comes home with 2 boxes of cookies, coffee cake, and turnovers from the grocery store. All at once. So I've been trying to keep at least one variety of treats available! Because let's face it, nobody needs that many sweets in a house occupied by just 2 people, and homemade goodies are infinitely better than store-bought!

A few days ago I made some Strawberry-Rhubarb Crumb Pie. You can get the recipe by clicking here. It was a perfect summer treat, even if it did make the house somewhat more toasty than it already was. And the pie crust was very irritating - it took 2 batches and 5 rolls to get it right. In all honesty, Ryan actually assisted at that stage: he taught me how to more easily roll out pie crust. I was humbled as I watched him perfect what had been a struggle for me. Oh well, I guess I can't know everything!

Our favorite part about the pie was that the filling did not gush out and run all over the place. At all! Kind of an accomplishment when it comes to fruit pies. It was a wonderfully tangy and sweet combination, and the crumb topping as opposed to another pie crust was a treat.

**please excuse the ridiculous looking whipped cream on the slices of pie**

Happy summer baking to you!

Bread of the French variety

I like bread. Probably too much. As explained in a previous post involving bread, I also love baking bread.

A couple of weeks ago, I tried my hand at homemade French bread, as I was making some sort of Italian dish for dinner, but really didn't want to BUY a loaf of French bread. I found a recipe for it in my bread maker "cookbook", but still did not feel satisfied at the effort it would involve.

A little over a month ago my grandparents drove through town to drop off some furniture for us grandkids. My grandma knows how I love to cook, and offered me a few old cookbooks that had been owned by my great-grandma. One of them was a Betty Crocker cookbook, which was whipped open during my need for French bread, in hopes that it would offer a recipe. It had a great one, and Ryan and I both loved the results!

For Father's Day I am making my "brain food" lasagna and homemade French bread for dinner for my whole family. The second time around with the bread (which I just finished baking) turned out just as beautifully. I think I will probably use this recipe for a long time, and I love that it makes two loaves, so we can eat one and freeze one for another day!

Here is the before-it-was-baked shot of the bread:

And here is the after-it-was-baked shot:

I love its beautiful golden-ness! And the inside is wonderfully tender and moist. You can find the recipe here. A few notes:

1. This is time consuming. Make sure you have plenty of time to do it - I started the process at noon and took it out of the oven at 4:30. It rises longer to get the whole French bread consistency.

2. There are two baking stages. The first lasts for 20 minutes, after which you brush on an egg white wash. It says to bake it for an additional 30 minutes. Maybe it's just my oven, but I only needed to bake it for 10 more minutes before I got that lovely hollow sound when I knocked on it. I am very glad that I checked it or else all of that time would have gone to waste! Just a heads-up.

3. I did not use any cornmeal. I'm just a rebel like that.

I hope that you try this bread and enjoy it as much as we did! Bon appetit!

He's Back!!

Ryan was sent to Neenah, Wisconsin for about 8 days for work. It felt super duper long (although I know I have no room to talk - I suppose it is all relative).

I did get to do some fun things while he was gone though:

I rode my bike to school everyday. I LOVED it. It was good exercise, I got to be outside, saved gas, AND tanned my arms. I did wear shorts, but apparently legs don't tan while riding a bike.

I finished summer school! Which means that I am completely and totally done with school. Now on to that whole getting a job thing...

I watched Gilmore Girls with my mom. Pretty much daily. In addition to that, I got to spend lots of time with my family.

I went shopping and to a concert with my sister, Holly. That was quite fun!!

I picked Ryan's car up from the good folks at Auto Collision Experts. Stellar fix-up job.

Last but not least, I did not hit a deer taking Ryan to the airport OR picking him up!

All of those things might sound amazing, but I missed Ryan. We did get to spend a little time together though - Skype is great! And now that Ryan is back, I am very excited to do summertime things with him. Last summer was really fun, and I hope that we can have as much fun this year!

Memorial Weekend: Deer, Family, and Puppies

Ryan and I decided to take a last minute trip to Phoenix this past weekend. We were joined by Ryan's sister, Lisa, and her family.

The drive to the airport on Friday night was nice. Until this happened:

Such damage! Such horror! The culprit?

**not the actual deer**

Just seconds before Bambi smashed itself into our car (yes, it hit us, we didn't hit it), we watched a deer get hit by the car in front of us. Poor thing was split in half, flailing all over the road. Needless to say, it was a distraction. Before we knew it, Bambi's face and eyes were scarred into our memories as it tried to obliterate our car. It sure didn't go down without a fight!

After Ryan called the insurance company and we did our best to clean the deer hair and blood off of ourselves, as well as pick glass out of our clothes (I ended up going to the restroom 3 times later just to get pieces out of my pants), we decided to still try to make our flight. The car was left in a secure valet covered parking for the weekend, and we got to the gate as they were boarding. We felt blessed for making the flight, but not as much as we were for not being injured at all in the accident! We were pretty on edge for the rest of the evening.

After we arrived in Phoenix, we were able to spend time with Ryan's family. My mother-in-law recently got a Great Dane puppy, and everybody fell in love with her pretty quickly. She charmed Ryan, and he was really hoping that she could charm me too. No dogs for me yet. Maybe when I'm actually home long enough during the day to care for one.

The weather in Phoenix greatly trumped that of Fort Collins at the time. We were having lots of clouds and rain, but there was not a wisp of white in the sky in Phoenix! I loved the hot sun!

We also got to spend time with Ryan's grandparents. Ryan has many fond memories of spending time with them growing up. We got to hear about his grandfather's career in the Air Force and look at pictures of him as a young man. It was fun to see him reminiscing.

Love you all, Arizona dwellers!