Zoey, arrived carrying a grocery bag of goodies. For her last birthday, I bought her an apron & several spatulas. She has brought them with her to bake! Good to know when a gift is appreciated.

Zoey's Apron & Spatula

We get started but it’s not a very successful session. It’s not Zoey’s fault. It’s just too difficult for me to get enthused. It’s not about Zoey; it’s about the hole in my life. On the one hand, I’m delighted to see her. She’s a precious child & very loving. On the other hand, she’s young enough that she doesn’t fully comprehend death & the finality of it.

In the innocent way of a child, she asks me about Jim, then comments on his departure. She was here when they carried his body out. It fascinated her. In spite of the efforts of her parents, she watched most of the journey of his body out of our home. Zoey is still trying to process the event in her mind & has no idea of the pain her questions cause me. With time, we WILL get back to baking! Now is not the time though.

Yep. Have to try this bread recipe. It was quite an adventure. Was going to get started making it when I discovered I had NO YEAST! No yeast. Didn’t seem possible in this house but there I was. Wanting to get a lot done so didn’t want to break the work rhythm to go get it. Picked yeast up in the evening when I was running another errand.

Mixing the dry ingredients together using the trusty Kitchenaid. No yeast was in here as I discovered later. Oops!

Innocently heating the milk for the English Muffin Bread!

Get home & decide to get this going. Mixes up super easy. Got the batter in the loaf pans. Set them aside covered with a damp cloth. Go back to check them about 30 minutes later. They haven’t risen a bit! Big failure! The recipe says it takes about 45 minutes to rise so baring a miracle these puppies are NOT going to rise enough. Glance to the side. There sits my brand new unopened jar of yeast! Oops! Maybe it’s not the recipe. Maybe it’s operator problem. Maybe I’ll retry the recipe in the morning.

Here I am adding flour still under the delusion I'm making bread.

The batter that I so innocently was going to rise & make a beautiful loaf of bread.

Nice & cool in the morning so it’s a wonderful time to retry a bread recipe. Again the English Muffin Bread batter mixes up easily. This time I try making it WITH the yeast. Suspect that will have a positive influence on the outcome. Check the bread in the loaf pans after 20 minutes and lo they are rising. Must be the yeast! The bread rises just as quickly as the recipe says & I slide the bread pans in the oven.

"Real" bread--you know, the kind that has YEAST in it.

Bread cooks for the required time. Pull out of the oven 2 beautifully browned loaves of bread. Oh yes, it is going much better today. Naturally, I have to give the bread a taste test. Slice off a piece as soon as the bread has cooled, butter it & share it with Sarah. It’s good! That’s our verdict. I have to be honest though & say that I’m not sure how often I’ll actually bake this bread. As delicious as it it, & it IS delicious, I prefer breads that can serve double duty. We enjoy using homemade bread for our sandwiches & this is not a sturdy enough bread for sandwiches. If you’re only looking for something to slice & eat or slice, toast & eat, you’ll be very happy with this bread.

All those beautiful airholes are what makes for wonderful toast!

If you’re an experienced cook, I’m sure you enjoyed my “little” mistake. Probably reminded you of a few of your own mistakes when cooking. If you’re a novice cook, take careful note. Doesn’t matter if you’ve cooked for 50+ years, there are going to be times when you make mistakes. It’s not the end of the world. Just try again. Sometimes when you make a mistake, you’ll like the results better, but not when you leave the yeast out of your homemade bread. Trust me on that one.

Sarah cooking bacon

If you haven’t fixed it before, you need to do so. It’s one of the super easy things you can fix. Like fixing scrambled eggs, there’s no need to measure things. You want a good quality bread to fix French Toast. Something like French bread, a good bakery bread or the Pepperridge Farm sourdough will make an excellent dish. A bread of substance is needed. If you use your normal sandwich quality bread, the bread will get too soggy as it has too much air & will soak up too much of the egg mixture. Then the end result will be a piece of bread that is toasted on the outside & soggy inside–not an attractive or tasty dish.

Turn your stove on to medium heat & heat your iron skillet while mixing your eggs. Usually when I’m fixing it, I’ll fix a larger batch than necessary to have French toast mixture handy for another morning. There’s 3 of us in my family living at home so if I crack 4-6 eggs, I’ll have extra egg mix leftover. How many eggs I use is based on how many times I figure we’ll have French toast in the next few days. Lightly whip the eggs & add some milk, approximately a tablespoon and a half for every 2 eggs is how much I usually pour in the bowl of eggs. This is a guess as I eyeball it. Then I add around a half teaspoon of cinnamon & half as much nutmeg. Some people add a dash of salt. I prefer to leave it out & nobody has ever complained. Lightly whip the ingredients until the spices are evenly distributed.

Whisking egg & milk mixture for French toast.

Cracked eggs in bowl

Pour the mix into a shallow container. Place a slice of the bread in the egg mixture & gently push it down until the mix flows over the top. Using a fork, I lift the bread up & turn it over so both sides are well coated. Lift it up using the fork & let the excess mix drip back into the container. Gently drop the coated bread into the hot skillet. After it has cooked for 3-4 minutes & is toasted on the bottom, use a pancake turner to flip it over. Let the other side cook until it is grilled to your satisfaction. Using the pancake turner, slip the piece of French toast onto a plate.

French toast cooking in iron skillet.

Depending on your family’s taste, the French toast can be served with a sprinkling of powdered sugar, syrup, applesauce or a warm fruit puree. After fixing however many pieces I need, I store the leftover mix in the refrigerator. I would not suggest keeping it more than a couple of days before using it.

Finished French toast with an egg

Drained macaroni

With all of Jim’s health problems, it’s no wonder I’ve been craving all kinds of comfort foods. Sarah’s been wanting me to fix some macaroni & cheese for awhile now so I’ve decided to get to it. I have several macaroni & cheese recipes I use depending on the cheeses I have onhand & which one I feel will suit my tastes better at the time. Some of them are very simple & easy with only 1 cheese involved; some are more complicated & use several cheeses. Today, I don’t want to have to pick up more cheese & just want a simple basic macaroni & cheese. As usual, I have cheddar cheese onhand.

Layered macaroni, cheese, & cracker crumbs just needing milk poured over them.

That’s why I went with the simplest & most basic one I have. Once again, I’m using one of my great-grandmother’s, Mama Bobo. Cook 2 cups of macaroni in boiling, salted water until it’s tender. Drain the macaroni. Grease a 2-quart casserole dish. Place 1/4 of the macaroni in the casserole dish  & pepper it to taste. Taking 2 cups of shredded cheddar cheese & 2 cups of crushed cracker crumbs, layer a 1/4 of the cheese over the macaroni & cover with 1/4 of the cracker crumbs. Continue this until all ingredients have been used. Then pour 2 1/2 cups of milk over the layers in the casserole dish. Place in a 350 oven, uncovered & bake for 50 minutes. Try to refrain from eating it until it has cooled enough you won’t burn your tongue!

Pepperidge Farm Goldfish crackers with parmesan cheese

Tonight I did something different. I usually use the whole wheat Ritz crackers for the cracker crumbs. We have some Pepperidge Farm goldfish crackers that are made with parmesan cheese. Nobody in the family has liked them that much. Not wanting to waste them, I decided to use them for making the macaroni & cheese. You wouldn’t think such a small detail would matter, but frankly, we liked it even better than usual. I have some more of those crackers left so will try it again & see if they do work better or if it was just we were so hungary.

Oops. Somebody has already been in the mac & cheese!

I’m better prepared this time so hopefully it will go better. A particular favorite cookie here is Aunt Martha’s Nutmeg Bells, a recipe I got from Good Housekeeping several years back. The plan is to mix up a batch of them. While it’s in the refrigerator chilling, we’ll mix up & bake White Chocolate Cookies with Chocolate Chunks. This is a new recipe I’m trying. It can be found in Mrs. Field’s Best Cookie Book Ever, page 15. If you’re into cookie baking, this is a book well worth having.

Zoey hard at work cracking eggs.

We get off to a good start on mixing the cookies. Zoey must be cracking a lot of eggs at home; she does a great job of cracking them. She’s anxious to actually operate the mixer. I’m standing right there so that’s what we do. I tell her what number to move the slide to & she operates it. I suspect we have a baker in the making in Zoey.

The cookie dough is mixed in no time & ready to go in the refrigerator. Here’s where we run into  the first road bump. Zoey is hard to keep focused today. While I clean the mixing bowl, she clamors to play a game on the computer. She doesn’t argue when I tell her no. I point out that she came over to bake cookies not to play computer games.

Zoey carefully carrys the egg to the mixer.

While working on the second batch of cookies, Zoey runs back & forth from the tv to the kitchen. Again, cracking the eggs is a job she handles with finessse. We have the dough ready & I pull out the cookie scoop to use. Zoey says she remembers how to do it & proceeds to use the scoop. She keeps pulling the dough out from the middle of the bowl. It’s not a deal breaker, but it’s certainly messier that way so I show her again how to pull the dough from the edges of the batch in the bowl. No biggie as she’s not even 6 & has lots of time to learn all the ins & outs of cookie baking.

She has to kneel in a chair to reach the mixer.

I put the pan of cookies in the oven & set the timer. While the cookies bake, Zoey runs & settles on the couch to watch television. I scoop out a  trayful of cookies to be ready when the first batch finishes cooking. As soon as that batch cools enough to eat, Jim, Zoey & I taste them. Have to be sure they’re good to eat. Zoey pronounces them yummy.

It’s time to scoop another trayful of cookies. She doesn’t seem that interested. Clifford the Red Dog has caught her attention. She’s young & it’s more important that this be a fun process then that she do everything, so I scoop & bake the cookies until all of that variety are done.

Oops! We need to practice spacing our cookies out!

I make the decision to take her home as she’s just not heavily into baking today. Everything distracts her. But it’s been a good day & she’s excited about the cookies she helped bake. She doesn’t ask about cooking the others so I know I’ve made a good decision to take her home.

After taking Zoey home, Sarah & I roll out & bake the nutmeg cookies. I picked 5 of the designs from a new pack of Halloween cookie cutters to use. We cut skulls, pumpkins, devil heads, ghosts & tombstones. Doesn’t take very long to cut & bake them especially beings we’re working together. Tomorrow, I’ll ice & decorate them.

At 6, scooping cookies can be a 2 handed job.

White Chocolate Cookies with Chocolate Chunks cooking on wire racks.

The batter mixes up easily & smells good. A quick taste of the batter has me convinced before they’re baked that I’m going to like this recipe much better. In no time, the vanilla cupcakes are baked & sitting on the racks cooling. At this point, I’m pleased with progress & ready to start filling the cupcakes. Ice the cupcakes & run to get dressed.

I take a big box of a mixture of cupcakes. Need a bunch as we’ll sit & sample & dissect the cupcakes. I make a point of taking a lot more than we’ll need. The leftovers will be for Kay’s family. That’s my treat to her family for providing the spot for this month’s MNO. The cupcakes were a huge hit. The banana cupcakes were voted as the best ones of the bunch.

Uniced chocolate cupcakes with marshmallow filling.

But no, the more I look at the assortment, the more I think it’s missing something. Chocolate cupcakes!! Ok, that’s it, I have to try the new chocolate recipe I found. Get them mixed up & baking. The kitchen smells really good. It’s also getting a lot of attention from the family. They’re circling the table keeping an eye out for when the cupcakes will be ready to eat.

Vanilla cupcakes filled with chocolate ganache.

While the chocolate cupcakes bake, I decide what to do with the vanilla cupcakes. The decision was made to fill half of them with some of the leftover chocolate ganache from yesterday’s Peanut Butter Brownie Cupcakes. I learned my lesson yesterday, so I immediately fill a decorating bag with some barely warm chocolate ganache. Using a tip & a decorating bag, filling cupcakes is an easy job. In just a few minutes, I have filled the ones I want to have the ganche filling.

The recipe for the chocolate cupcakes came with a recipe for marshmallow filling so I make that. It looks good, but I just have a hard time thinking marshmallow filling is a good idea for vanilla cupcakes. I keep looking at the ganache. Beginning to think that maybe I ought to fill all of them with it, when it hits me that if I take part of the marshmallow filling & mix it with the ganache, I’ll have chocolate marshmallow filling. THAT sounds good in vanilla cupcakes! In a short time, I have two bowls of marshmallow filling. One is plain & the other one is chocolate.

The remaining vanilla cupcakes get filled with chocolate mashmallow filling. I have quite a bit left so I divide the chocolate cupcakes. Half of them get the plain marshmallow filling & half of them get the chocolate marshmallow filling. I might be prejuidiced, but the chocolate marshmallow filling tastes very good.

The finished cupcakes--chocolate cake with marshmallow filling & vanilla icing.

The finished vanilla cupcakes.

A Miniature Reese

Prepare the brownie mix according to package directions for cake-like brownies. Fill the cups half full with brownie batter. Place about 1 tablespoon peanut butter chips in the center of the batter, or press 1 peanut butter cup into the batter in each muffin cup until the batter meets the top edge of the peanut butter cup. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, until the cupcakes are set. When they can be handled safely, remove them from the muffin tins and let cool completely on wire racks. Store in an airtight container. Chocolate Ganache 1 by cheftaz 8 oz (240ml) cream 1 tbls butter (optional but makes it stay really shiny even after refrigerating) 1 oz sugar 12 oz (340 g) semi-sweet chocolate Break chocolate into 1/2 oz pieces and place in stainless steel bowl. Heat cream, butter and sugar to boiling. Pour over chocolate and let stand 5 minutes. Stir from center out until smooth. After refrigerating 1 hour then fill your piping bag. Or use to ice your cake by pouring or spreading (allow to cool to room temp first)

The cupcakes now have their ganache topping & decorative pieces of Peanut Butter cups.

I’m also going to add crumbled peanut butter cups on top of the ganache for a little decoration! As you can see, this is a very simple recipe. Do not be fooled by the simplicity of it. These cupcakes are fabulous. They would make a wonderful holiday treat or the perfect end to a simple meal. Actually, they make a great snack also. Had some overripe bananas on the kitchen counter so I decided to also make banana cupcakes. While the banana cupcakes baked, I decided I wanted to try playing with filled cupcakes. I felt a good choice of filling for this flavor of cupcake would be vanilla so I pulled a package of vanilla pudding out & mixed it up. Then the fun started.

I won!! Filling is now in the banana cupcakes.

I had never made filled cupcakes before so I did some research on the internet. The directions I found were step by step & looked simple enough so I thought I was set. Wrong! The directions I found called for snipping a hole in the corner of a baggie, sliding a round tip in it, &  filling the baggie with the filling mix. Simple enough, right? Actually this part worked quite well. Maybe I’m just not co-ordinated enough, but I could not get the tip to just ease into the top of the cupcake. All the tip did was bounce off. Determined not to be defeated, I used my other hand to force the tip into the cupcake & proceeded to gently squeeze the baggie as the directions said. Oops! Pudding exploded out of a hole that I had NOT cut into another corner of the baggie. Then when I tried to carefully withdraw the tip from the top of the cupcake, the tip retreated into the pudding instead of staying snugly in the cut corner. Ok, it was obvious a plan B was needed. Not sure why the directions hadn’t sensibly directed me to use a nice decorating bag. Pulled a 10 inch bag out of my cake supplies & fitted a #7 tip on it. Filled the bag with vanilla pudding & tried again. Much better. Took a bit of trial & effort to get the hang of how much filling to insert, but it didn’t take long. This method was much more satisfactory. Filled the cupcakes in a very short time. Frosted them with the buttercream icing I had made using some of the vanilla pudding to flavor it with & they were done.

Here's a closeup of the Peanut Butter Brownie Cupcakes.

Frosted & filled banana cupcakes.

That worked acceptably, but the texture of the final product would have been smoother if they had been shredded. Taste-wise though, we have a winner. Made a moist tender muffin. This made a wonderful treat for fall. The delightful blend of spices & fruit fits well with the crisp fall mornings we are beginning to have. Will definitely make these again.

I made the muffins as I’m beginning to be partial to muffins instead of loaves of bread. They are easier to deal with serving. If you freeze some from each batch of muffins you make, then later you can serve a variety of muffins without cooking. Will come in handy for unexpected company, laid back days, or just too busy to cook days, We all have days like that. The key to not breaking the piggy bank by eating out every time we have one of those days to freeze some of our goodies from days we do cook.

That was it today in spite of all the pears to still bake, cook or whatever. Today is my anniversay. Having been married for one month now, I called it a day early & we popped a bottle of champagne instead of cooking.