domestic goddess level +1

This past week, I acted upon a yen for adventures of the culinary persuasion.

For some reason, whenever my "better half" goes out of town I get an intense desire to make and eat a bunch of home-made bread. I have a feeling it is timed this way so that I don't have to share all of the deliciously golden carbs. Last week was no different...the hubs hit the road and I started preheating the oven! Bread is my secret boyfriend. 

I am not very experienced in the art of bread baking (although I would like to start doing it a whole bunch more), so I went for a recipe that looked nice and easy. Photo evidence of white velvet batter bread! 

It was quite tasty, especially when toasted and slathered luxuriously with blackberry jam. Definitely worth the risk of sticky jam hands. The book in the background is where I got the recipe. It is actually supposed to be made in something round/cylindrical (traditionally in old coffee tins), but I didn't have anything like that so I just used a regular old bread pan (booooooring). 

The next adventure was canning peaches. My buddy scored a good deal on a box of peaches at the farmers market and let me tag along on the canning adventure. All in all, I was surprised by how easy it was to do. But, then again, she had all the equipment ready to go - huge-ass pot with a shelf set up on the bottom, can-grabber tool that saves you from scalding hot water...all the necessary tools of the trade. Another bonus was that we had three people cutting and skinning the peaches, which greatly cut down on prep time. Anyway...peaches were cut, plopped in the jars, bathed in sugary syrup water stuff, sealed up, all ending with a nice dip in boiling hot lava (water). The result...a tasty snack all ready to hang out until the middle of winter when I remember that I have canned peaches. 

Ok, finished bragging. Now off to see if I can get myself to sit down long enough to get some knitting done. Minimalist cardigan...I will finish you!