dough-ray-me-not

why hello there blogland friends. have you missed me?

i have been trying to keep myself dry. and sane. as we were hit with a really bad storm last week. which kept us pretty much inside for days upon days. which is interesting. to say the least. when 3 out of my 4 children are rambunctious boys.

luckily my girl and i had some much needed girl time with a dear friend and her sweet daughters. she introduced me to this book. we drank tea and sweet milk. there was lots of doll playing and fashion talk. they took pictures and laughed. we did a bit of knitting together and she brought me an apron made by her very own hands out of the prettiest bird fabric as a gift. because she knows how much i love birds. how blessed am i to have found a real life friend. after all. these. years. who loves to sew like i do. (but she’s much better at it than i am!)

i am sort of in an overwhelming homeschooling funk. could be winter blahs. but i am feeling pressure. praying for grace and peace. and playing around with lesson plans and ideas. but i won’t bore you with the details of that.

that dough recipe we discussed last week is here. i did add more flour. and more butter. and then some boxed cornbread mix from trader joes (because i was out of plain cornmeal). that was how the sweetness was achieved and it worked out well. everyone loved them. they were flaky and soft. i even wrapped the dough. stored it for fresh morning corn tortillas and those, too were yummy.

rachel ray, i am not. all this cooking has me tuckered out.

and feeling fat. i think i’ll be taking a “bread” break and plan some low-cal/lower maintenence meals.

my “sourdough” wasn’t sour. i feel like i wasted 6 days of my life “caring” for starter. and it flopped. the freezing cold temperatures we’ve been having could have something to do with it. but who knows.

don’t get me wrong. it was still good bread. it just wasn’t the sour i had hoped for.

well, wishing you all a lovely week.

hope i’ll find something nice to say about the next few days….as i anticipate another storm. 

oh, spring…where are you?

i will

post those recipes. i promise. some are from my collection that i often tear out of magazines and file away for the times when i am in a cooking rut. i  tweak them a little bit so that everyone will eat what is made. i found another one today for chocolate pumpkin spice bread. doesn’t that sound interesting? that is a combination i’d never thought of .

summer is still flirting with us. taunting us with farmers markets and such. a little bit of thrifting with the little ones was on the agenda today and we came home tired and hot. it has been in the high 90’s again.

my heart says enjoy it while it lasts. my head, on the other hand says keep moving with the “schedule” we’ve got going or we’ll get behind. it is awfully tempting to take days off to go and do.

but it is getting darker earlier. and my night owl habits are fading fast. my autumnal body-clock says bedtime at 9 o’clock. but then sometimes i wake up at 1 or 2 a.m. for a little reading. the confessions have me mesmerized. i highly recommend it to anyone who has never read it before. the translation i have is excellent.

well, that’s it for this saturday evening post. i want to enjoy the last little bit of daylight outside. dreaming of my fall garden. and thinking about where the spring bulbs should go…..