2 posts tagged “baking”
In an effort to try to show Mara that there is more to the holiday season than getting gifts, we have been doing advent activities every day. Today's activity was to "bake a special christmas treat". Instead of keeping it simple, I decided we should make stollen (of course Mara decided that stollen wasn't much of a treat, so we ended up making cupcakes as well). Nevermind that I have never made stollen before and don't have much experience baking bread at all. I also decided that I should candy my own orange and lemon peel as I don't really like commercially candied fruits. I spent last night candying fruit and most of today working on the bread. The candied peel was really good, but I don't think that the bread came out very well. I think it ended up like most of my bread does, too dense and doughy, but I won't know for sure until we cut into it. Maybe one of these days I will learn my lesson and stick to easy recipes that I know I can make well.
We've had to really crack down and budget since I quit my job to go back to school. Our Springfield utility bill included all utilities, electric gas, water and sewer in one bill. When we moved here we got our first utility bill. I looked at the short period amount and made a rough calculation of what a full month's worth would be and set that as our utility budget. A couple of weeks later another utility bill showed up. Apparently the first one was just electric and gas, the second, seperate bill was sewer and water. I redid my rough calculation and increased our utility budget. Then our first full month electric bill showed up and I had very much underestimated the full month amount of that bill. So I increased our utility budget. Today our first full month sewer and water bill showed up and I must be the most optimistic person in the world, because I sure underestimated that one as well. First I stared in disbelief at it, then I opened up our budget spreadsheet and stared at it for a while, and then I baked a blueberry cobbler and made homemade vanilla ice cream. The picture is actually from the last time I made cobbler and ice cream. Today's is still baking. I'll worry about the utility bill tomorrow.
