Tag Archives: baking

A Baking Frenzy

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As those of you who follow me on Facebook know, I indulged in a frenzy of baking over the Columbus Day weekend.  I find baking to be quite relaxing, and it had been a rather stressful week.  And since it was a long weekend, I had the time to do it.  (Although I admit that I did feel like the witch in “Hansel and Gretel” fattening up the family.  Jim was *not* happy when he weighed himself Tuesday morning.)

The following items were baked:

Double Chocolate Muffins

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Light Whole Wheat Bread

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Chocolate Challah

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Chocolate Chip Cookies (without nuts)

“Perfect” Chocolate Chip Cookies (with nuts)

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Apple Cake with Brown Sugar Frosting

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A friend of mine suggested I put up the recipes on my blog (thank you for the idea, Joyce!).  So there is now a new tab on my blog, complete with recipes.  I will continue to add recipes as inspiration strikes.

 

Institute for Justice dinner

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Jim is on the board of the Institute for Justice, and we had the board and almost everyone in the organization (approximately 44 people) over for dinner last night.  Robert, Jim’s nephew, came out and helped cook.  Without him, we would never have been able to pull this dinner off.

The menu was as follows (no photos, sorry!  when there are 40+ people in your house, you forget mundane things like taking photos of the food.)

  • Cheese & Charcuterie with Garlic Grilled Baguettes
  • Lamb Shanks with Rosemary Orange Gremolata
  • Oven Roasted Herb Shrimp
  • Moroccan Vegetables
  • Couscous
  • Tunisian Beet & Potato Salad
  • Pineapple with Lime Honey and Lemongrass
  • Tossed Salad
  • Fresh Berry Salad
  • Chocolate Pots de Crème

As with all meals, I was responsible only for the Chocolate Pots de Crème, cleaning up the house, and doing dishes during the day.  J  And the good news is that there are lots of leftovers, so I can continue to leisurely eat my way through this meal.

Jim has been on the board of IJ for over 20 years.  IJ was founded in 1991 and is a civil liberties non-profit.  They defend people’s rights relating to private property, economic liberty, free speech, and school choice.  In addition to being an incredible group of dedicated professionals, they are also really fun people to hang out with.  (As an example, within 60 seconds of arriving at our home, there was already a pool game underway.)

You can find out more about this extraordinary organization at www.ij.org.

Snow Day Activities

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While the MLK long weekend gave us sunny and even warm (relatively speaking) weather, Tuesday brought us 6 inches of snow.  For hardy Midwesterners and New Englanders, this amount might be a mere blip on the winter radar.  However, for the mid-Atlantic and for DC in particular, it’s enough to shut down the federal government and school systems in the area.  Our kids managed to get 2 snow days out of it.  While much of it was spent watching Dr. Who and Phineas & Ferb, there was also outdoor play.  A snowball fight, complete with snowball guns, was a requirement.  Unfortunately, the snow wasn’t ideal for snowball fights, being light and fluffy, but good fun was still had by all (2 kids + dog).  And when the snowball gun fails, a hand-packed snowball is a perfect substitute.

Marcus with the snowball gun

Marcus with the snowball gun

Jade making snowballs the old-fashioned way

Jade making snowballs the old-fashioned way

Meanwhile, the prerogative of the parent is to stay in the toasty warm house and indulge in baking.  I got a bread machine as a birthday present last year, and Tuesday was the perfect day to try out a recipe for chocolate challah.  I doubled the amount of chocolate chips the recipe called for (duh!), and the loaf received an enthusiastic thumbs up from the family.

Chocolate challah

Chocolate challah

The kids are now back in school (yay!) and enjoying their 2 day school week.