Author: alisahuntsman

photo #1, 11am on friday

photo #2, 1pm on friday

photo #3, 6pm on friday

photo #4, my crazy husband shoveling the snow as it still falls around 8pm on friday.

the view this morning at 8am and it is still falling! so far we have about 6 inches which may not seem like much to many but really, we just don’t get much snow here. that 6 inches is probably equal to all of the snow we have had since we moved into this house 6 years ago! if we are lucky, we will be able to get out of the house later today when some other brave nutjobs have driven around on our street and cleared a path for us-we do not have four wheel drive or a snow plow handy!

with everything i have going on, i found time to make some bread for this month’s bread baking day, #26. the theme is to bake a loaf of bread to take to a birthday party. well, what kind of bread does one take to a birthday party? being a mom, i can see that this would not go over well with the kids; what kid wants a loaf of bread rather than cake or cookies? however, i can see making a couple of loaves of good sourdough bread, grilling a steak or some fish, tossing a salad, opening a nice bottle of wine, sharing it with friends and calling that a birthday party. add a few presents and some cake and i’m set and ready to par-tee. but this is a party for jamie of lifes a feast and i can only hope she approves of the menu!

with this challenge in mind, i decided to multi task. a coworker, stevo, has taken an interest in baking bread and he has been asking me questions, lots of questions in an effort to learn as much as he can. a week or so ago, i gave him some of my starter and a list of websites and cookbook titles but this week we had the opportunity to work together for two consecutive days. out of the fridge came the starter, we fed it and started two separate batches of sourdough bread. today we made two loaves of bread so that stevo could see just how easy it is to do.

on the left, a whole grain loaf and on the right, one with some semolina. i was looking in the fridge where i store all of my flour and discovered that i had more than a dozen varieties of flour so we could have made any number of combinations. we also started some rye sour so that we could make rye bread at some point.

here are the two loaves rising in bowls on my work table. since this is such an easy recipe to use, i was able to do this as i worked on stocking the restaurant for the day.

the finished loaves, this is the whole grain which is really only about 35% whole wheat and a few tablespoons of multigrain hot cereal mix. it was a good combination and a great learning experience for stevo since he wants to make whole grain breads at home.

the semolina loaf. both were wonderful while they were warm.

we are lucky to live in a great neighborhood. there are lots of families here and we have met many of them while out working in the yard or when walking the mutt around. unfortunately, we also have a few apartment complexes and rental homes nearby that generally are fine but can house what you might refer to as undesirables. in the 6 years here, we haven’t had much trouble but recently, we had an incident. late at night, someone ransacked darry’s car. he was leaving for work about 5am when he noticed that things were laying on the passenger seat that are normally in the glove compartment. he put them back and in the process checked to see that the valuables were still there-his fancy laser pointer in its fancy case, his swiss army knife and his little leatherman tool were all present and accounted for as was all of the important car documents and a collection of coins. the only thing missing, his keys for the kitchen and his security pass for the building…what could anyone possibly do with them? wait, i know, we are idiots and we always leave a full set of house keys in the unlocked car in the carport!!! this is where you say DUH!!! of course i couldn’t let it go unnoticed and i quickly put a note up on every door to the house just in case the crimnal returned to the scene of the crime.

and because i am who i am, i went house to house and passed out about 50 of these notes. best to be proactive and maybe we can prevent any more incidents. happy new year everyone!

every holiday season it is the same; hurried, frantic and a total blur. we gather the gang and drive to kentucky to spend it with the cousins (they come here for thanksgiving, you may have seen the trash can turkey posts on my other blog). after weeks of preparations it seems that we finally get to enjoy the day and relax but it is now the morning of the 26th…at this point i usually promise myself to get started earlier so i can enjoy the season. this year, i almost did it. most of my shopping was done before thanksgiving because i had started doing things in september-honestly. then i caught a horrible cold and there went the head start. i was sick for more than a week and i recovered just enough to get the trash can festivities underway. once again, i was in panic mode in december…

one of the highlights of the month, the opportunity to bake gingerbread cookies and assemble a house for the daring bakers december challenge. The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.

my husband the practical joker and more proof that i cannot take him shopping with me. he rearranged the manger in macy’s…lauren the snowgirl is now being showered with gifts from the three wise men while mary and joseph look on.

back to the daring bakers. when i saw that we would be doing a gingerbread house, i didn’t know what to say. i love to build the houses, i’ve done it a few times for competitions and even come home with a blue ribbon but i also knew i wouldn’t have the time or the energy. when i had my bakery, i stumbled upon a great set of cutters that when used would make a lovely tree that could be decorated. we sold hundreds of them! every year, i make at least a couple of them to take to kentucky. knowing my limitations and the requirements of the challenge, i decided to just make the trees. the challenge allowed for us to use gingerbread dough made from scratch, i used my own recipe which i will not post here because it is part of a book i am working on, and any template as long as we included it. my trees do not have a template since you just use the cutters.

you simply cut out 5 of each size and then stack them up to make a tree. here are the stars for two different trees.

using royal icing, pipe an outline on each star and stack them so that they are staggered and not lined up -this gives you the tree shape. start with the largest star and work your way up to the smallest. if you like, you can sprinkle colored sugar, non pariels or other decorettes as you go.

this one is for our neighbors, i sprinkled crystal sugar and snowflakes on it as i went, that didn’t show up in the photo very well though.

for ours, i went back over every point and put a drift of snow-i am making this for kids after all.

the finished tree. it is important to use a level surface and a steady hand with the icing or you may end up with trees that look like staggering drunks-rather like mine…

the two trees side by side before they were wrapped up in a cello bag with ribbons.

here’s hoping that you all had a merry holiday! happy new year to all.

the first loaf was a combination of bread flour and semolina flour. it made a nice loaf with a slight yellow hue. it was delicious with salads and hummus.