• A Milestone

    October 14, 2008

    “Get the quiet bag,” I instructed Mr. Handsome as we ran past each other in the hall, racing the clock to get to church on time. “And the diaper bag.”

    Mr. Handsome was heading into the bathroom, but he stopped and stuck his head back out the door. “We don’t need the diaper bag.”

    Now it was my turn to put on the brakes. I turned around and stared at him, pondering his words, trying to let them soak in. No diaper bag? Could it be true? Well yes, The Baby Nickel was potty-trained, and ninety-five percent of the time he even woke up dry. For the past couple months his diaper had always been dry after we got home from church. And then a huge smile spread across my face and I let out a yee-haw.

    “You are right!” I chortled. “We are done! We are done!” For the first time in nearly nine years we would be diaper-bag free. I couldn’t stop grinning.

    We high-fived each other, and then turned on our tails and resumed our race to get to church on time.

    Minus a diaper bag.

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  • Taking Risks

    October 13, 2008

    I am not one to play around with recipes much. I like to follow the directions exactly as is. I’m just not a risk-taker, I guess. Does that mean I’m boring? Maybe, but I’m also consistent.


    The one thing that keeps me from appearing too boring is that I try new things. And that’s interesting, right? I figure if I try out lots and lots of different recipes no one will ever catch on to the fact that I’m not thinking for myself, creating original recipes. (Or have you all figured that out already and are tittering to each other behind your fingers? Please don’t answer that question.)

    Anyway, all that boring blather just to say that I tried something different with the whole wheat sourdough bread. I’m proud to say that my little experiment was successful.


    Tinkering with Silverton’s golden recipes gave me a little adrenaline boost and made me all happy inside. As The Pioneer Woman would say, it made my skirt fly up.


    What I did different was this (it’s really not much so you must promise not to laugh at me): I shaped the bread into loaves instead of boules, proofed them in heavily-greased bread pans (first out on the counter, then overnight in the fridge, and back out on the counter the next morning), and then baked them in a 400 degree oven for about 35 minutes—no flipping them around, only a tiny dock-slash down the backbone, no spritzing the oven with water.


    The result was a normal enough looking loaf of bread, one that did not sink and go flat (I decided that was a problem), with a very moist and chewy crumb and without a hard, tough-crunchy crust, something that has understandably been bothering my children.

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  • Potential

    October 13, 2008

    Here are some of the bodacious babes that I lugged out of my garden.


    I’m both excited and stymied by them—I love pumpkin, but how in the world are we going to eat them all (and remember, there are more in the garden)? I’ll make pumpkin soup, bread, and pie, but you can only eat so much pumpkin, right?

    Should I bake them up now and freeze the pulp? Can it? Pressure can it? Line them up down in the basement and forget about them?


    Ideas, anyone? What’s the best way to maximize their potential? That is, without overdoing it and turning into a big orange ball, myself, in the process.

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