It's a nice thing when I get a strong desire to bake at the same time that my co-workers get a strong desire to buy what I bake.
When my D'Art group meeting was cancelled last Friday, I spent the morning making lots of bread.
English muffin bread, tomato bread, and dill bread.
The dill bread is from the recipe found here.
It's really loaded with dill (seed and weed), and it makes an ordinary sandwich taste like something special.
But it's really fabulous toasted and topped with cream cheese and some of Seester Julie's homemade jalapeno jelly.
Seriously fabulous.
I'm, like, drooling.
And I'm all out of Julie's homemade jalapeno jelly.
Which is okay, I guess, because I bagged up most of this bread...
...and sold it down the river.
Not to worry though, because when Friday arrived it brought Miss Helping Hands Hannah home for our "Baking, Boggling, Blabbing Weekend".
And we started Saturday by making some scrumptious pumpkin cream cheese muffins from this recipe.
I tweaked the recipe just the tiniest bit and made a steusel-type topping with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon and chopped nuts.
Many of them also got packaged in 'to go' bags.
But they weren't sold down the river; they went home with Miss Helping Hands.
I did manage to save this one for you:
Miss Helping Hands and I also made a batch of granola (something we do regularly), but we tried a new recipe this time around.
Of course, we didn't have any pistachios or maple syrup on hand, so we substituted pecans/walnuts and molasses.
It was quite scrumptious anyway.
And it's all gone.
The dishpan (or cowboy) cookies we made are not all gone (though I wish they were, because they make a lot of noise calling out to me every time I walk through the kitchen).
There are lots of variations of this recipe out there in web land, and we do it a little differently each time we make them.
This was the best batch yet, but I don't think it was the ingredients that made the difference.
I think it was the special technique we used to soften the butter.
You probably won't be able to try this at home, kids.
Unless you, too, have a Little Man sitting nearby with his Uncle Sam while you are baking.
And, of course, your Little Man will have to be diligent about building upper body strength.
Ours uses our big empty room for regular workouts.
We had someone else nearby while we were baking, too, but she hasn't been working out, which means her muscles are still too weak to do much helping.
So Miss Helping Hands just held her and told her about all the good times to come in the kitchen.
I'm afraid it didn't inspire her at all.
She spent the next four hours asleep on Miss Mary Mack's chest.
You know, this was one of those days so rich in family...
...mere teaspoons could never serve to takes it measure.