Summer Food Misadventures

What's ahead? Some cooking randomness, of course!

Sometimes I fancy myself a pretty good cook. And then, I try to make my own bread...sigh.

I have gotten to be pretty good in making a lot of different things...but I just can't seem to figure out how to bake bread. I've even made some decent rolls, pizza crusts, and other leavened breads. But a regular old loaf of bread? Can't do it.

The loaves pictured above were made using a quick, easy(ish) recipe from my friend Cindy. I've gotten a few "quick/easy" recipes from several friends over the years, and none of them have worked! Argh! Cindy's recipe does taste very good, though, so I will definitely be experimenting with it again. Thankfully, I made this bread on the same night I made a truly delicious beef stew, so the underwhelming bread was forgotten in the face of the stew.

Hopefully one of these days I can figure out how to time rising dough properly; these loaves probably rose too much before being put in the oven. Also, I would love it if my bread turned a richer darker brown in the oven when it cooks; it always comes out looking a little pale. Does that have anything to do with the ingredients I'm using, or am I not cooking it long enough? Perhaps some of my friends who are better cooks than myself can answer my questions!

At least I had better luck making homemade ice cream this summer...

I had promised the girls all summer we would make ice cream together...then the summer was about to end, and they started (impatiently) reminding me that I had yet to fulfill my promise. In a panic, I borrowed an ice cream maker from a friend, pulled some of my frozen peaches out of the fridge and got to work. I had some issues getting the ice cream maker to start working (I can be technologically impaired), but once it got up and running, the ice cream turned out creamy and delicious (and not too sweet, which was a plus! It made it taste much fresher).

The ice cream was such a hit (fortunately? Unfortunately?) that now we all want to buy our own ice cream maker, so we can make homemade ice cream all the time. I'm not sure that would be the wisest idea for my waistline or our current budget, but tasting this ice cream has made the idea very tempting. Frequent helpings of homemade ice cream would make our family quite happy indeed.

In other news, I decided to can some plums last month:

Not a lot of them, as you can see! The last time I canned plums, nobody ever ate them but myself. I decided to hedge my bets this time and only make a few jars. I was able to order a plum "multi-pack" from Bountiful Baskets (our local produce cooperative). This multi-pack contained eleven different varieties of plums! It looked too fun not to try.

Plus, once canned, the variety of plums used imbued the jars with a vivid variety of colors. They were very pretty to look at! I feel that I've been getting behind on my canning this year, compared to years past. I hope that trend changes later this fall, when I get going on my salsa and my applesauce.

One thing I have tried to do with my kids this summer was get them involved in our family meal planning. One day, I asked them to list several meals (and desserts!) they wanted to help make. We have been slowly but surely making our way through these recipes; besides helping out with the ice cream, the girls have also helped make snickerdoodle cookies, peanut butter chew candy, garlic naan (Indian flatbread), and vegetable soup. This coming week, they will help make meatballs for Lorelai's eighth birthday dinner--spaghetti and meatballs!

Lorelai and Celeste in particular are getting much more interested in what I do in the kitchen every day, and they want to help out more often. Lorelai has already started learning how to cut and chop various fruits and vegetables; she was a great help in making strawberry-rhubarb pie a few months ago. I even checked out a couple of children's cookbooks from the library to give them a few ideas and get them excited about cooking. One preschool cookbook really got Celeste excited; she insisted on making us all the "Princess Fruit Salad":

As you can see, it's less of a "salad" than a bunch of fruit tastefully arranged into a face on your plate. But she had a lot of fun putting it together all the same. It didn't taste half bad, either!

Now that school has started, I hope our kids will still have time to cook with me once in a while. Heck, I hope I'll have time to cook once in a while; we'll see how crazy our schedules get!