Cold day

The temps in my area reached down low to the negatives the last few days.  As a result, schools were closed and when the schools are closed my work building shuts down. 

Here's the temps as of 5:50 a.m. today. It was warmer today than it was yesterday. 

I took advantage of the last few days and acted like a housewife from the 50s. Cleaning, cooking, clearing out some stuff.  My son spent yesterday drawing and watching PBS. 

My son drew a map from Paper Mario sticker something.   He asked me to put it up on his wall.

There was a moment yesterday when the local cooking show host was on the screen and asked "Are you having chicken for dinner again?" and my son replied "I think so." I was in the kitchen when I heard this and I burst out laughing.  That was a moment I want to remember.

Sunday I made carrot cake for the first time.  I used a recipe that I got from a friend.

I love this little chopper.  I got it at a Black Friday Walmart sale at least three years ago for $2.  I used it to shred the carrots for the cake. Carrot cake is so easy to make if you have a chopper!

The recipe called for a tube pan but I don't have one of those.  I do, however, have a HUGE cake pan.  The carrot cake came out more like bars.

I made cream cheese frosting.  I have a recipe that doesn't use as much powdered sugar and it's not too sweet.

The result?

DEEEEE-licious! I am so making carrot cake again.

Monday after I woke up and discovered that school was cancelled I decided I needed to putter in the kitchen and take advantage of the "free" time. 

I baked 6 dozen cookies.  Though I didn't take pictures of those. 

I also made some bread, with the help of my bread machine.

I am falling in love with my bread machine again. I'm not using it to bake the bread, just mixing the dough and letting it rise.

At least 6 years ago I got my machine and my MIL gave me a bread machine cookbook for Christmas that year. The Betty Crocker one.

Isn't it a beautiful loaf of bread?

This is the plain ol' White Bread recipe that is in the book.

It had a lovely texture when it was cut open.  There is nothing like fresh bread and butter. Yum!

I've been thinking about going through the whole cookbook this year and making each recipe at least once.  Only a handful of the recipes have been tried and I would love to branch out my baking skills.

The bright spot, that's the sun coming up.  This is the view from the window over the kitchen sink this morning.  Lovely, isn't it?

Today, my son stayed pretty chill and mostly kept quiet.  I'm a bit worried that he might be getting sick.  My poor husband is getting sick again.  Unlike me, he still had work. Thankfully work was indoors so he didn't have to work in the cold.

My son did got creative with the crayons today.  He made this and then elaborated on it ...

To make this:

Me, I spent part of the day going through papers and doing some filing that I've been avoiding for a while.  *sigh* I need a new system.  It is amazing how much paper buying a house generates. But at least I feel somewhat prepared for the upcoming tax season. I think I'm going to get as much as I can scanned to electronic files so there isn't so much paper for me to maintain.

Then I decided to make *one last thing* while I had the time.  A few years ago I worked with a gal who was English.  She brought scones into to work a few times.  I enjoyed them and wanted to try my hand at making them at some point. 

I think my mom's group is living vicariously through all the baking I've been doing. When I mentioned I was going to make scones there was a discussion about what to put in them and for me to let them know how mine turn out.  I used the recipe from Sun-Ma*d.

Making the scones was interesting. I wasn't sure what to make of the big sticky ball of dough that I was supposed to shape by hand and then cut into wedges.  I have a feeling that I should have spread the dough out more before putting it in the oven.   I baked it longer than what the recipe called for and I still think I flopped it.  It never baked all the way through.

What do you think?



The outer parts did bake through and had a nice texture and wasn't dry.  I finally shut the oven off and just let them sit.  I'm surprised they didn't burn.

Well, that's my life for the last two days.  Thank you for stopping by and letting me share with you!