Very Thankful

There was lots of turkey this weekend.  We ate turkey dinner three times:  Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday.  As if that wasn't enough, we stopped by Whole Foods for lunch on Friday and Tim got turkey and gravy from their hot bar.  Turkey four days in a row for him.  He loves Thanksgiving.

We did sneak in some non-turkey-eating activities.  There was a family dinner outside of Columbus, a quick unpacking of our Christmas decorations, and an impromptu visit to the Englewood dam for family pictures. 

While waiting for the sunset to hit the perfect moment for a few last pictures, we did a little goofing around, balancing on fallen branches, and chatting about what our dogs secretly think about us.  (We have very deep conversations in times like these.)  I caught a moment of Tim and Melissa on the bench, side by side, and thought about how I hit the jackpot marrying into this family.

After I snapped a few pictures of Melissa in front of the setting sun, we headed to the car.  The sky was beautiful, full of blues and pinks, but it didn't seem like the sunset was going to offer the golden reds and royal puples I was hoping for.  As we were driving away from the park, we could see out the windows that we left a few minutes too early.

Tim knew I had been waiting for that shot and asked, "Do you want me to pull over?"  It was thoughtful of him, but I said we could just keep on heading home.

If I'm lucky, I will get to see thousands of more sunsets with this family.  For that, I am very thankful.

(Just thoughts today, but more food posts later this week.)

Bread, My Love

I was all set to do a post about preparing the home for Thanksgiving where I was going to tell you how Tim and I got serious on our clutter this weekend, but then bread happened.  Yes, bread.

As I told you we would, we spent Saturday morning acting like tourists around downtown Cincinnati, snapping pictures of Findlay Market and then of the incredible gardens at Krohn Conservatory.  Tim teased me a little bit, calling me the paparazzi, but once I handed the camera over to him at the Conservatory to take photos of the Orchid House, he started to really get into taking pictures.  I think he took a picture of every single orchid in the installation.  Every. Single. One. 

When we got home, Tim settled in to watch college football and I took up my post in the kitchen, experimentally baking, as I told you I would.  My lofty dream of re-creating a family favorite dessert went south--quickly--as just about everything went wrong.  Then I mixed up the dough for gluten-free, egg-free baguettes and that seemed to flop as well.  My pre-ground flax, when mixed with water, wasn't gelling the way it was supposed to do and the dough was off.  It wasn't until I baked up some gluten-free, vegan, soy-free chocolate chip blondies that I felt like I was getting my baking mojo back.  I was ready for round two of bread-making.

I followed the directions on the Artisan Bread in 5 Blog exactly as written, even grinding my own whole flax seed to fine powder for an egg-replacer, and said a small prayer over the mixing bowl.  As we waited for it to rise, we tackled some clutter (all inspired by Tracy's post on the Homefries blog) by decluttering the living room bookshelf and then emptying out our cabinet with the lazy-susan and ridding ourselves of half full bags of dried cranberries.  It felt great to tame our overflowing cabinet, and as a reward for our efforts, the universe cooperated, allowing the stars to align, and our dough rose perfectly.

After we chilled it, formed the baguette shapes (a delicate procedure when working with somewhat goopy, squishy gluten-free dough), and let them rest for another 40 minutes, I finally popped them into a hot oven to bake. 

The house smelled like warm, yeasty bread.  A smell so missed that I think I had hidden my longing for it deep inside so that even I couldn't recognize it until the smell of a bread I could actually eat awoke it.  I could only think, Oh bread, my love, this is our reunion!

It's been over 5 weeks since I've eaten bread that even remotely reminded me of bread. This bread was divine.  Even Tim said that it was so similar to traditional bread that he was pleasantly surprised.  The outside was firm and crisp, the inside was slightly fluffy with a little bit of the trademark bready chew.

Should you decide to make this bread for yourself or a gluten-free loved one, I do have a few tips.  Wait until the bread has cooled completely before eating it.  If you break it open too soon, the inside might be a little squishy.  It tastes perfectly wonderful at room temperature and has more traditional bread-like structure.  Also, I didn't top it with the seeds as shown in the original recipe, but I think seeds would be an excellent addition to the bread.  Lastly--and this is the most important--you can't swap out any of the ingredients and expect the same result.  For the best gluten-free bread, use the King Arthur Flour mixes exactly as listed.  I can purchase KAF Gluten Free Multi-Purpose Flour at Whole Foods and possibly my local supermarket, but I had to order the KAF Ancient Grains Flour from the KAF website.

Happy baking!

(And if you missed it, you can find the recipe with step-by-step photos for Gluten-free, Egg-free Baguettes here.)

Meta-Photography

See that up there?  My early Christmas gift from Tim.  I couldn't figure out how to tell you about it without taking a picture of it, and then thought about the slight absurdity of photographing a camera (might I call it meta-photography?).  He purchased it from someone on Craigslist; it's practically unused and came with the original box.  I have had just one afternoon since he gave it to me (before our 5:30pm sunset) to snap a few pictures of the dogs playing in the backyard.  I am just getting the hang of it, and I suppose once I get started taking pictures I may never stop learning.

I like to imagine Tim and I traipsing around the globe with this camera hanging from our necks, snapping pictures of one another posing awkwardly in front of "The World's Largest (Blank)."  In fact, we are going to start doing that this weekend.

Well, there is no impromptu cross-country road trip planned, but Tim called me this afternoon to inform me that we have nothing planned this weekend.  Nada.  Zip.  Zilch.  Two whole days.  So we are going to spend Saturday morning visiting Findlay Market, slurping Pho for lunch, and then finding spots in the city to take pictures.  Think sunny thoughts for me, would you please?

I also plan on doing some experimental baking.  I've got this (crazy) idea to make a beloved family dessert fit my diet restrictions, and I may spend any other free time I have figuring it out.  One thing I have learned about cooking since I started avoiding certain foods is that there is no equal substitute for certain items.  If you swap out the regular flour for gluten-free flour, you will not necessarily get an equal result.  It does require changes in my expectations, but I'm hopeful that I can come up with something close enough.  It wouldn't be Thanksgiving if this dessert wasn't on the buffet table.

Speaking of baking...I'd like to propose a Virtual Cookie Swap on December 12.  No stress--just post a favorite holiday cookie recipe on your blog on Monday, December 12, and then come over here and comment on my blog with a link to your post.   Then I will do a cookie recipe round-up that will inspire bakers to get in the kitchen and into the holiday spirit!  I will post more information on the blog about this virtual event before then, and you can also look for the hashtag #cookieswap on Twitter!

Have a great weekend--and I hope to have some photos and recipes to share with you next week.