In Over My Bread

This week I was off two days and was only in the office one day. I was able to continue my streak of using up the food we have. Happy to report that we have eaten in the past six nights AND I even managed to bring leftovers for lunch on my office day. I don’t know if I’ll cook tonight though (Saturday). Pretty sure I am getting sick. Still, let’s stop to honor the beef tacos, cheese quesadillas, InstantPot salsa chicken thighs, and beef and egg noodles with pan gravy that sustained us this week. (And ravioli on New Year’s Day, thanks mom and dad, and Nifty Fifty’s on the 29th, thanks grandmom M.)

Monday’s lunch was the apple pie filling I made over the weekend served over pancakes. Yummy. I bought white whole wheat flour that I’ve been using in things like pancakes and bread (more on that in a minute).

On New Year’s Day, I was tasked with bringing a dessert to the family dinner. Not having any eggs, I decided to make chocolate chip shortbread. No pics, but it came out good and was pretty easy. It was my first chance to use my new food scale (purchased right after Christmas using accumulated credit card points from Xmas purchases). After my cookie baking, I was determined to get a scale so I can know for sure that I’m using the right amount of flour.

On Thursday, I made fondue for the first time ever, with the goal of using up the Gruyere I bought to make potato soup. So that was an appetizer one night. I had leftover crusty bread from New Year’s Day and wine from NYE. The kids weren’t impressed but I could have eaten the whole pot.

On Friday, a day off, I decided to try my hand at whole wheat bread. This has been on my mind for a while. Every morning I have coffee and a piece of whole-grain toast, usually Arnold’s brand. But with food prices how they are, I’ve been thinking I should try baking a loaf myself.

Having not made a yeast dough since around 2018 (pizza dough), naturally I just dove right in and didn’t really read up on dough, yeast, kneading or rising, save for watching a quick video on kneading. The other ingredients were honey, olive oil, yeast and kosher salt (recipe here).

So my main problem was that the kitchen was too cool and the dough didn’t really rise. Later, during the “proofing” time, I put it in the warmer powder room and it did rise somewhat.

My next problem was that the oven basically broke while it was baking. It didn’t get warm enough. Air fryer to the rescue! By this point though, I was tired and I didn’t care anymore about getting it right. The air fryer bakes nicely but you have to tinker with the time and temperature. So the final product was a bit underdone and dense, and curved from when I slopped it into the fryer. But still tasty, especially toasted with butter. Even my husband thought so. So really, it’s the stove’s fault. Soon as I get it fixed, I’ll try again!

I don’t know when I’ll try again. Next week is back to reality, a full work week. Some weekend, I guess.

Some small wins:

• Froze some extra heavy cream before it went bad.
• ShopRite had some good prices on things we normally buy, and according to the receipt I saved $25.
• Yesterday, Sprouts had gallons of milk for $1.89!! I felt like buying 10 of them. I also got six pounds of Pink Lady apples for $9.  That’s $1.50 a pound, which appears to be on the low end.
• Received a random $25 check (a refund).
• Got another free Wawa coffee for my husband with my Wawa points.

I didn’t do much today besides take F. to volleyball, clean up, and start to put Christmas stuff away. I really don’t feel great. I did look through my seed inventory and now have a better idea of what I should order (or try to acquire through other means). As soon as I feel better I’d like to set up a birdbath and put my window bird feeder back up. I also read up on using glass jars for freezing food.

I didn’t buy anything besides food this week. Trying to look ahead and be prepared for upcoming events so I don’t have to buy anything that I don’t absolutely need to.

But for this moment, just enjoying the kids all being out, the dog being tuckered out fast asleep, and the lights of the Christmas tree, for one last night.