Love

I have a different life than most 'regular' people. My husband works overseas and I stay at home although I am a Registered Labor and Delivery Nurse. I have enjoyed staying at home more than anything in the world! I love being with my kids. I love enjoying my time for family and fun. There is nothing like it. My husband works a 60 day in Iraq 30 day home schedule. It is pretty cool. We get to spend a lot of time together when he is off. My schedule also changes when he is home. He is home on medical this time so it's been different than our regular time together but I am so glad to have him here. I haven't baked as much as I usually do but I am getting back into it this week. Sorry for those who have followed my baking. I am mentally prepping for Thanksgiving. I have never done a Thanksgiving dinner and I want to. So I have been doing research and think I can handle it. The only thing would be convincing my family (extended) to come and not throw a fit about not being at my moms. Time will tell but I think that I might do some cooking early to try and see how good it is. Thought I would include a few pics of us doing our 'everyday' thing. What a hunk huh!

Kugelhopf

The definition of a bread and cake to describe this cake was exactly right. That was the first comment that my husband made upon tasting the Kugelhopf. He said...it's like bread inside with a cake crust. So that means I must have baked this one right. I am currently on a "No Sugar, No Flour" torment so I did not get the opportunity to taste test but I could smell the yeasty bread smell strongly. My husband is home on medical and so I am doing my best to bake things I think he will like so we decided to make the Kugelhopf without the raisins because he is a plain eater so those were omitted...that being said; he actually thought the cake was TOO plain. Something I hardly ever hear from him. We then experimented with adding a simple syrup on top...and not enjoying that much we added Maple syrup. None were big hits. I think in the morning making toast might be the best bet...with an added butter and cinnamon sugar combo.

I will say that I am loving this group and feeling like I can bake and then experiment to see what we like the best. My house has so many different taste buds that someone is usually happy in the end.

I don't know if I will ever bake the Kugelhopf again as I thought it was a labor intensive, time consuming project. I am glad I got the chance to make it though.

Rugelach

Rugelach

I have no idea how to even say this cookie..But I will say that I have really enjoyed trying new things with the Tuesday's group. I substituted the marmalade and currants because we dont have currants here in my town (lame) and I had some vanilla spice butter that I thought would taste good. So ... I used the vanilla spice butter from williams sonoma and then used white morsels and toffee chips. The cookies were really good. I wished I had time to post more and I will tonight but as of now my husband is home on medical leave and we're back and forth to the dr's today. Cookies for snacks though!

Halloween '08

Have you ever seen more adorable trick or treaters. We had a great night. Got so much candy I think one could potentially become diabetic after comsuming it all...which we have yet to do but I am assuming it will happen soon. My fav..Twix...I stole plenty of mini twix for a small village.

IT ROCKED.....