Tag Archives: baking

Lately … in the kitchen

11 Thursday Dec 2025

Posted by in Daily Life, Daily Message, Finding Me, Food

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Scones – I adore scones and I have not been able to find any bakeries that sells them anywhere around me.

I looked for scone recipes online, and chose one that looked easy and fast. 

They didn’t come out great, but still we ate them all.  

 

Irish Soda Bread – this is another favorite of mine, that I cannot find to buy anywhere around here.  Perhaps on Saint Patrick’s Day I will find some bakery that makes them.

It came out okay, not great.  I definitely need to tweak the recipe I found online.

Anything toasted with butter is great, and that is how I eventually ate it all.

 

 

Brownies from a Box

Can you believe that I got brownies wrong? Brownies is the one thing I don’t mind making it from a box.  I accidently put the oven too high and the sides and bottom got overbaked.

I cut off the offending parts and the rest was eaten anyway 🙂

 

I will be trying all of the above again.  If you a good recipe for scones or soda bread, please send it my way.

Thank you and have a blessed weekend!

“With enough butter, anything is good.” (Julia Child)

 

 

Meeting new old friends, and eating mistakes

09 Thursday May 2024

Posted by in Daily Life, Daily Message

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“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Last Saturday Michael and I met his best friends for lunch at Fishlips Waterfront Bar & Grill in Cape Canaveral . He has been friends with this couple since college. Michael, like myself, is not the best at keeping in touch with friends, so I don’t expect to meet many more people.

I really enjoyed meeting them. They are such great people.  We plan on traveling together in the future. The husband and I share the same birthday.  I love such coincidences.

The food was good and fresh. I had the mahi mahi tacos and to drink I had a prosecco wit lychee. I saw a couple of dolphins and seagulls. It was a fun day!

“There’s not a word yet, for old friends who’ve just met.” ― Jim Henson

My baking continues with mixed results. Lately I have had some success, but also some really bad failures while attempting to make the perfect rye bread. I don’t really care for rye bread, but it is Michael’s favorite, so I am in search of the best bread-machine rye bread recipe.

At lunch I was talking about my adventures with the bread maker, and mentioned the mistakes I made with the rye bread. My number one mistake is not following the recipe properly.

My new friend said: “we eat our mistakes”.

Haha, I love that. I also eat all my mistakes, the edible ones and all others.

Isn’t it better to eat our mistakes than to let them eat away at us?

We have to learn from our mistakes and move on. Stop obsessing about it. Just do better next time.

Here are 2 winners that tasted amazing:
A rye bread, that I have not been able to reproduce not matter how many times I try.  


Irish soda bread

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
― Albert Einstein

Having my cake and eating it too!

30 Tuesday Jan 2024

Posted by in Daily Life, Food

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“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.” -― Charles M. Schulz

The baking continues… Yesterday I made a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.  All from scratch.  All delicious. 

But… not perfect.  I search for a taste of the cakes of my childhood.  Maybe the next one.

“If you can’t eat chocolate cake for breakfast, what is the point of being alive?” ― Alice Hoffman, The Book of Magic

“Without pain, how could we know joy?’ This is an old argument in the field of thinking about suffering and its stupidity and lack of sophistication could be plumbed for centuries but suffice it to say that the existence of broccoli does not, in any way, affect the taste of chocolate.” ― John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

From feeling down to celebrating in just a couple of hours!!

02 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by in Daily Life, Finding Me

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“At the end of the day, let there be no excuses, no explanations, no regrets.” ― Steve Maraboli

I was feeling pretty low today.  There was no apparent reason.   All of a sudden is Monday, I don’t have to go to work and I have nothing planned.  I just didn’t know what to do with myself.

I had a pretty good weekend with a date on Friday, getting a lot accomplished on Saturday and spending the day at the US Open Tennis on Sunday (with friends from Philadelphia).

Then I wake up today, I have nothing planned and I am lost.

I took my time with breakfast, then did 30 minutes on my elliptical and I am still feeling at a loss at what to do next.  Nothing seemed appealing and I continue to slip further down the miserable path.  Clearly it seems to me that I have 2 choices, be miserable and start enumerating all that is wrong with me or get up and move and think of all my blessings.

It is clear that there is only one right choice, so I decided to feel blessed and snap out of it.

“Do it badly; do it slowly; do it fearfully; do it any way you have to, but do it.” ― Steve Chandler

I decided that this is the perfect moment to do what I have been planning on forever but never do: visit my building’s gym.  I haven’t been there in more than a year, perhaps even 2 years. No, I am not proud of that fact, but I am also not going to beat myself up over that.

What I should have done or not done in the past is not important.  What is important is what I do from this moment on.

I walked in and I smell, not sweat, but newness and it feels awesome.  It felt great being there and I wondered why I had been away for so long.  I spent 30 minutes on the bike and another 30 minutes at the weight machines.  I know it is is not a lot, but it felt like a huge accomplishment to me.  Also I wanted to be cautious about my hip and not overdo it.

Feeling victorious I came back and decided that I was deserving of making a celebratory cake. Ok, ok, it is not a celebratory cake but I have been wanting to make a coconut pound cake forever and decided today is a great day for it.  (so I am turning the oven on in one of the hottest days of the year, but that is a minor detail)

I also don’t see this cake as defeating the purpose of the gym. To me this cake and the gym are the same thing.  They are both accomplishments that make me feel good about myself and two things to be done in moderation.

And here is the result of my baking effort:

Delicious Coconut Pound Cake

Delicious Coconut Pound Cake

Coconut Cake Slice

It is absolutely delicious!