Making Bread While the Sun Shines

We just got the cutest kitchen appliance - a Zojirushi Home Bakery! It makes little 1 pound loaves of bread - perfect for the two of us, and little cakes, and pretzels and cookies, and pizza dough and even makes jam!

(Isn't it tiny?  And it has a handle so you can take it places!! I)

It's the perfect size for our small kitchen and it makes a 'half' loaf which is perfect for the two of us. I am having a wee bit of a problem getting the loaf to rise to the correct heigh - it might be because it's cold outside(and/or the water's too cold), or maybe our humidity. I did buy fresh bread flour, powdered milk and fresh yeast. I've tweaked the recipe a bit and I'm about to make another loaf. MMmmm, I miss the smell of homemade bread. Bread machines were so popular for a while, but I don't hear anyone talking about still using them. The only person I know who regularly bakes bread is my brother who is a  fantastic home-chef. 

Last night is snowed about 4 inches and that's fine by me since I didn't need to go out today anyway. The dog had a great time fetching her ball - she would run and then pounce where it landed except she'd slide and send the ball flying and then she'd lose the ball. It was quite funny, too bad I didn't have a camera with me this morning. 

I hope you're having a wonderful Saturday afternoon. 

Oh Carol, we need more jam please!

During our recent picnic, Carol shared a jar of her delicious homemade raspberry jam and being the generous sort of gal that I am, I shared it with my family where it became the centre of our* dinner a couple of times:

And now we'd please like some more!

Oh Caaaaarrrrrooooollllll - how can we get some more? 

We don't want to eat this but we have to until we can get some of yours!  

* Correction - actually I didn't get any, Jp jacked it from me!

Rain Picnic

When I was a kid we used to have rain picnics. They started when my brother broke his leg the last days of the school year  - doesn't that suck? 6 weeks of the summer he was in a full leg cast and bored out of his tree - this was before VCRs and video games (well before we could afford them). One day, to ease the boredom, my mom had the idea of a picnic in the rain - in those days, we practically had the whole of Stanley Park to ourselves - and we all took turns hauling him around in a wagon with a garbage bag on his cast (oh those were the days!)

But that's not what happened this weekend. We had been planning a get together since June and the weather was fabulous almost the whole month of July, but then the date got bumped and wouldn't you know it - it rained on our new day! Everyone was a real good sport about it though and we decided to go ahead with it.Cynthia, Carol and I had planned to go to Minnekhada Park but upon arriving, we found the gates were locked and it was closed for a private function, so we had to look for another lunch location fast as my stomach was rumbling! We tried a couple other parks and ended up sitting under a big cedar tree at a nearby recreation centre and the rain sort of held off so we were able to enjoy an afternoon of terrific food, good conversation and laughter. Everyone brought yummy food - Cynthia made perfect pitas and Carol had an excellent selection of homemade cookies. I'm so lucky to have such talented friends. Because of the rain, I left my purse in the car, and so I didn't take a photo of our lovely spread.

We all had our birthdays in July so at the end of lunch we exchanged birthday presents - yay! Cynthia gave me one of her famous 'little houses' paintings (plus some other little goodies - thank you!) and Carol gave me a beautiful jar of jam - thank you too! Carol, I need more of that jam, as most of it was consumed that same night at dinner! See? It is very, very good