Baking, But With A Twist!

It's the bread. That's the twist. The bread itself is twisted. Sorry for the dumb title.

The next episode of that British baking show that we've been watching was breads, so we made a bread! Leslie had this recipe on her Pinterest for awhile, so this was a good excuse to make it. It's a braided pesto bread, and the recipe can be found here. We (well, mostly Leslie) did a great job with this one and it was delicious! The only problem? It made a ton of bread. Like, more than we could handle by ourselves. So be prepared to freeze some or give some away if you don't consume bread as readily as you do oxygen. We also didn't make fresh pesto like it calls for, but instead used frozen pesto we had left from last year. To thicken it up, we just added some extra Parmesan cheese (I think... or at least that's what I would do now that I'm thinking about it). It's always nice to put products from last year's garden to use!

And that's it for now. Thanks for reading and we'll be back soon with another exciting post!

Lights And All

Remember back in April when we had all the green trim replaced with white? Well, as part of that project, we had them install some mounting blocks for lights next to the garage doors. The plan was to have an electrician come in and install some lights there, but we had a hard time finding someone that would do it for an reasonable price. Luckily, we managed to find someone who does electrical work on the side and he was able to do it a few weekends ago. It's another small change, but the new lights really look great and the front of the house is so much brighter now! Slowly but surely we're adding the curb appeal our house was lacking when we bought it.

That's it for now. Thanks for reading and we'll see you next time.

Great British Bakers

Somehow we've gotten to the point where food is a sport. How many competitive cooking shows are there on Food Network these days? I don't even know... but there's like, a lot. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining - I have great memories of watching Iron Chef with my mom when I was little and love the American version even better. But sometimes it's nice to have something a little more relaxing to watch instead of having my blood pressure rise every time Ted has them open their baskets to find some weird fish that looks like a monster and only lives in the bottom of a lake in Africa that I've never heard of. And that's where the Great British Bake Off comes in.

For those that haven't watched, it's competition where a group of amateur bakers is slowly whittled down by a series of challenges until there's only one left. Each episode features three challenges that the judges use to see who's the best and worst, with the best getting "Star Baker" for the week and the worst going home. It's really relaxing to watch and, as opposed to shows like Cutthroat Kitchen, all the competitors are kind and helpful to each other.

So what does this have to do with anything? Well, since Leslie loves the show so much, we've been watching it together and making something inspired by what they make in each episode. (She's definitely the better baker in the family, so my idea for us to make something from every episode has turned into me "helping" Leslie make us tasty treats. Luckily for me, she enjoys it and likes baked goods as much as I do. That, and the fact that she loves bacon probably more than I do, is really the foundation for our marriage.)

Episode one of this series was cakes with each contestant having to make a Swiss Roll for the first round. Well, Leslie and I have never made one of those... so why not give it a shot? Leslie found a recipe for a lemon cake roll with a lemon curd and whipped cream filling for us to try out. We did pretty well, even if the cake roll was a little over-cooked. It still rolled up nicely and tasted quite good. Really though, I love lemons in baked goods, so I was going to be happy with just about anything.

And there you have it - our first attempt at becoming great British bakers. We've got more to share, so keep an eye out for more of these foodie posts coming soon. Plus more house and travel updates on the way. Thanks for reading and we'll see you next time!