Baking and Homemaking

Whew! I spent most of the week in the kitchen baking all kinds of treats! First I was craving some rugelach (which isn't anywhere to be found in Vancouver or Portland!) so I decided to make it myself courtesy of a recipe from Ina Garten. I love the rich cream cheese dough with the fruity filling - a wonderful combination of sweet and tart.  It's obvious I'm not Jewish since they looked nothing like the ones I used to buy on Miami Beach, but they tasted delicious! Next up was sugar cookies, a practice round before I make some to decorate for Valentine's Day. Dorie Greenspan has the best recipe and the cookies turned out beautifully; however, the decorating is going to take some practice. Frosting or not, they were gone in 24 hours!

On Wednesday I got an email from JSM and I quote "my department is on the hook for "Cookie Friday". We need to enlist the help of the professional homemaker. Please throw out some suggested cookie ides to the group and we will vote on what you should make."  Professional homemaker?  Vote? I did finally get most of the house put together, but I guess he didn't notice that I work three hours a week as a first grade math tutor. I'll let it slide this time :)  I still had plenty of time to make him 80 chewy chocolate chip cookies to take to work today.....I love him so!

Once the stand mixer was retired back to the corner of the kitchen counter and I cleaned up my mess I finally took a few photos of the main living area. My family has been asking me since we moved in to take some photos so they could see the house. The "library" is a work in progress as is the painting of the fireplace, but here are a few photos.