Handmade, from Scratch

With the holidays right around the corner, and by corner I mean in two days, I have been doing a lot of baking.  More than I usually get to - which is great - but it's out of necessity more than anything.

However, this necessity turned out to be the best thing!  I always knew that I loved baking but last night after rehearsal I was finishing up the rolls and started on the apple pies.  I found this great pie crust recipe on allrecipes.com which makes two entire pie crusts (which I have made before) - yay for quick and tasty! 

I needed five pie crusts and it's late, it's eleven at night already!  Thank God I had made extra apple pie filling in September/October and froze it!  I don't want to make each recipe individually to have enough, that would take forever and I want to go to bed.  But I also didn't want to overload my mixer and break it - that would suck, future baking would be difficult for some recipes.

So, I mixed the flour, sugar and some of the butter with the electric mixer.  Then I dumped it into a bigger bowl and worked it by hand until I needed the water added - which Adam helped with.  I kneaded it all by hand until I could make a ball and then separate it into the right number of crusts.

It felt so good!! Working the dough like that, mixing everything together, kneading it, rolling it out.  All the stress just seemed to roll out of me and it was wonderful!  Words can't describe how awesome it was.  I could so do that for a living.  But then the stress relief might not be the same.

Ah, sweet success and relaxation....... 

......Except finding space for everything in the fridge was a bit of a task!  We did some cleaning out of the fridge, consolidating extras and drank a lot of milk!

Happy Thanksgiving!

30 Days of Truth - Day 12: Something You Never Get Compliments On

I don't know!  My shoe size?

That seems a weird thing to be complimented on. 

I also never get complimented on my blogging skillz.  But I don't really talk about it a lot either.

I'll edit this post if I can think of anything that I like about myself that I never get compliments on.

Short post.  Hmm....

PIE!

Just checking to make sure you were paying attention! :D

Aaaaaand: Make sure to go vote for The Williamston Theatre at the Pepsi Refresh Project!!

Happy Saturday!

Ah, Saturday, not quite as lazy a day as Sunday, but still a nice break from the busy week.

Today, we are home from Mount Pleasant, visiting our families.  Yay!  Last time we were home it was the weekend before Dress for Dead Man's Cell Phone, now, it's the week before Into the Woods Dress.  But, this trip home is happier - not that the last one was sad - but this time we are going to see Zack's first game officially on the BRHS Varsity Hockey Team!  It's not a season game, it's a controlled scrimmage.

You may be asking yourself, what the hell is a controlled scrimmage?  Don't worry, I didn't know either until this morning.  In a controlled scrimmage, each team gets a period to pick something they want to work on and then just play a period straight out.  It should be interesting, because if one team decides to work on their power play, the other team has to play down a man the whole period.  I think it should be very interesting.

I must also pause here to tell you how proud I am of Zack.  He made the varsity squad for hockey after he ran his personal best in cross country regionals last week.  YAY!  Ok, now you know I'm very proud of my baby brother, who really isn't a baby anymore, more like, a giant force to be reckoned with.

Anyway, this weekend should be fun, even though I have an exam on Monday.  It started off pretty well, Central beating Western for another year in a row (HAHA! We suck less this year!), Ferris Beat #1 Miami OH in hockey and the Red Wings won!  Oh, yeah... good sports times....

I don't really have much else than that. I'm going to have a great weekend at home than kick the rest of the semester's ass! HAHA!  At least, I will until Thanksgiving, then I will take those four glorious days to do nothing school related and I won't be blogging either.  You have been warned.

Note to self: don't forget apple pie, sweet rolls and apples with caramel dip for Thanksgiving (sorry, imaginary friends, you don't have to remember that, but I do!)  Have a great weekend!

Day 13 - I don't start on Day 1

No, you aren't seeing things, this is the first post, but it's day 13 for me on P90X doing the Lean program. For me, Saturdays are Kenpo X and I love it. Kenpo X is P90X's name for kickboxing, not sure why...

Anyway, Kenpo X is a lot of fun and if you have any pent up anger or anything, it's definitely the way to go. I've tried to put a finger on exactly why I like it so much - but I can't. All I can tell you is that I am excited to work out on a Saturday. Normally, in the past with other workouts (e.g. the gym), I would find excuses to not to work out. The weather sucks. I'm tired. I have too much homework. AKA, I was lazy. (And I still am) But KenpoX is so much fun I love to work out on Saturday mornings.

Thank God my rest day is Sunday, I don't think there is anything fun enough to make me want to work out on Sunday. Come on, even God rested on the seventh day. (Even though it's day 14 for me tomorrow.)

I also weigh in on Saturdays. Because way before I started P90X, I joined Weight Watchers. And not because Jennifer Hudson started doing it - I pre-dated her, HA. Sorry, anyway, I quit going to the meetings because I, a broke college student who is married to another broke college student, couldn't afford the monthly/weekly fees. And it seemed frivolous to spend that money there when I could use it to save for Study Abroad for next semester. (I'm only going for a week, like I could afford to Study Abroad for a semester. Pfft.) I'm still following the Weight Watchers program however. I track my points and exercise, etc. It's so easy, why wouldn't I?

Now, you're probably thinking to yourself, "Jenny, if you wanted to save money for Study Abroad, why would you buy P90X? That is really expensive and broke college kids can't afford it." Well, this is where my mad baking skillz come in. A friend of mine was in a car accident a year ago and was told she would never walk again. She told the doctors, and I quote, "F*ck that, I'm walking again." And she is. But, because of that accident, she can't do P90X. So, in trade for the DVDs, I baked her some apple pie - YUM. So, here we are, Day 13. (The pie trade was her idea.)

Wow, tangent. My bad. Anyway - weigh ins on Saturday. So, I weighed in today and I gained 0.4lbs this week. Suck. But that's what yummy food that you don't calculate the points for before you make them and eat them. The Pioneer Woman has some delicious recipes but they aren't exactly low point foods, not that she pretends that they are low fat recipes. For the first time ever I actually ended up eating some of my activity points this week, which blows. Poor planning is not your friend when you are trying to control/lose weight.

And I would like to leave you with a thought: Not all low-fat/no-fat food sucks. Except Neufachtel Cheese. I do not like that crap.

Ok. Good night! (And by good night, I mean, I'm going to go do homework.)