my 1st ever homemade baguette!

This is my 2nd attempt at making a French baguette and I feel pretty good about how it turned out. My 1st attempt was such a disaster that I had to toss the whole thing in the garbage.

With this 2nd attempt, I followed directions from a book called The Bread Bible by Rosie Levy Beranbaum. And even though it probably took me 2 days to make the baguette - I found the whole process very satisfying.

And I also watched tons of videos and was perusing this fantastic amateur bread makers forum that I love called The Fresh Loaf.

Lemon Braided Bread

This is actually my 2nd attempt at making a braided bread. The first time I made it -it was like a brick! I had to chuck the whole thing in the garbage -it was completely inedible.

I had to make another one because I love a baking challenge. So I found this recipe from one of my favorite blogs. The blog is: SmittenKitchen.

Here is the recipe for Lemon Braided Bread.

Ginger Pumpkin Bread

Over the weekend I made pumpkin bread and it was delicious, even if I do say so myself : )

I perused the recipe from good ol' Martha Stewart.

Here is the recipe for Pumpkin Bread.

Happy Halloween!

Today was Halloween! The kids had a blast going trick or treating. All they really care about is collecting as much candy as they can possibly carry!

Jason made Jasper's costume. It's pretty cool!

Bryce wanted to be Iron Man. Ever since the costume arrived 2 weeks ago, he has been wearing it day and night!

Apple Muffins

I was down to the last few apples from the time we went apple picking so I wanted to make apple muffins.

I found another Martha Stewart one.

Here is the recipe:

Chunky Apple Muffins

Pureed Pepper Soup

A good friend recently served Pureed Pepper Soup and it was delicious.

Check out the beautiful colors!

Asian Inspired Chicken Thighs

I wanted to also try this Asian Barbecue Marinade inspired Chicken Thigh recipe from Food and Wine. It calls for wings but I wanted to use thighs instead.

Here is the recipe:

Asian Barbecue Marinade Chicken

Here is what it looked like.