Category: Cooking

Making Potato Rolls- How They Turned Out and Opinions of the Recipe

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In a previous post, I talked about how my mixer had died and that I purchased a replacement for it. The mixer problems forced me to reconsider posting about my baking progress for a while. Now that I have a new mixer and it works very well, I decided to start talking about some of the foods I made using it again.

While browsing my copy of The King Arthur Baking Company’s All-Purpose Baker’s Companion, I discovered a recipe called Amish Potato Rolls. It looked similar to an old and nearly completely lost potato bread recipe I grew up eating (And not liking very much because it was always over baked, dry, and the top of the buns were brunt.) I always thought the recipe was good, but the baking of it wasn’t. Since the original recipe was destroyed and can not be found anymore, I decided to give this new recipe a try and see if I liked it.

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5 Favorite Things I Cook from Scratch to Give as Gifts for Valentine’s Day

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Valentine’s Day is the time of the year to give someone a gift to show how much you love them. Making something to give is a great way to show how much you love someone. One of my favorite things to create as a Valentine’s Day gift is to cook something for someone!

Although I don’t enjoy cooking and baking all the time, it is my favorite way to create a gift someone will enjoy. Sometimes I can’t do this, but overall anything I create is well received. Since I am currently in the process of baking food for gifts, I wanted to list my top five things I cook (and bake) to give as gifts for Valentine’s Day.

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My New Mixer Problems and Buying Another New Mixer

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Last year, I talked about purchasing a new mixer. I did and, after almost a year of use, it broke. What happened is that I used it to make too many heavy doughs for bread, going over the mixer’s capabilities. So, I needed to get a new one.

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Home Goods Haul- October 2024

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After many months, I went shopping at Home Goods in October. I went for the sole reason to buy seasonal kitchen towels. My old fall and Christmas themed towels had finally worn out so I needed new ones. I really liked the way the towels I purchased earlier this year worked, so I decided to see if there were similar quality towels available in fall and Christmas theme. While shopping, I decided to purchase a blanket to replace an old blanket as well.

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Book Review: From Harvest to Home by Alicia Tenise Chew and Tom McGovern

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Earlier this year, I decide to read the book From Harvest to Home by Alicia Tenise Chew and Tom McGovern. Alicia wrote the book while Tom took the photographs inside the book. It is a book about “seasonal activities, inspired decor, and cozy recipes for Fall”. I wanted to see what it is like, so I decided to read it in spring so I’d know if there were ideas I want to use in the fall.

Since I read it in the spring, I decided to wait until the fall to write a review about the book.

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Making Homemade Bread Progress Report: One-ish Year Later

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In October 2023, I announced I will begin learning to make my own bread from scratch. Since then, I struggled to learn how to make bread. Part of the problem was new baker mistakes while the other problem was my mixer.

When I started making bread, I was using an almost 30 year old mixer and it had major problems. Earlier this year, I replaced it with a new mixer. Even though the new mixer is smaller than the old one, it runs much better and does a better job at mixing dough and kneading the bread. This was further improved when I purchased a different style dough hook from Amazon. The dough hook is not from the same brand as the mixer (Kitchenaid) but it was designed to not allow the dough ride up the dough hook while mixing. It works really well and is very easy to clean. It is stainless steel too!

Today, my white bread looks really good! I am now able to make it the same way consistently without any abnormalities from loaf to loaf.

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Update on My Baking Process: Mixer Problems, Bread Baking, and Deserts I Now Love

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It’s been a few months since I talked about baking bread in a post. I wanted to give a monthly update about how well I’m doing with my bread baking skills, but I ended up not.

In the mean time, things happened in my kitchen. One of those things was problems with my mixer. This was the main reason for my decision to not post updates. I was finally able to get a new one… over a month after I decided to stop using the old one! (I don’t know why it took so long to ship, but there it is) Instead, I decided to focus on baking deserts. I could make them with a hand mixer, which I had.

In order to get myself back to posting about my baking adventures, I decided to write a post about what happened. This way I can update everyone on what happened before I talk in depth about what I baked.

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Rocket Herb Sweet Basil- What is It and How Does it Work

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During a recent shopping trip to a local Dollar Tree, I found a section of the store dedicated to gardening. Normally this section would have a lot of gardening inspired home decor, but this time they had a lot of things that would be perfect for just gardening.

Among the gardening supplies were seeds for flowers and herbs. Also, there was something called a Rocket Herb and Rocket Flower. I heard of them before, but I never saw one for sale in person. I thought about purchasing one of the Rocket Herbs, but I initially had so many doubts about how well it would work, I decided to walk away from it. While looking around the store, I finally decided to purchase one of the Rocket Herbs that grows Sweet Basil.

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Things I Recently Purchased for My House and Why- January 2024

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For many years, I have wanted to make improvements in my house. Despite the fact most of the improvements are not something I can do myself (I don’t have the time, energy, know how, I need more people than just me to work on it, ect.) I am focusing on all the things I can do myself. This includes purchasing new things for the house!

For this post, I wanted to stick to the things I know for a fact I am currently using and am happy with. I have other things I purchased for the house, such as a cube bookcase for my closet, but I haven’t used them or they didn’t work out the way I planned them to. So, I decided not to talk about those things in this post.

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Ordering More Groceries Online and Why I’m Doing It More Frequently

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Ever since 2022, I began to order more groceries online. Whenever I say this, people sometimes believe I am placing a pickup order at a local grocery store. Instead, I am purchasing more groceries online and having them shipped to my house.

To be honest, I don’t like doing this. For me, groceries need to be purchased in person. I want to see what I am actually purchasing before I pay money for them. I want to see what kind of quality they are, how beat up the boxes are, and how fresh the fruits and veggies are. If I can’t touch them or look at them in person, I’m not interested in purchasing them. This is why shopping for groceries online makes me so upset.

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