Bodacious Bread

So, let's just say I've been having a troubled two weeks, and fully debated within myself to keep this blog or not. I finally decided to keep trucking along, and give a last apology for having such untimely posts on here. I say that because I plan on posting on a regular schedule now (excluding when things heat up in school/lab- priority is priority). Let's just say, once every two weeks. Now, my ultimate goal is once a week, but we'll see what happens.

BREAD!

http://www.foodgeeks.com/recipes/awesome-apple-bread-2901

The name says it all. It truly is awesome apple bread, especially with some [minor] additions.

Kathy Wetzel has made the perfect fruit bread. The best part? You don't have to use apples. You can use ANY fruit you want. I know. Because I've tried. The recipe, in pictures:

I've used two kinds of Apples: One that had a crumbly texture and was very dry, and a tarter one (Gala I think). Both came out excellent!

This is the mixture of oil, eggs, vanilla, and sugar. On my next go, I'm planning on experimenting by cutting out a cup of sugar and one egg. I'm thinking of trying out something a little less sweet.

Slowly add the flour mixture while mixing! You can also use an electric mixture if you want, but sometimes I find it just easier to do by hand. And there really is no heavy mixing for this recipe! The flour mixture should be sifted! ***I like to add a whole tbs of cinnamon, a tsp of nutmeg, and a 1/2 tsp of clover. It gives a nice spice to the bread. You may want to alter the spices depending on your fruit. If I was interested in making a chocolate bread, I'd keep the same and maybe add a tsp of mint extract. Oranges? I'd cut the cinnamon and add a tsp orange extract. Some you can keep the same. For my blueberry banana, I used the same spices as for the apple. 

All the flour's been added here, just gotta mix it all in.  

The apples! So I decided to leave the skin on. Personal choice for me, prepare them however you like. I'm sure you could food processor the apples into apple paste if you really wanted to. The fruit in this recipe is very easily manipulated as you want. I also prefer slightly larger chunks. And I added slightly more than 3 cups. I'm a fruit head, and I just prefer to use up all the apple I started cutting. Or eat it. But I wanted it all  in the bread!

Nice and mixed, ready for the bread pan

Adding the batter to the pan.

All in! So, the total recipe found at the link above actually fills two of these.

Here I went with a blueberry banana bread! So one banana chopped in large chunks. Bananas have a way of mushing if mixed too much, so I didn't want to cut them any smaller than this and risk having a bunch of mashed bananas.

And roughly 2 cups of blueberries. In all honesty, I just had a plastic bag of these guys in the fridge that I wanted to use before they went bag. So, all of them went in, and it was probably slightly more than 2 cups. 

Here is the finished mixed product, and me adding it to the pan. 

Sadly, I realized I forgot to take pictures of the finished product. :( Now, they have in their recipe 1 hour 30 minutes at 300 degrees F. And the Author states that she does 70 minutes at 325. What works for you still could be different so you should play around with the time and temp. Mine came out perfect at 320 for 80 minutes. You are looking for a nice brown top that is slightly firm when you poke it- ie. it doesn't mush in when you press, it just lets you press it and kind of rises back. This is hard for me to explain because a lot of people tell you "when it bounces back after pressing" but I like to tell more based on what it actually feels like when I press it.

Alternatively, you can also tell when it's done when the smell starts to spread to adjacent rooms- at that point it is very close to done or done.

More info on my apple trees, another recipe, and two amigurumi projects will be up soon. But don't expect the amigurumi right away because they are both presents and I doubt the people they are for read this, but just in case!

Cheers!
Sarah

First Day of School! Wait...again?!

Sorry that it's been awhile, I was contemplating the idea of getting my own web address/domain for a bit, among other things.

I successfully graduated from college!! And now I'm going back to school...

Haha, don't give me that face. I'm now officially a graduate student, whether I actually feel like one is another story. I'm going to school in Baltimore, Maryland. While I've lived in the awesome state of MD my whole life, I've never lived in a city, and now I do! I live smack in the middleish area of Baltimore. (In other words, look at "Baltimore" (the word) on a map, look a few centimeters left or so and thereabouts is where I live). 

My cat chilling, but I do not have cats or pets where I live now... :( 

I moved in on the 26th of June, and to be honest, it wasn't bad. I met a roommate, unpacked and got settled. Let's say, for a first night in a new place, I slept well. The next day, I had orientation and got my first taste of walking to UMB and walking around campus. It was easy, it took me a short 12 minutes to get to the building I needed to, and I felt relatively safe- other people were walking around and it's not like the campus is a ghetto, it's just close to some sketchy areas. All in all, it really wasn't bad, until this past Monday. Both my roommates moved out, and I was on my own, awaiting news of more roommates from my landlord (a really nice guy!). 

My "study area"

Let me clear up somethings. When I'm in a new place, I don't sleep well for at least a week. When I'm alone in a house I have trouble sleeping. And if you add these onto the fact that I am now living in a city and that city happens to be Baltimore...Well, you can imagine. I stressed out and was so anxious that I would loose my appetite and food would make me nauseous just by looking at it. I took forever to fall asleep, and let's just say I was tired of being tired.

Old School

Then suddenly, it all changed. What changed? why? when? Well, I took out the trash at 5:30 am and suddenly realized that being afraid, stressed out, and anxious wasn't helping, and wasn't doing me  anything. (You might argue that anxiety/fear allow you to be more aware, but I have no problem being aware/not getting complacent when it comes to safety). So I stopped. I accepted my new home as my home and figured I'd treat it the same way as everywhere else I've lived (except that I keep everything locked up tight and only unlock it to move inside or outside the house). I lock doors before. I just would keep doors unlocked when I'm home until I went to bed. Now I just lock doors all the time no matter what :)

My Craft Corner (But now there is even more stuff there!)

So, I'm done with my first week of school. I'm taking a summer bridge course and rotating in a lab. The class is straightforward and not graded, fairly basic, and shouldn't be a lot of work. The lab is pretty cool. It is exciting for me to be starting anew in a lab. It's especially interesting for me to start analyzing the differences between this lab and my lab from undergrad (especially since technically I might be able to go back to working in my undergrad lab). Like, in my last lab I was being taught directly from the PI for the first ~6 months since it was a new lab and here, I am being taught by a grad student. So far I am interested in the lab I am in, but we'll see if I can or want to join the lab in a month and a half or so.

Well, have a nice summer- I'll be reporting on somethings I've been doing in the kitchen, the apple trees, and even an amigurumi or two over the next week or two.

Cute book I had to buy from Amazon

~Sarah