kitchen adventures!

i have been on a baking/cooking kick for the last couple weeks. i'm not terribly surprised by this since i get this way every 6 months or so! earlier this week i made mini banana muffins and oatmeal that wasn't in a pouch from quaker...i was pretty proud of myself for the non-instant oatmeal risk taking! so today i made bread pudding and baked ziti, both for the first time...hence the kitchen adventures!

the bread pudding recipe came from a bon appetit recipe book that i checked out from the library last week. it really was easy and seems to taste right...i'm not a bread pudding afficionado, i just like to eat it every now and then, so it could be completely awful and i would have no way of knowing! i used white bread from the bakery at publix and will have them slice the bread for me next time, so that was lesson number one to remember for the next time. lesson number 2 was that i need to buy spreadable butter in a tub since stick butter isn't the easiest to spread if it's not near melting! other than those things everything turned out very well, little messy from spreading the butter in the pan, but very well none the less! it baked up in about 35 minutes, a little less than the suggested time, but that didn't surprise me since our oven tends to run hot. it smelled great and was a really pretty, golden brown color...very tempting to stick a spoon into. but i was patient enough to wait until it stopped bubbling...just barely though! after i let it cool i did stick a spoon in, which actually was lesson number 3...no amount of blowing will prevent a scorching piece of bread pudding from burning your throat when swallowed! i'm the only one who's tried it so far, but my family aren't exactly the guinea pig type so my need to try new things is slightly hampered by that. guess i'll have to start hitting up my friends to try my baked goods!

the baked ziti recipe was also from a library book, the everyday food cookbook. it's actually a recipe for baked ravioli, but since i couldn't find ravioli at the store i substituted ziti. i made the sauce from scratch (as part of the recipe) and found that i really like having a mini chopper to chop the onions and a hand chopper to mince the garlic...gadgets make my life so much easier! no lessons learned with that recipe really, it was super easy...just a bit messy when the sauce bubbles unexpectantly onto my shirt, but that always happens whenever i make red sauce. hubby was happy that i decided to finish the sauce while only wearing my bra and sweatpants, since i took off the stained shirt and figured it was just easier not to worry about staining another shirt. once the sauce was thickened and boiled down i added it to the ziti in my often neglected stoneware 13x9 pan, covered it all with cheese and popped it in the oven to bake. it smelled so good and came out just perfect, although really, it was a recipe that seemed hard to screw up. the kids liked it, even the hubby said it was ok and he's hard to please!

so my kitchen adventures today turned out well enough with no major problems, aside from my idiotic self burning my throat cause i was so impatient. and j asked what i was going to make tomorrow...glad to know she likes the things i make! 

i'm hoping/planning to bake or cook at least one new thing a week. as well as, sewing something, be it clothes or quilts, during the week as well. it's all wishful thinking on my part though since i'm great at starting things, not so great at finishing them.