The Adventures of a Frustrated Baker

About 6 months ago, I made the very difficult decision to leave my long-time job at Lower Columbia College for the opportunity to work at University of Portland, which had been a dream of mine for quite a while. During my last few days at LCC, one of my co-workers and friends asked me if I would finally be able to resume my blog and share recipes since I was going from a 40 hour work-week to a 35 hour work-week. At the time, I told him I wasn’t sure but that I would certainly try! Well, it has been 6 months...and all that extra time ended up consumed with a new obsession - gardening! (I’m sure there will be more about that new adventure in the future.) Anyway, I still haven’t been all that active with baking lately but I think this is the perfect opportunity to change that, if for no other reason, than it has  been almost impossible to even buy bread in the town of Woodland right now! Lol Which leads me to my post today - we’re making bread! And though I will end up making ...

Back before Thanksgiving many versions of this recipe were making their rounds on Facebook and Pinterest and I just couldn't wait to try it.  I just keep forgetting to buy or save up enough basil to make the pesto.  As luck would have it, my basil plants were getting a little tall and needing a trim right about the time that I stumbled across yet another re-pin of this idea.  I did some recipe shopping and was having a hard time finding good reviews on some of the recipes I could find so I decided to just use the idea and make my own version.  I dug out one of my sandwich bread recipes and looked up the ratios of a basic pesto recipe and got to work!  I have to say, while my bread here is not perfect as I had some company over and I accidentally let it rise to long which made a fairly large hole in the loaf, it is by far the yummiest idea ever.  Seriously, thanks to whoever got that whole pesto bread trend started! Start by placing 1-2 c...

So as some of you may have noticed, I have been on an unanticipated hiatus for the last month and a half.  What can I say, life got busy for a bit and I got lazy.  Not to worry, I have still been taking pics and experimenting with tons of recipes so I have lots of meals saved up and ready to go, all I have to do is get off my butt and write them! With that thought in mind, I figured it was only fitting that I chose these very special grilled cheese sandwiches to make my triumphant return from the dark side!  (Haha, I know, that was bad...stay with me!!)  I have been eying these Star Wars sandwich cutters from Williams-Sonoma for a long time and I finally gave in and bought them a few weeks ago.  And then they sat still in the bag unused, until this afternoon that is.  When we began debating what was for lunch it hit me, make grilled cheese Tie Fighters and Millennium Falcons!  So here they are people ...basic plain old grill...