Foodarrific

I finally got around to baking cream puffs which I have loved since I was a child. Such sweet memories of stopping by the bakery with my folks to buy a few cream puffs. Years ago, I used to bake cream puffs for a time but then I lost the recipe and have since stopped.

Lately I got inspired to make these delicious little puffs after seeing the giant-sized ones being sold at the mall at an exorbitant price. To me, a cream puff must be cute and no bigger than the size of custom coins that you can just pop into your mouth. Anything bigger than that is just unattractive to me.

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I bought a new toaster oven a while ago and finally I’m able to enjoy some toast for breakfast or lunch. It’s just a regular toaster oven with a simple time dial and solid cable covers. We are quite fond of having sandwiches for lunch so this little toaster is invaluable.

I can throw in slices of bread, and bacon ham, all at the same time. It heats up very quickly and evenly, and within minutes, while I’m making a pot of tea, we’re ready to dig in.

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Last weekend was the second weekend in a row that I’ve baked bread. The storebought bread that is more air than bread is barely enough to last us an hour. Yup, eat 2 slices at breakfast and within an hour, I’m hungry again.

So I’ve decided that from now on, I’m going to be baking my own bread. And that’s exactly what we did last Sunday after my daughter came home from accompanying her friend to a plus size formal dress fitting.

Someone asked if I use a bread machine. The answer is no, I don’t own a bread machine. A friend gave us a loaf she had made with her bread machine and when left overnight, the bread was hard as rocks. My kids will not eat rocks.

So no bread machine for me. I make my bread from scratch, complete with an added inspiration – sweat. It’s a great way to tone my arms as well. My wholemeal bread, dense, rich and topped with nuts tastes so so good.

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With school back in full swing, I’m more determined than ever to continue my baking pursuits. Teens are always hungry and with the long school days, the commercial air bread that we buy is hardly enough to keep them full for more than an hour. Seriously I’m tired of paying for air.

So I’ve started baking my own bread. And no, I do not own one of them funky bread machines that some of my friends have trained their maids to load up at 5 o’clock in the morning to churn away in time for breakfast.

If you fling a loaf of overnight bread machine bread at someone and they’re not wearing a Scorpion EXO-1000 helmet, you’ll probably make a hole in their head. That kind of bread is not for us. I make my bread from scratch by hand, the old school way and my teens love it. Their favorites are wholemeal nut loaves that taste so so good, even after a few days.

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One of our family favorites is the chicken pot pie. It’s been something of a comfort food (sorta) to the kids since they were little.

Of course, these days, instead of paying through our noses to eat this outside, I usually just whip this up at home using store-bought puff pastry. Store-bought is heaven-sent to busy moms like me who are trying to make lunch while looking through ads for Medical Office Manager Jobs and a bunch of other stuff.

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