Challah- Daring Baker challenge

May's Daring Baker's Challenge was pretty twisted-Ruth from the Crafts of Mommyhood challenged us to make challah! Using recipes from all over, and tips from "A Taste of Challah," by Tamar Ansh, she encouraged us to bake beautifully braided breads.

I have previously made Challah before from the bread maker's apprentice challenge. This time I made mine a bit different adding some strawberry jam and almonds on the top. I got my inspiration from this blog

Strawberry Rhubarb Tart

Finally... after all of these years. I remember that my mom used to tell me how much she loved strawberry rhubarb jam. When the boy and I went to Charleston for our vacation, we stopped at a little shop called Sugar. The cutest shop ever, pretty much the dream place if you ever wanted to open a bakery, this was it. They sold tiny little strawberry rhubarb tarts, they were amazing!

So I decided to make my own strawberry rhubarb tart.

I picked this recipe here

French Onion soup

On our last trip to Publix a large 5lb bag of vidalia onions were on sale. The price was a much better deal than me buying just the one. I figured it's been long enough since I've wanted to make my own french onion soup (one because it's delicious, two because the B&B we went to tried to pass off onion water as soup). I just really wanted to make a soup that would make me say Boooyah!!! Mine is better... I know, it's shameful, but it's ok, in the end we all win.

I found my recipe here

Here is what I used to make mine:

Boeuf Bourguinon

Burgundy Beef Stew
Our May 2012 Daring Cooks’ hostess was Fabi of fabsfood. Fabi challenged us to make Boeuf Bourguignon, a classic French stew originating from the Burgundy region of France.

My first ever Daring Kitchen challenge, specifically daring cook challenge. If you're interested in joining in the fun here's the link. Every month you get a new challenge to take on, there's two different challenges the baker and the cook. The baker will be later on this month, looking forward to it!

This month's challenge was Boeuf Bourguinon.
I have made beef stew, many many times, often with different variations in vegetables and spices. I also have odd reactions to wine so I often just stick to water, stock, and small amounts of cooking wine. This time I decided to follow the challenge and use up a whole bottle of wine.

For the whole challenge follow this link

I made very slight alterations so here is my version of the recipe

Gardening

FYI pictures of the garden we're planting will follow soon, once we get some sprouting! Hopefully we'll get at least a couple good carrots and the boy can test out some radishes! We used milk crates and I sewed some liners made our of landscaping fabric, my first independent sewing project, only to be filled with dirt :p

Trying out a variety of methods, also using sprouting in paper towels for some Kentucky green beans and sunflowers. My mom suggested I used toilet paper rolls to start the seeds, I found a link with instructed here:Toilet paper garden.

Looking forward to seeing what will happen, one week until life appears!

100 foods to eat before you die

This facebook list has been passed around the foodie world I figured I should give it a try. 39 out of 100, not too bad, I didn't cross some of them off that I think I've had, because I couldn't remember, much too long ago.  Some of these I'm not quite sure where I would get them or what they are. Something to look forward to! If you're interested in calculating yourself feel free to check out the full post.

Update 7/22/2012- up to 45 now!

Update 5/23/2013- up to 48 now!

Posting some of my old drafts:

Attempted to make an angel cake, there are no pictures because it collapsed into a hot mess. Many months later I learned that my oven is a waste of space and doesn't actually have the right temperature, ever. However the lemon curd was such a hit so here's the recipe. I saved some tangerine juice from the fruits at my parent's house to make some curd in the future, or maybe even some grapefruit.

The Lemond curd recipe

Super Bowl savorings

Superbowl recap, we tried to cook wings for the first time, did a couple batches of fried wings and a couple in the oven, all delicious. For wing recipes check out http://pinterest.com/xquach/wings/
For the homemade ranch: http://smells-like-home.com/2011/01/ranch-dressing/
Buffalo, garlic Parmesan, and lemon pepper wings, with some homemade ranch

Pizza dough for the impatient...

I crave pizza, on a daily basis. Thin crust from the oven, a little charred from the pizza stone... Slices of mozzarella... pesto... deliciousness. Peter Reinhart's recipe is great, but it takes 2 days, as psychology has enlightened me, the effort (Time to wait, cleaning dishes) required is too much for me to handle, so instead of making myself wait, I just deprive myself. I couldn't take it anymore so I found a quick recipe.
Well we shall see, new recipe from here

• 1 cup of warm water
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of yeast
• 2 1/2 teaspoons of olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt
• 1/4 of apple cider vinegar
• About 4 cups of flower