Just Baking.....Not Calculating....

.....as promised shortly I shall start working on the bruschetta bread.....truth be told...it is really the husband who makes the topping for that one oh so great......I simply do the bread, not bake...but cut and make nice and crunchy.......instead of frying it in the pan as was done in Julie and Julia and gave me the great idea, this evening I will attempt to cruchify the bread by simply brushing the seeded sourdough bread with olive oil and then placing it under the broiler.....we'll see how that one pans out.....meanwhile....

....I have 2 balls of pie crust dough chilling in the refrigerator....for numerous reasons of course, first and for most anybody who's anybody knows that you should always work with chilled pastry....increases the flakiness factor....and I plan to use it for a peach pie that shall sit in the freezer until one fine September when my brother visits and it is baked for him as his favorite pie is my Nanny's peach pie.....granted I can not hold a candle stick to her pie....I am using her mother's recipe....and I did get the white ribbon at last years Gravenstein Apple Fair Pie Baking Contest....which brings us to my final reason for the crust.....this weekend is the contest and I plan to enter again....yes it will be Gravenstein apples again, and yes it will be a lattice top again, but this year I discovered the great-grandmothers recipe.....if I had to some up the changes from the previous pie recipe......one word would do it.....lard......when it comes to pastry there is no other comparison......

...so this peach pie will be good practice for the apple one I will be making tomorrow....oh yeah, with the peaches there is no DollarMenu calculations needed....unless you were to cut the pie into about 18 pieces....and lets face it that would just be wrong......

....and what else is a girl to do while waiting for the pie crust to properly cool?.....why bake chewy coffee chocolate chip oatmeal cookies.....did you even have to ask....hoping to be a nice surprise for my guests as I have yet to serve any dessert while they have been staying at Casa de Reed......first cookie sheet is less than 2 minutes away from coming out and the smell out here on the deck is somewhat intoxicating.....

.....lets talk cookie talk: the recipe is for low-fat, low-cholesterol oatmeal cookies....which as an added bonus are not low-taste, and are super-chewy....ahhhhhh...the chemistry of cooking...how I appreciate thee....the recipe calls for raisins and interestingly enough that is what I have added the least to these cookies....today it is mocha java coffee and swirl chocolate chips...previous times I have added white chocolate chips and dried cranberries....also another personal favorite....of course just by themselves ain't to shabby either...

....I know this is not DollarMenu however I continue to be obsessed with food and dangnabit this darn blog thing allows me share my ideas, passions, and seemingly insignificant thoughts about cooking....so here we are, I guess everyone needs to splurge sometimes and break the "rules".....