The two are actually somewhat connected.

The day before yesterday I gave in and bought the new Jamie Oliver cookbook, . Yesterday I went on a fundraising walk and then ended up doing some more walking (to the stores the second time).

How the two are connected is this: At the first walk, I won the silent auction on a Magic Bullet Blender. Then, I needed to get the ingredients for a cheesecake recipe from the new book. I'd forgotten that it is the beginning of summer, neglecting to put on sunscreen, leading to sunburned arms (and neck). Ouch.

The cheesecake turned out (although it's not as firm as I'd like), and has been a hit. The previous day's recipe (and one of the reasons I bought the cookbook), the Macaroni and Cauliflower Bake, was also delicious (and easy to make).

Today, I tried the smoothie recipe for breakfast. Yum.

If you like simple recipes, I recommend the new Jamie Oliver book. I've already matched the number of recipes I've done from his other book in the last year, in three days.

Snow, snow, and more snow. eleven and a half inches in about fourteen-sixteen hours! I've just been scraping off the deck, and the snow was eleven and half inches deep. And, I had to scrape it again after I'd shoveled all the snow off - it was already white again. No question about it, we're having a white Christmas this year.
Everyone has canceled and I've been baking up a storm for the season: butter tarts, jam tarts, lemon tarts, a square, peppermint chocolate candy and rum balls. Oh well, we'll have lots of goodies for New Years - provided the weather improves.

I'd promised a while back to post on my NaNoWriMo experience.
It was tons of fun, enough that I might do it again next year. I made the wordcount, which tells me that I can actually write stories longer than about five thousand words. However, every book I've read says to 'show not tell' what's going on. That I couldn't manage, and I'm sure the story is riddled with cliches, even though I'd been trying - I read a book on writing character emotions before starting.

It's fifty thousand words of nothing. No drama, no tension, nothing happens to the characters, it's all backstory. There are some passages I like, but most of it. Well, I'm not inflicting the story on anyone as it stands.

However, I did it. I made fifty thousand words in thirty days!

Got the chocolate cake/square baked and iced and the fruit square iced. The caramel corn is in the oven. I didn't think I would get it all done, but it is.

Got the meat pockets done! Just one more tray to go into the oven. Just like the bread, this took all day. I started around 11:30 this morning. And now, I've got to be at work in two hours.

I got a new cookbook for Christmas, which inspired me to start a cooking/baking spree. The result is (if I get it all done) I will be doing all of the cooking for the family New Years party. Last night was two batches of Chili, one vegetarian and one regular (nearly doubled in size). That was simply fun. I've done chili before, several times.

Today (I thought it would only take a couple of hours, LOL) I did something I've wanted to do for a while now. I baked a batch of bread. I've never done it before, so it was an experience! I started around 10:30-11 this morning, and I only just now took the final tray out (4:30). The recipe says it make 4 dozen buns. I guess I did mine a little small and uneven in size. I ended up with 67 (and a mountain of dirty dishes that I'm hoping will miraculously disappear while I'm typing this).

I've still got more to do in the next couple of days: one cake recipe and a fruit square, caramel corn (from the new book) and a type of meat pocket (also from the new book).

Edited entry addition:
The fruit square is now in the oven. The buns have turned out to be a success, though I'm pretty sure I forgot to add the salt. That is enough for the night!

Thanks to a bake sale tomorrow, I've been on a baking spree today (Last time I did this was a couple of years ago).

So far, the list is:
- Two loaves of bread
- One cherry square (still needs to be iced)
- One batch of butterscotch cookies

Planned is two more batches of cookies, one Chocolate Chip (with M&M's) and one Double Chocolate, also with M&M's. I sure hope they sell well.

Went on a baking spree over the weekend.
Grand total of:
One batch of pastry
Two chocolate cakes (with chocolate icing)
One Key Lime pie
and a batch of oatmeal cookies.

I'm thinking of doing it again next weekend.