Finally, an update!

I know, I know, I've been a horrible, non-existent blogger. But being basically cut off baking, I find it hard to keep up. I know things will improve once we move into the house and have that brand new, shiny oven installed.

In the meantime, builders have kept plowing along at the house, and it's really starting to look great. They have moved to the inside of the house now, which means that nothing much will change on the outside anymore, which makes me feel as if nothing were happening, but the contrary is true. Construction workers are coming in and out, hauling loads of pipes and electric supplies into the house. THey are hammering the whole stuff into the newly built walls, that are starting to look slightly deformed because of it, but we have been reassured that everything will just turn out fine in the end. At this point we're looking at a move-in date around the end of August, possibly early September.

Just to show the progress, here is the house in its latest glory (notice the front door we *loved* the minute we laid eyes on it ;o)).

My dad

March 1st, my dad very unexpectedly died at the age of 69. He hadn't been in good health for the past few years, but this was not to be expected. Our small family that now consists of 6 people total, is trying hard to come to terms with this loss, and all other things just seemed less important the past few weeks.

My dad was a carpenter in his working years, and being involved in many a building project himself, he followed the building of our new house with great interest. He always knew what was coming up next, told us about the time when he was still involved, and how things had changed over the years. Not only did he show great interest, he was also proud and a great supporter.

When we felt the world had to stand still for at least a few moments, time just passed us by as usual, and the builders kept going on as if nothing had happened. Which was hard, but a blessing at the same time, because it makes you realise you have to go on.
So in the past few weeks, we saw the house 'grow' fast. The highest point has already been reached, the roof is half done, windows have been ordered, and all in all things are just progressing rapidly.
The pictures below show different stages of progress.
Walls:
Ceiling in the living room:
Bedroom without roof:
Brick walls:
Roof!

Wish you were here to share it with us dad!

Week 2

In spite of the fact that we had a little frost during the past few nights, the contractor went right ahead and poured the concrete into the wooden crate that will hold our entire house in the future. It was strange looking at that surface, imagining in less than a year we'll be sitting on our couch in that same exact spot! But it is interesting to see how things are prgressing a little every week. we've never spent much attention to houses being built and don't know much about it, but now, we're even interested in the time it takes concrete to thoroughly dry and harden, heh :o). In the meantime, we've been looking at bathroom sinks, tubs, faucets and tiles, and the choices are overwhelming. Also, after looking at that, we once more changed the set up of the bathroom (the architect will be so happy...). Drawing rooms on paper and shoving paper furniture and items around in it makes you see things differently! We did the drawing thing for the living room as well and were both kind of shocked to realize we don't have a lot of furniture to fill the space. But oh well ;o). We'll deal with it when the time comes to haul things into the room!
Below is a picture of the concrete floor, taken on a quite cold Saturday morning. It looks so peaceful, even with all the construction activities going on. I can't wait to move in ;o).

Construction - week 1

It's official! The hole has been dug and filled with stones and sand, the fences have been put in position, IT HAS BEGUN!!
Within the next 6-8 months, the drawings will turn into a (hopefully) lovely home, with a spacious kitchen to bake lots of goods in :o). We're very busy running around from one vendor to the next, then back to the architect and back to the drawings, because it's like dozens of decisions have to be made every day. But we're beyond excited and very much looking forward to the whole proces. Just to start of, here are pictures of me and M. standing on our lot. The snow has left in the meantime, making the weather more building-friendly ;o).

Accept defeat

I have to confess I did. Accept defeat, that is. I really, really tried to make this oven work for me, and it just won't behave.
Last week was my husband's birthday, and I wanted to make some pies for us to enjoy with our families together. M. requested rice and apple pie, and I used my T&T recipe for the first, and a new one (at least to me) for the latter. I was excited about the apple pie recipe, as my fellow student in the English course I'm taking shared it with me as her absolute favorite. It is an old fashioned recipe for Dutch apple pie, that directs you to cook the apple filling before baking the pie. As I feel apple pie often tastes a bit 'raw', I was excited to try it.
I made sure the oven temperature was right and stable (I got it to do that at least). I baked the rice pie that I baked a 100 times before. It looked gorgeous, all seemed well although the bottom was a little too brown for my liking. The apple pie behaved too, and came out gorgeous looking.

My husband decided shortly after everything was out of the oven, that a 'test tasting session' was in order, so I cut intot he apple pie. The bottom looked a little too brown as well as did the rice pie, but I didn't think anything of it (yet). My husband took the first bite, and when I asked him how it was he answered very politly 'it's a tad dry'. He was just being kind, let me tell you that. We then cut into the rice pie, which was like eating sand. Yuck! this is supposed to be a creamy, smooth conconction, and it was just sand-dry. I threw it out. I ran into the kitchen and made another dough to bake an apricot crumb cake (I thought this was something that wouldn't fail even if the oven collapsed in the middle of baking it) and baked it the next morning for back up. It looked somewhat funny, it was like the crumbs had all melted together for the most part. Ugh...

When our families came I served them the pie (my husband suggested saying we had bought them at the local bakery, which admittedly is pretty bad, LOL) and even though the apricot cake was presentable my sister mentioned that it was 'different'. I thought so too. All in all, I threw out most of the rest and felt defeated. Very much so. So I've decided to lay low on baking for the next couple of months, until our home is built and the new kitchen is in place. I hate it, but I hate throwing everything in the trash straight from the oven even more :o(.

In the meantime, I'll use this blog for updates on the construction of the house.
I am so very excited to day that the hole has been dug, fences have been put in place, and things are really starting to happen right now, whooohoooo! I'll be back with progress pictures :o)

The piano

This post has nothing to do with baking, but since it has something to do with how I spend my free time, I thought it was warranted to post about it.

Since I was 7 years old and my parents introduced me to music by taking me to the local orchestra, I have been playing a musical instrument. During that first visit, when the music teacher thought I was too young to learn reading sheet music (but mom persisted) and reluctantly let me in, I knew this was for me. Soon, I was handed a french horn and began practicing. The horn was never a conscious choice, but it was the only instrument the orchestra had available for new students at the time, so that's what I played. After a year or so, I switched to the trumpet, again because a new student needed the horn and I was given a slightly better available instrument ;o). I did like the trumpet better and played it for more than 12 years after that, so it was a good match for me.

An even better match was the piano though. After playing that horn for a year, the orchestra hired a wonderful, talented director. He seemed to like me and talked to my parents, convincing them they needed to let me try to play the piano. He told them it would help develop my skills, and also, would give me more satisfaction in making music as I would be able to play by myself without missing the orchestra. My parents agreed, and bought me a piano. Of course, this was a tricky move, as they didn't know whether I would like it and be consistent with it, at the age of 8. But I fell in love with it the moment I laid eyes on it. I took lessons, and playing on it was my favorite thing in the world. I remember my mom encouraging me to do something else for a change ;o).

Making music became more and more important. When I was 15, I was playing in three orchestras with my trumpet, and seriously considering a career in music as a pianist.
I accompanied many of my friends on the piano, played the organ in church whenever needed, and accompanied the high school choir and orchestra. I owe that director so much for his encouragement.

When I left high school, the director of the orchestra asked me to accompany his men's choir, and I did. This is when I became more interested in singing and vowed I would take lessons one day.

Slowly my life changed though. After I finished college and started working and met my now husband, I found myself with a lot less free time on my hands. I quit the orchestra, but still continued to play the piano. A couple of years later I quit the men's choir, and the piano lessons and took up singing lessons. I loved everything about it and accompanied myself on the piano, but it was quite hard for me to get my voice to do the things I wanted it to. I could read the more complicated pieces but couldn't sing them, lacking technique, which became frustrating. When I started taking an interest in baking and decided to take pastry classes, I quit singing and focused on something else for a while.

All that time, I took the piano with me when I moved out of my parents' and started my own life with my new husband. The piano never found a good home in the living room as there simply wasn't any room for it, but it was always there. Now that we are building a house, I decided it was time to move the piano back into a proper spot in the living room. Seeing it desperately needed a new caot of paint after 26 years of use and 3 moves, I decided to give it a whole new look and make it black. It is now waiting for us to move to our new home, ready to reclaim it's position and waiting for me to get back to playing it regularly. Which I fully intend to do :o). So here it is in it's new 'do': I know a professional would definately find the flaw in my paint job, but I think it looks pretty darn good :o).

Woman with a mission

This weekend I got serious about my oven troubles, and was determined to go look for an oven thermometer and not come back without one. And I did find one I was happy with, took it home and declared it my new personal assistant.

I knew that the temperature would probably be off, and decided to just preheat the oven and wait what happened. I turned the knob to 350 and found a nice, uncomplicated recipe for Cape Cod Cranberry muffins in my brand new Carole Walters book that I decided to turn into a quickbread, as a baking time of an hour seemed less sensitive to wonky ovens than one of 20 minutes.
After half an hour, I checked for the temperature. It was about 250 degress. After 40minutes, it was about 280. Long story short, I turned up the temp, turned it down and did my best to get some consistency in oven temperature. My conclusions after the oven had been on for 2 and a half hours didn't really make me happy, but I got the quick bread baked, within the indicated time, and it was cooked perfectly.
But yes, the oven takes one FULL HOUR to preheat properly, and the knob indication is off, way off, at least 50 degrees. At least I'm no longer in the dark about what I'm doing, but one hour of preheating does seem rediculous. Just to prove my small succes, I'm attaching a picture of the bread. We really liked it, I added lots of cranberries and nuts, and as the recipe called for orange juice, I used the zest of the orange as well. I think I could easily have added the zest of two oranges, as I think the bread would benefit from the extra flavor kick, but other than that, it was good.