Bread Obsession

I hope everyone had a wonderful holidays. I have been so busy since Thanksgiving that I haven't had time to do a lot of things including updating my blog. I got some wonderful Christmas presents from my family (pasta maker, hand blender and a silicone pastry mat to name a few!!!) so I will be up and cooking new and exciting things soon.

I have realized over the holiday season that I am a much better cook than a baker. I tried making cookies (chocolate chip and gingerbread). The chocolate chip were alright but the gingerbread not so much. I did make some dark chocolate peanut butter cookies that pretty good.
I guess I am too much of an improviser when it comes to cooking. I like thinking about a dish and then seeing ways I can improve it or make it more of what I like. It is hard to do that with baking. I feel everything has to be exact or it won't turn out right. Hopefully it is something that comes with time and practice and soon there will be a successful cookie baking post here. :)

So, onto my obsession! My job requires me to drive all over the dc area. Naturally because I am all over the place I have found many interesting stores and restaurants. A few months ago in a shopping center in Potomac, MD I saw a new store coming in. Above the door it said Breadsmith. I love bread and basically anything that has carbs so immediately I was interested. A couple months ago it opened and I now I don't think I can eat bread from anywhere else. It is amazing!!! I know this is what bread is supposed to taste like! Crusty on the oustide and wonderfully soft on the inside.

Their breads are made from scratch in the store everyday and with real ingredients (wheat flour, salt, butter..etc). Some breads are available everyday and then some varieties are baked once or twice a week or seasonally. They also have cookies, scones, muffins, rolls and pizza dough. I have tried the stoneground wheat, rustic italian, coffeecake, and cinnamon cobblestone.
They have a stores around the US (mostly in the so I would suggest seeing if there is one near you and trying it out.

Thanksgiving Pie!!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! :) I have been so busy since then that I haven't had time to sit down and talk about my pumpkin pie!

When I first decided that I wanted to become a localvore, I got really excited about Thanksgiving and I was determined to make a real pumpkin pie. I went online looking for the best recipe and found a great one at http://www.pickyourown.org/pumpkinpie.php.

I bought a pie pumpkin from the farmers market a few weeks before Thanksgiving. I had organic sugar on hand ( I could of used local honey, but honestly I have never had honey in a pumpkin pie before and I wanted it to go well the first time). My mom had pumpkin pie spice from Penzeys Spices and I got organic evaporated milk at whole foods. The eggs were also from the farmers market.

Ok..so on to the pie making! First I washed the outside of the pumpkin with some warm water. Then I cut it into four sections and cleaned out the inside with an ice cream scoop.

I made sure to save and dry the seeds for some toasted pumpkin seeds. After I was done scooping the pumpkin goop I went to put the pumpkin in a metal steamer to find out my mom didn't have one. I asked if she had anything that I could use to steam the pumpkin. After looking through a lot of stuff, we finally stumbled upon a home canning pot and inside of it was a metal rack for the jars. It was also perfect for my pumpkin slices!


I steamed them for about 25 min and then took them out and spooned out the meat of the pumpkin. I then followed the recipe and put it inside my pie crust.

For the pie crust I wanted to make one out of butter. I didn't want to use crisco or anything like that so I looked online and after A LOT of searching I found this recipe. http://simplyrecipes.com/recipes/perfect_pie_crust/.
The crust turned out really well!

I made the denser pie that the recipe talks about which is 1 can of evaporated milk instead of 1 1/2 and three eggs instead of 4. The pie turned out wonderfully. It was really good too so I was proud of myself. I think I will experiment a little bit more next year!