moving in

Upon moving into my new dorm room, one of the girls in our suite brought me and my roommate homemade blueberry tarts! They were absolutely delicious. She made them in individual pie crusts, so everyone got an individual tart for themselves. It's been over a week since we've all moved in and she's baked pecan pies and a coconut pie as well! I'm so glad that she loves baking as much as I love eating! I guess I'd better start my regular exercise routine!

mmmm.

And who said college kids don't eat well?

lunch with a friend

A week or so ago, I drove to Hickory to visit with my friend Catherine. While I was there, we went to two amazing restaurants for lunch. The first called Cafe Gouda was this little bistro at the end of a strip mall. On the wall there were SO many sandwiches and entrees to choose from. After about 10 minutes of reading description after description, I finally settled on getting the Hot Brown.

Oven Roasted Turkey, bacon, tomato, white cheddar cheese, and mayo on grilled sourdough 

 SOOO good!! The cheese was perfectly melted, and the bacon gave it some smokiness. My favorite part was the bread. I only dream that one day I'll be able to make sourdough bread that delicious.

The other restaurant we went to was called Dante's Pizza. Since there's limited seating inside, we called ahead of time and ordered subs to pick up. I had a turkey with lettuce, tomato, cheese, and oil and vinegar. It came with chips and a pickle, but I don't think anything lasted longer than 3 minutes. I was so hungry, that I practically inhaled it. If you're ever in Hickory, NC and are looking for a great place to grab a sub sandwich to go, Dante's is the place! 

They don't have a website, but here's the address: 2208 N Center St Hickory, NC 2860

adventures in bread cont...

I'm back! After finally getting all moved in, I thought I'd take some time and report how the breadmaking was going. After my first smallish round loaf of bread (made with mostly white flour) I made a second batch with more wheat flour, and decided to allow more time for it to rise the second time. unfortunately, I forgot about it and let it rise too long. Thus, these lumpy dense, hat-looking loaves resulted. Try, try, again.

The third batch of bread came out 1092849 times better than the first!!! I used a mix of wheat and white flour again, I let it rise just long enough to give it a nice texture, but ALAS...I forgot to add salt, oil, and honey. So it looked picture perfect, but tasted...not so delicious. It went down a whole lot easier with butter and jam. (In case you were wondering butter and jam make just about any loaf of bread edible, unless it's too hard to chew, or too moldy to stomach)

I went with homemade strawberry jam.