My Other Side

Sure, I love gardening, but I had a hard time being too into it this summer for some odd reason. We had a long, hot summer, which meant it was a fantastic growing season. We probably could have even grown red peppers! (Which have eluded us the past two years we tried--wouldn't you know we didn't even attempt it this past summer? Bah!) We had tomatoes coming out our ears (cherry and Big Boys), we were rolling in green beans and the cukes were just as delicious as ever.

Still struggled with septoria on the tomatoes, though. We've finally decided we're going to have to rotate the crops, so to speak. The tomatoes will go in the boxes and we'll plant green beans over where the tomatoes were. Hopefully, this will take care of the problems we were having. The plethora of tomatoes meant Rick learned how to make a killer spaghetti pomodoro and Margherita pizza. My mouth is watering just thinking of it!

But when the weather gets cold and the garden lies in wait for the spring, my heart turns to the oven. The fall was meant for baking and I've never enjoyed it more than I have this fall. I bought a Kitchenaid mixer for the first time, blew it out and had to get a new one (no thanks to their affreux customer service--thank GOD it went just before we'd had it for 90 days so Sears would take it back). Yes, I used it that much. I ended up with the machine I should have gotten in the first place, anyways.

What's my favorite thing to bake? Hard to say, but I do love yeast breads. I've baked a lot of things, but nothing smells quite as good as baking a loaf of cinnamon bread. But nothing TASTES quite as good as fresh croissants from the oven (better than when I lived in France, to be honest). Except maybe eclairs. And yes, I've done those, too. And then there are all the pastry-style things for baking, like pastry cream (OMG! HEAVEN!) and lemon curd, and pate a choux and chocolate ganache. I think I'm more impressed I can do these things than I really love doing them. As delicious as pastry cream is (and it's just about the most delicious thing in the world), it's a bit too much like cooking for me. Very. precise. cooking.

Cookies are awesome, but they're too easy for me to snack on. And there's not a ton that's challenging about cookies--at least not cookies that I really want to bake. And I've realized that I just do not like cakes at all. Other people seem to like my cakes, but they're a little too fussy for my taste. After all, I'm the one that should be fussy, not the baked goods.

But this weekend, I'm tackling something that I never thought I'd even try: Italian Buttercream. I know what you're thinking: Isn't buttercream just butter, confectioners' sugar, vanilla and maybe some chocolate and shortening (if your cake is sitting in a warm area for a while)? Well, that's fake buttercream. It's the buttercream we all know how to do and it's tasty. But it's not real. Italian buttercream requires things like instant read thermometers, a powerful stand mixer and three arms. I've got the first two things, so I think I'm ready to try it. I'll let you know how it goes!