Spring Break Visiting

 Joshua had a week off between the winter and spring terms this past week and, of course, with all the finishing up from last term, getting ready for next term, and trying to get done the things we had been putting off during the term, it wasn't much of a break. But we did enjoy having spending some extra time together and going up to visit Ben, Rachel, and their girls on Thursday. 

Both Jory and Amelia were sick, so that was too bad, but we still enjoyed getting to see them. We arrived in time to have tacos for lunch, then Rachel and I took the girls to a doctor's appointment while Ben and Joshua visited. The appointment ended up taking longer than expected, so once we were done it was almost time for dinner. Rachel's mom watched the girls so the four of us went out to dinner at a Thai food restaurant and it was delicious!

Back at the house, we enjoyed the chocolate creme pie I brought for dessert. It is always nice to spend time with good friends.

Birthday Time

We had rain Wednesday and overcast skies Friday, but my birthday on Thursday was a beautiful warm sunny day with white fluffy clouds. I enjoyed going on a walk around the neighborhood and taking pictures of some of the many flowers that are blooming.

Joshua and I tried out a Thai restaurant for my birthday dinner and we were quite happy with it. The atmosphere, although a little on the noisy side, was nice and enough on the fancy side to make it feel like a special dinner. We started with an appetizer and then we both had a crispy Thai basil dish for dinner. That was delicious and we had a great time enjoying dinner out together.

Saturday we had birthday dinner round two when Joshua made me breakfast burritos and we had apple pie for dessert. Evan's birthday is four days after mine and we share a love of apple pie, so we have had apple pie together around our birthdays for many years. This year we didn't get to actually eat our pie together, but we both had pies from apples that came from the trees here, some of which we picked together while they were here in August.

All in all, it was a fun way to celebrate turning 32.

Creswell Bakery

 I've been wanting to post some pictures from work for awhile, but since I don't take any pictures while I'm working, I didn't have any to post. Today I found these pictures on the Creswell Bakery facebook page, so I thought I would share them. This first one is from the outside and was taken a over a year ago, but it still looks pretty similar. The sign saying we are open five days a week is gone and the plants have changed a little, but you get the idea.

Here are some of the sweet rolls that I spend a lot of time with. Twice a week I make big batches of rolls, about 120 each time. We have four types of sweet rolls: cinnamon rolls, raisin walnut rolls, coconut orange rolls, and hazelnut sticky buns. The two kinds above are raisin walnut and coconut orange. And yes, they are huge.

Here are our two mixers, a 20-qt and a 60-qt. Yes, the 60-qt is huge too. It probably comes up to about shoulder height on me.

Bread, bread, bread! This is good stuff.

This is our large bread baking oven. We just recently started using this to bake a number of our breads and it has been working well.

Here are some more pastries from my side of things. I don't do any bread baking, my job is mostly pastry prep work and then on Saturdays I bake off the pastries for that day.

Here are Brenda and Heidi trying out the bread oven. Brenda is the head pastry baker and Heidi is the owner of the bakery. Brenda is the person I work with the most since we are the two pastry bakers. 

This is our bread baker, Dave. He is up in the front part of the kitchen at the lunch line, none of the three of us bakers spend much time up here except in the early morning when we are using the ovens.

Lots of delicious goodies on display behind the counter in the front of the bakery.

And this picture is from this morning after I finished baking off the pastries for today. Jason, the manager and head chef, made me the special for today for breakfast. On a typical Saturday I usually bake 3 dozen cookies, 4 dozen scones, 1 dozen ham and cheese pretzels, 4 dozen biscuits, 2 dozen muffins, 1 dozen meat pies, 32 danishes, and 68 sweet rolls. I don't actually mix anything up on Saturdays, everything is formed and ready to go so I run everything through the ovens, brushing some with cream or egg wash, and then drizzle things with chocolate or icing and frost the cinnamon rolls. So, there's a little peak behind the scenes. If you are ever in Creswell, come on by!

March Update

I haven't been posting much lately, so I figured it was time for an update.

We are coming to the end of the winter term and with just one week of classes left before finals week, Joshua has been busy doing lots of reading and writing. He just recently found out that he will be solo teaching a critical thinking class next term and has also started preparing for that.

  Meanwhile I have been keeping myself busy with lots of baking, both at work and home. I have been on a bread kick lately and have been baking lots of bread. I got a starter going and used it to make a decent loaf of sourdough bread, but then the starter froze in the back of our fridge, oops. I'm thinking about starting another one soon though and will not store it in the coldest part of our fridge this time.

We have cabbage and tomato seeds sprouting for our spring planting and with all the sunshine we have had lately it feels like that time is just around the corner. There are so many things blooming around town now, it is really pretty. The daffodils came first, but they have been followed by many other flowers and trees and it is beautiful walking or driving pretty much everywhere around here.

Daffodils

I was so excited to discover we have daffodils growing right outside our arbor. Spring is coming.

Valentine's Day

We started Valentine's Day off in the same way we have started every Saturday lately, by getting up at 4:20 so I could go to work. I started working Saturdays in December and I go in to bake all the pastries for the day. The rest of the week I do prep work so I start mid-morning, but Saturday I have to be there by five. That has been going pretty well, one of the nice things is that I'm usually off by about 8:30 and can come home and have breakfast with Joshua. This week, of course, we had pink heart shaped pancakes.

We decided to have a four-course meal for dinner to celebrate. 

The Menu

Broiled Grapefruit

Freshly Baked Sourdough Bread and Gruyère

Pork Chops and Asparagus

Molten Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Sauce

It was fun to eat a fancy meal on our china from Great Grandma Bushway and the food was delicious.

When Life Gives You Lemons...

...make marmalade! And if your marmalade doesn't set well, call it syrup.

Pecan Orange Salmon

We have really been enjoying this salmon recipe lately. I think I found it in one of my Taste of Home magazines. 

Pecan Orange Salmon

1 T orange zest

1/3 cup orange juice

1 T honey

2 t Dijon mustard

2 t olive oil

1/2 t salt

1/4 t pepper

4 salmon fillets (5oz each)

2 T chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 425. In a small bowl, whisk the first seven ingredients until blended. Place salmon in foil lined baking dish. Pour sauce over salmon; sprinkle with pecans. Bake salmon, uncovered, 15-18 minutes or until fish just begins to flake easily with a fork.

We used our last California orange to make salmon tonight, but I'm thinking about trying it soon with Meyer lemons.

Goodbye California, Hello Again Oregon

Grandad took us out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant our last night in California for this trip.

The next morning, we headed north with bellies full of eggs, bacon, and waffles and a car full of citrus.

It was a beautiful day for driving and Mt. Shasta looked spectacular covered in snow. We arrived home around dinner time and were able to unload the car and settle in before bed. It was a great trip and so nice to see everyone, but we were glad to be home and sleep in our own bed again.

Time to Party

Emery spent the night at Dad and Mom's house Tuesday, so we enjoyed spending some extra time with her.

Michelle arrived Wednesday later in the morning and we went out to pick oranges and grapefruit off the trees. It was supposed to freeze that night, so we wanted to save the fruit. This is all from two trees.

I made my traditional New Year's party snack, muddy buddies. When Isaac and Heather arrived, they got right to work making food too.

We had tons of delicious snacks and Mom made chili for dinner. Later, we got the chocolate fountain going.

Natalie was the champion dancer for the night, she just kept going.

Mom, Heather, and I worked on some sewing projects.

All three kids and all the adults made it to midnight, which was a first. We had fun toasting and wishing each other a happy new year. Then we pretty quickly headed to bed.

The next morning we had quiche, cinnamon rolls, and freshly squeezed orange juice for breakfast.

We enjoyed a relaxed morning and a walk in the sunshine to kick off the beginning of 2015.

Hot Chocolate Treat

On our way back to Dad and Mom's house on Tuesday, we picked up the Nickell kids and took them out for hot chocolate. It was pretty chilly outside, so we were glad when some people left and we were able to grab a small table inside. After our drinks, we went to the pet store and looked at all the animals. These kids are pretty special and we always enjoy getting to hang out with them.