Fall Friday

Yesterday was wonderful-- and my day off I might add.  I woke up nice and early (thanks Boone) to a crisp fall morning, and a day of food filled aromatherapy.  

It has been cool enough these past few days to finally use the oven again, and I'm not missing out on a single chance to!  Thursday night we had roasted chicken with root veggies, and before heading to bed I threw the carcass dearly departed remains of that bird into the stock pot.  If you've never made your own stock before you don't know what you're missing.  Next time you have a chicken or turkey you should give it a try.  Just toss the carcass (sounds appetizing I know) into the pot with a few sticks of celery, carrots, one or two onions, a few whole peppercorns, and cover it all with water.  You don't even have to take the time to prep the veggies; peel and roughly chop the onion, that's it.  Cover the pot, put it on low, and let it slowly come to a simmer and stay there for a minimum of four hours.  I recommend doing all of this right before bed and letting it simmer over night.  Because then you get to wake up the next morning-- on a cool fall morning-- to a house filled with the most delectable scent. 

The whir of my mixer is almost as awesome as the hum of my sewing machine.

 While the stock was cooling (for ease of skimming the fat off the surface) I baked some sandwich bread.  After a year of trial and error with a thousand different bread recipes, I finally found the perfect sandwich bread recipe.  I don't change a thing on it.

A shameless product plug that I don't even get paid for-- Fiestaware bakeware is AMAZING. That is all.

Bread is not difficult to make, just time consuming.  Worth. Every. Minute.

I put these puppies in the oven right before getting into the shower (it was early afternoon, don't judge).  I stepped out of the shower to the house filled with the aroma of fresh bread.  It was about as awesome as waking up to the stock.  They were equal in their awesomeness.

And behold the glory of grilled cheese made with fresh bread, served up with chicken noodle soup from scratch.

Yum.

And don't think I let a day off pass without a little sewing.  I'm just not going to show you yet.  Maybe later today ;)