Not quite five...

I have been wanting to do a bit of baking, to continue re-filling my larder.  Not really wanting to think about the session today and the appointment with my GP on the morrow and inspired by a recipe my dear friend Mary mentioned on the phone to me, I set out to see if I could do five bakes in an evening.

I know.
Ambitious.

I think I could have made it, had I not crashed and burned three times on the first of the two new recipes that I wanted to try.  Math was my nemesis yet again!

Personally, I think that the baking world—at least the bread world—is prejudice against the single baker.  I say that because nearly every bread recipe that I have wanted to try is a double batch.  Trying to do the math to have the recipe is oft beyond me.  In the recipe I tried and failed and failed and failed and then succeeded at tonight, I had to halve 1 and 1/3 cup.  So, 1/2 and 1/6.  How to get to 1/6?  Tablespoons in a cup.  Teaspoons in a tablespoon.  Eight teaspoons.  So the answer is 1/2 cup, plus two tablespoons and two teaspoons.

But I should start from the beginning:

I wanted to do one of my dessert mixes, particularly the white chocolate cranberry cookies one.  I love the mixes because I don't have to worry about messing things up save for cooking them.  However, they do not have a high yield.  This one netted just 16 cookies.

Next up was a batch of my beloved baked oatmeal.  Since I have one every morning, I have to cook them every 18 days.

After that, I tackled Irish Soda Muffins.  I have not made them in ages, but I have been thinking about how much I like them for the past couple of months.  They were every bit as tasty as I remembered!

Fourth was Mary's recipe:  Colonial Brown Bread.

I would call this Brown Sugar Buttermilk Bread.  But it is not my recipe.  As I mentioned above, the math felled me.  I wasted ever so much whole wheat flour, all purpose flour, salt, baking powder (which isn't even in the recipe), baking powder, and buttermilk.  Thankfully, the later was only wasted once.

I will never rely on mental arithmetic again.
I will never rely on my own recipe conversions again.

The quick bread is close-textured (I learned that watching the "Great British Bake Off") and moist.  It is sweet and sort of nutty.  Mary told me to have it warm and with butter, so I slathered on some of my beloved Pulgra European butter.  Mmmm!

I think it was worth the steep learning curve and will be a new favorite of mine, too.  I think it will be a good dessert or a snack.  I am wondering what it would be like in the toaster even!  The original recipe suggested topping a slice with cream cheese.  But I am not all that interested in tasting that!  Maybe toasted, though ....

I am so very glad that Mary mentioned this to me!

The fifth recipe is one that I have been drooling over for a few weeks: Lemon Greek Yogurt Pound Cake.  I am hoping to get that done tomorrow evening.  But I am worried about how the appointment will go and how I will be afterwards.  You see, I've been huffing and puffing more and more and more and need to bring that up, even if I am distressed about yet another way in which my body is failing.

And I have also to face my latest kidney function blood work.  Despite lowering my overall dosage of Celebrex, the results were worse than before we made that change.  ARGH!  I cannot fathom a life without Celebrex.  It is the only arthritis medication that has helped me.  What kills me is that ibuprofen is the only thing that knocks out my headaches.  I have not had a single pill in three months, choosing instead to endure the headaches so as not to add to my load of NSAIDS on my kidneys.  To me, that sacrifice was in vain.

I am really, really, really worried that instead of lowering my dosage again, that my GP will say that it is time to give up Celebrex.  I know that day is coming, but I think it should be a long way off still.  And, sadly, we do not have a PLAN for post-Celebrex arthritis pain management.  That terrifies me and I try not to think of it much.

Anyway, so as to avoid thinking about my session today and my appointment tomorrow, I baked up a storm this evening.  Not quite the five bakes that I had wanted, but a goodly step forward in my efforts to have a full and varied larder for the times in which I am too weary and/or ill to do little more than warm up something to eat.