Because I'm a grown-up, that's why.

So, I'm going for the cooking badge on my Merit Badge group on Flickr and I decided that in addition to attempting to make mozzarella cheese, I would try to can my own peach jam. The book describes cooking for a big group of people as the test of your skills, but frankly, my family is huge and I've done that, a lot.

Yes, you read that right, I did attempt to make mozzarella cheese, from scratch, no less. I haven't posted about it because it didn't work out so well. I do have plans to try again. If you want to see pictures, though, check here on Flickr. Just scroll through if you want to see the series.



Anyway, this is what I had for breakfast the other morning. In addition to making peach jam with the $40 worth of peaches I bought at the farmer's market, Jeff and I also made peach gelato, which was incredibly easy (if you've got a food processor) and actually pretty healthy for you. We found the recipe here and used the version with yogurt because that's what we had. I can't wait to try it with Marscapone cheese.

Also on my plate is homemade, whole-wheat bread slathered with homemade peach jelly. Isn't the color of both the gelato and the jelly just wonderful? I couldn't believe how orange they turned out.

I have got to find a better recipe for whole-wheat bread. This stuff was actually bitter. The texture was OK because we added extra wheat gluten, but I just can't handle the taste. Lots of really sweet jelly helped, though.

So, if anybody out there has a good recipe for bread machine, whole-wheat bread, I'm all ears.

For the how-to for the peach jam, click the picture below (I've started another blog that is just for tutorials, because they tend to take up a lot of space on this one. Let me know what you think)...


Oh yah, and that ice cream bowl is what we use to serve the birthday ice cream to the birthday kid. It's got a matching scoop too. Jenny helped me make it many years ago before I had much confidence with ceramic glazes. Funny how things have changed.



I seem to actually know what I'm doing now.