More Baking

**You still have time to sign up to win a dessert. I have sent invites to the entire PTC elder's quorum after Stan announced in there on Sunday. I need some ladies to participate. Don't be intimidated by not knowing much about college basketball. The whole tournament can be so unpredictable. It is a lot of fun.

So, I should probably have another blog dedicated to baking aside from the family blog. But, then there would never be anything on our family blog, so I will leave it as is. Saturday, we had our good friends, the Hills, over for dinner and games. Justin is a big fan of creme brulee, so I decided to make some. Plus, it gave me a reason to use my mini-blowtorch, which is always fun. I was uncertain how the creme brulee would turn out since I had never used this particular recipe, so I also made the brownie tart that I made a while back. Fortunately, they both turned out great. I forgot to take a pic of the creme brulee, but it pretty much looked like this.

Then today, Amy called and wanted to make an apple pie. I had bought a bunch of granny smith apples and they needed to be used, and it gave me a reason to bake even more. I usually don't cook the pie filling, but I wanted to try it, because I think the apples are still a little under-done a lot of time. I thought it turned out so much better. I could not find a recipe that called for cooking the apples first, so I just did it with my regular recipe. They were so much sweeter and softer. Combined with a good flaky crust, it was almost heaven. My dad, who also makes pies and is my biggest pie critic, really liked it. Here are some pics from baking with Amy. She wanted to be in charge of designing the top crust and so had full reign of it. I did have to teach her the importance of good coverage to avoid a lot of bubbling over, but with good venting. She did a pretty good and creative job.




And here is one for fun. Sunday night, my parents came over for dinner. We decided to make breakfast for dinner. (Also called "brinner" if you are a 'Scrubs' fan.) We never do this, but it was really good. We had french toast, eggs, grits, and sausage.

And one more side note....I have another Dr.'s apointment tomorrow and I am now 24 weeks. The Dr. was concerned in the beginning because I had lost about 6 pounds. I have found those pounds plus some. I am not sure where they are coming from.