Knife Skills Part II: sharpening your knives and associated risks

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One of the keys to effective knife skills is keeping your tool sharpened. Our knife skills class chef had concerns about professional knife sharpening as the high speeds of the mill can remove a significant part of the blade.  She suggested, instead, an affordable two-step process. 1. Frequently use a sharpening steel to get the kinks [...]

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Pizza Parties!

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One of my favorite baking together discoveries of this past year is the joy of making pizzas with friends.  It all started with my last birthday… Caryl, one of my co-workers, had told me of the fun she has with make-your-own-pizza parties and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it.  I wanted to [...]

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Eat Local

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My mom wrote a book!  Eat Local: Simple Steps to Enjoy Real, Healthy & Affordable Food is a handbook for folks of all “local” interest/expertise levels and is jam-packed with helpful info. My mom’s love of local extends beyond her work as a professor/director/coordinator at the University of Wisconsin Stevens Point; she also works extensively on [...]

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Christmas Cookie Baking

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In my family growing up, cookie baking for Christmas was often a group affair.  While the meditation of baking alone has an important place in my life, I feel as though Christmas cookies must be baked with others to reap the full rewards of the process.  The anticipation of rolling dough, the grave task of [...]

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Spice-Roasted Winter Vegetables or Why You Need Knife Skills

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There are two significant factors that culminated in Rick and I making this very simple recipe: Significant Factor #1. We are not good at making food during the week. The complicating factors here are many but the there are 2 biggies: we are often tuckered on school nights (how grown up does one have to be [...]

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Cappucino Biscotti with (Hazelnuts and) Chocolate

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The other weekend I was in need of a multi-purpose, storage friendly baked good.  I needed a “thank you for all your perennial plants” gift for my friend’s mother, an “I’ll miss you when I’m gone for a week-long business trip” leave behind for Rick and something that might please my family for my dad’s upcoming [...]

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Grandma Kitkowski’s Perfect Waffles

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So, I’m cheating a bit on this one…or perhaps just stretching the rules?  Making waffles in a waffle iron may or may not be considered baking, but it is going to be my test for a baking tip I just heard. For my friend’s wedding shower last weekend, her family set-up a cooking demonstration – [...]

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Cocoa Layer Cake

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Cats like butter.  Or think they do, at least. Who knew, right? In preparing for this cake, I had dutifully set out my eggs and stick of butter to come to room temperature like a good little baker.  Not long thereafter when I heard a distant crinkling from the other room, I assumed it was the cats [...]

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Expanded Baking Pantry and Tool List

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Now that we have the basics figured out, let’s move onto the “expanded” pantry and tool list.  Or, as I like to call it, my wish list.  (Insert dreamy sigh here…man, I wish there was a way to add timed sound effects to these posts).  I used the same resources to bring you this list. [...]

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Spiced Crumble Cake with Chocolate Frosting

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Well, it’s the time you’ve all been waiting for – the first actual baking post! (Please, contain your excitement) This past weekend was our annual girls weekend at my house so I wanted to bake a treat for that festivity.  Last year, I made a very time-consuming Peppermint Meringue Cake with Chocolate Buttercream that was [...]

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Basic Baking Pantry List

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In order to bake, it’s probably helpful to have an idea of what a basic pantry and tool chestshould look like.  This, my friend, is a bit of a tricky wicket as what one considers “basic” another may consider a “luxury.”  I have done my best, however, to bring to you what I believe really [...]

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Where…

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So it turns out that blogging is harder than I thought.  Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s up there with rocket science, but it’s taken me a bit  more noodling than anticipated to figure out how to integrate what I want into what I have. Okay, the pity party is over.  And [...]

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Who, what and why…

Welcome!  I’m Sarah and I hope we can bake together.  My love affair with this culinary art originated as it has for so many others – in childhood.  I remember the promise contained in my mother’s flour-dusted yellow Tupperware measuring cups (why did so many manufacturers stop making a ¾ c measure, anyway?). My love [...]

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