Running Into Joy

Hello, internet people! It is Week 2 of my Great British Blog Off Project and so far, I've lost no steam and no enthusiasm. I baked the day after Thanksgiving in the U.S., a day when many people take the day off from cooking after the labors of preparing a feast. Andy, who went to the grocery this morning to rectify our egg miscalculations, said the grocery was essentially empty. Makes sense on this great day of leftovers.  But me? I woke up raring and ready to go with this second bake.  This week's recipe: Fresh Mango Loaf Cake  The Prep Much like last week, I spent Monday-Thursday incredibly eager to take on this bake. Combined with the holiday bringing a shorter workweek, I decided I may as well move the bake a day up from the usual Saturday to Friday. I grabbed most of the necessary ingredients for the cake during our regular weekly shopping trip and realized only on Wednesday that we had used far too many eggs during the week. We're a very random household when it co...

Here we are, internet people... or should I just say people at this point, since basically everyone lives in the internet these days?  Anyhoo, here we are. The dawn of my latest randomly selected project: The Great British Blog Off. Last week, I wrote a little bit about what inspired the project. You can find that context here , if you're interested.  Each week, my plan is to write a little bit about how I'm feeling going into the bake before tackling it, then recap how the actual experience was. Anyone else a little wary of the word "plan" in 2020? Yeah, we'll see how the structure evolves over time. This week's recipe: Greek Lemon-Yoghurt Loaf Cake The Prep  Considering the fact that I am generally averse to lemon in any kind of dessert, I have been ridiculously excited about this recipe all week. Not more than once, I wondered if I could maybe just go ahead and squeeze the bake in on a weeknight because there are few things ya girl loves more than Day 1 of ...

 Hello, internet people!  A couple weeks ago, I got sick and spent most of the week curled up on the couch re-watching old seasons of Great British Bake Off. Thankfully, my COVID test came back negative and I'm mostly back to normal now, save my traditional lingering cough.  That time on the couch reminded me of a few things.  One, that I am very bad at being still. I hate when I can't go for walks or runs or manage a vigorous yoga practice, and I'm very grateful to be back on the mat this week, even if I'm holding off on intense cardio until this cough settles.  The second thing is that I love to bake. I didn't exactly forget this fact, especially given that I've made about a loaf of sourdough bread a week since the sourdough craze of early 2020. But I realized I hadn't really baked anything new and interesting since some point over the summer, and that kitchen adventures are an essential and absent piece of my self care. Somehow in the haze of having the e...