The Accidental Boilermaker

I love baking cookies.  There are so many varieties to try and thankfully, cookies are really hard to mess up - they always turn out delicious. Recently, I have been buying a lot of all-purpose flour for my new sourdough obsession, but I also like to keep whole wheat flour on hand.  (I don't bake with whole wheat flour as often because Nate isn't as excited when I make "healthy" bread.)  I also happened to have 3/4 of a bag of chocolate chips, so I thought some whole wheat chocolate chip cookies sounded really good.  But I was worried that there wouldn't be enough chocolate chips, so I found a recipe for  double chocolate chip whole wheat cookies  (when in doubt, add more chocolate). The great thing about this recipe, besides the fact that the cookies turned out perfect, was not only does it have whole wheat flour, you substitute some of the butter for greek yogurt.  So while not really healthy, they're kind of healthy...kind of.

On Friday, Nate and I went to a Virginia Tech hockey game.  Hockey is a club sport at Tech and they play all their home games in Roanoke.  We had a really fun time, especially because we won 7-0 against Duke. I finally got some tomatoes!  I let the red ones ripen for about a week on the counter.  The yellow guy I found on the second tomato plant after my run on Saturday.  He was a little under ripe, but into the sauce he went anyway. Tomatoes become pasta sauce - homemade is way better than anything from a jar.

On Saturday Nate and I went on a drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Four hundred and sixty-nine miles long, the Parkway starts in North Carolina and travels north to the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia.  We can hop on just south of Roanoke.  We only drove for about 25 miles, but there were a lot of beautiful views.  It should be really pretty once the leaves start changing colors. Under the Parkway. Scenic overlook Another sourdough starter creation -   Blueberry scones .  They were really yummy. Nate came home Friday with two grocery bags of fresh basil.  So exciting because we both really like pesto even though it's a pain to make without a food processor (but worth the effort I think).

These super cute slippers took me a couple tries before I got them right, but I think they were worth the work.  I followed  this pattern , but I had to decrease my hook size from H to G in order for the slippers to fit.   Now I need a new project...

My first attempt at sourdough bread was a success!  The first two loaves got a little dark, so I played around with the oven temperature and the next two turned out better.  I can't wait to bake again with my starter.  Thanks to the Wild Yeast Blog for the easy to follow recipe . Our fall garden is doing well.  We should have some lettuce soon.  I just pulled out our green beans and planted 4 more rows and my tomatoes are slowly turning red.  I really hope I get enough to at least make some sauce Broccoli Lettuce