Shopping and Baking and Cooking, Oh My!

I just spent $146.73 at my local grocery. With the exception of 8 cups of shredded cheddar and a package of sliced American cheese, there were no processed foods involved.

I'll sacrifice having processed food in my cart for breakfast burritos and quick grilled cheeses. Especially since a good chunk of the bill was flour, baking soda, powder, eggs, and butter to start baking my own bread, biscuits, and cookies.

Corn bread I do. I make Date Nut Bread at the holidays from Grandma's recipe in Mom's script on the faded index card she pulled out and put on the kitchen counter when I was little. I got to help mixing 'potions' for her. Sifting the flour and the baking powder.

I should really make biscuits too. I love biscuits. Mark just gave me a mason jar of his family's apple butter from this year's harvest. So there's buttermilk in my fridge now too for the biscuits.

And I have the Aunt Ida Cookie Cookbook that Aunt Margaret put together. And I love cookies. And I found Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate chips for dirt cheap at the Big Lots. If you have a Big Lots near you...shop there. Dry goods and cheap pantry items.

And I read this yesterday. So I'll be starting in on loaf number 1 shortly. Details to follow.

Now there's a pot of lentil soup on the stove bubbling away. The onions, celery, and carrots sauted in bacon drippings. Then I added in the water, tomato paste, sweet and hot italian sausage, the chopped bacon, and the lentils. After 15 minutes the potatoes went in. After another fifteen the chopped parsley went in. The thyme and bay leaves have been doing their job the whole time.

UPDATE: The dough is covered by a damp cloth and rising in a warm place as we speak (er, um...as I type).

UDPATE 2:

UDPATE 3:

Sweet Jebus, I'm BAKING!