Rainy Day

When can we go outside?

Its been a rainy day. Ayla spent a lot of time looking forlornly out at the patio. I took both dogs for a walk in our complex at one point and Mac kept trying to eat the rain. Picture him trotting along with his head up, biting at the rain drops. Silly boy. I let Ayla off leash since she was crazy - water gives the dogs the zoomies - and she ran around with a big goofy grin on her face. Then she slid out in the grass and ended up smeared all down her left haunch with mud. Getting her in the tub once we were back inside, I ended up with most of the mud on me. She doesn't hate baths, but she doesn't like getting in the tub (whereas Mac jumped in on me in the shower recently, he loves it). I think its going to be a long, muddy winter. I'm glad we took out the carpet in the living room, and we'll probably be removing it in the bedroom after the winter.

Tomato Swirl Bread

I've had my eye on the Tomato Swirl Bread over at Baking Delights for a while now. I think I've written about my love for grilled cheese sandwiches with tomato soup before, so I've been waiting for the chance to make this. Here's the recipe:

Tomato Dough:
1 c tomato sauce
2 tbs butter
2 tbs brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cloves
2 Tbs ketchup
1 package of dry yeast (or 2 1/4 tsp)
1/4 c warm water

4 c whole wheat flour or white flour

Soften yeast in water. Heat tomato sauce, butter, and ketchup and let cool to lukewarm. Add sugar, cloves, salt and yeast mixture to tomato mixture and mix in enough flour to make a soft but kneadable dough. Turn out and knead until smooth and elastic. Oil and set aside to rise.

Whole Wheat Dough
1 1/2 c warm water
2 Tbs butter
2 tbs brown sugar
1 tsp salt
1 pack dry yeast (or 2 1/4 tsp)
4 c whole wheat flour

Soften yeast in 1/4 c water with sugar. To other 1 1/4 c water add butter until butter melts (you may need to microwave it and let cool to luke warm). Add salt and yeast mixture, then add flour until you get a soft, kneadable dough and proceed as above.

Let balls of dough rise until double-about 1 1/2 hours. punch down and knead lightly…cut each ball of dough into 2 equal pieces. Let rest 10 minutes. Roll each ball out into a rectangle of equal sizes. Place a tomato dough rectangle on top of a whole wheat rectangle and roll up tightly pinching dough together at bottom to seal. Repeat with other loaf. Let rise in greased bread pans for 1 hour or until double.

Bake at 375 for30 minutes or until loaves sound hollow when tapped. Let cool... if you can.

Swirly!

The bread turned out well. It has a nice crumb, soft and wheaty. It could have a stronger tomato taste, and I'm not overly fond of the cloves (they remind me of a friend in high school who smoked clove cigarettes). If I make this again I would leave out the cloves and add a couple tablespoons of tomato paste to kick up the flavor. This recipe makes two loaves, so I've put the second loaf in the freezer. I made grilled cheese for dinner tonight and the bread grilled up very nicely, though the tomato flavor was overpowered. It sure is a pretty loaf though, isn't it?

I also made mini pumpkin pies:

Aww... cute!

These are just the recipe from the back of the Libby's Pumpkin Pie Mix can, put in these mini graham crusts I picked up a while back and, from the date on the package, expired yesterday. They are topped with home-whipped cream though, since I'm out of Cool Whip. :)