All day cook-a-thon!

I think today I finally scratched my cooking itch. I literally spent the whole day cooking and baking, but I was quite happy while doing it. Here's what I made:



Chicken stock. I heard it's best to use good homemade chicken stock whenever a recipe calls for it, so I decided to make a batch and just freeze it to have it on hand whenever I need it. The recipe calls for 3 chickens, but I didn't think I could use that much broth so I just third the recipe. This made the house smell so good while it was simmering.



Two loaves of bread. I can't find the link to this recipe, but I got it out of the
Barefoot Contessa cookbook. It was my first time making bread, and I rather enjoyed it. The kneading was my favorite part. Hopefully it tastes half as good as it smells!



For dinner I made Italian baked chicken and pastina. Oh. My. Goodness. So good. The baked crust on top was the best part.



Accompanying the baked chicken pastina was some cheesy bread. It was really good, but really cheesy (all the white is not just cheese, btw. There was mayonnaise and sour cream involved. I know, I was skeptical at first, too... but it's actually good.) The direct review from my brother was, "It's good, but next time, if you only do, like, half the cheese stuff, it would be even better" haha. So next time I'll either half the recipe or divide it among 4 halves of bread. but since we had an entire half left over from 4 people, I think I'll just half the recipe next time.





For dessert I made homemade apple turnovers. I grew up on (and still very often eat) the Pepperidge Farm frozen turnovers and these tasted exactly like, if not even better than, those frozen turnovers. and they were really quick to make.



Whew! I think that's everything I made today. Chicken stock and bread are really great to make when you have the whole day because you can do things around the house like clean, blog, take a shower, do laundry-- whatever, while they're cooking (or rising, for the bread). I think I might be done cooking for this week, haha. Not that I'm over it, but because I work the rest of the week and there are plenty of leftovers. But don't worry, I've already marked some new recipes I want to try out in another cookbook! Bon Appetite!