Cornmeal buns & luscious fruit!

When last Thursday night rolled around (the night I bake my bartering bread), we still had half a loaf left from the prior week, so I made rolls instead. These are cornmeal buns. I used whole wheat flour and honey instead of white flour and sugar, and added some onion powder to make up for the flavor lost in using water instead of milk (I'm almost out of powdered milk). They are shaped by sticking two balls in each muffin tin...except for the last dozen where I got lazy and put big balls on a cookie sheet.

They taste like a cross between cornbread and rolls and are tasty with butter and honey.

Since we had no need of them, I stuck our dozen in the freezer.
On Saturday, we were assigned to bring a fruit tray to a party. I tried not to be cheap, since this host usually has very good food. We hit up the local Mexican grocery store and found luscious (and cheap!) bananas, cantaloupe, pineapple, and strawberries. In fact, the bananas were SO cheap that I bought 4 bunches and froze them for smoothies. I've never bought a whole pineapple before. They've always intimidated me. Well, no longer! Yum, yum, yum.

Nathan really enjoys arranging trays, and he's good at it, so I turned the aesthetic part over to him. He was very proud of how the pineapple-top one turned out. The second one was just where I made him cram all the extra fruit, so it wasn't as pretty.

I was snapping away and didn't actually look at him, so when I looked at the picture after taking it, I thought, "What the heck is wrong with your eye?" Apparently he was winking. ;P


I tried a new dip recipe that is supposed to accompany cantaloupe. It ended up being excellent with all the fruit, especially the pineapple. It's whipped cream/topping with cinnamon. I whipped up my own cream and added powdered sugar and vanilla before the cinnamon.
I have to say I'm seriously in love with homemade whipped cream. I used to buy store brand whipped topping on sale and freeze it. You know, the kind that is full of chemicals and nasty stuff. Until last St. Patty's Day dinner, I'd never bought cream. Then I bought a few containers on sale for my bread recipes, and have ended up using them in various ways. Every internet source said you can't whip cream that was previously frozen. WRONG! I have successfully gotten it to whip, even by hand.

Also last night, I made a batch of breakfast burritos for the freezer. Whenever I cook scrambled eggs in bulk, I bake them. So easy! Anyway, for some reason the center had a little eruption in the middle and rose up really high. It had already started sinking by the time I got this picture. This batch of burritos included eggs, hot italian sausage, diced potatoes, cheese, and assorted seasonings (forgot which ones already, haha).