Baking, oh how you brighten up my day!

I was pretty bummed this morning. The baking powder free sweet potato pancakes didn't turn out so great. The texture was a gross gelatinous mess. I broke down and added in some baking powder to try and salvage the second half of the batch. Wow. Totally different. 

If I would have thought about it ahead of time, I would have tried incorporating whipped egg whites to get a bit of air into them...but I forgot. In my defense, I hadn't made coffee yet, so I can't be held accountable.

Anyway, the whole experience got me pretty down and wondering whether I was actually going to make it these 30 days without making more concessions than I'd like to. After today's situation, I figured I'd implement a new rule going forward: If something isn't turning out right, and I have the chance to fix it, I'm going to salvage it any way I can. At the end of the day, I feel better about adding a little something extra to make a dish work rather than pitch it because I don't like the way it tastes.

Plus, I'm just ready for my husband to be back home. We've never been one of those needy couples who are attached at the hip. We do our own things and we do things together and it works. The first few days he was out of town, it was kind of nice...sadly quiet...but I got stuff done and kept myself busy. Now I'm over the novelty of being home alone. Plus I need my dishwasher. I don't like this cooking AND cleaning business. What's that line about hearts grow fonder?

Anyways...where was I? Oh right, baking. I really do love baking. It makes me happy, even when I don't feel like being happy. I made some pecan macarons today. They're awesome and seeing those little feet come out the oven just really made my day, especially since this is the first time I've ever made them. It totally restored my faith in being able to do this.

Here's the rundown:

Breakfast: sweet potato pancakes. The beautiful ones on the left have baking powder. The sad ones on the right don't.

Now, I couldn't really care if how my food looks if it tastes good, but let me tell you, the baking powder pancakes didn't just look better, they tasted WAY better. See those pretty little air pockets? Totally changes the texture and taste of the pancakes.

See? No pretty little air pockets meant these pancakes were a floppy gelatinous mess: 

Lunch: leftover sauteed veggies and rice.

Afternoon Snack: sweet potato chips I made. They were just okay. Slices needed to be just a bit thinner and cooked just a few minutes longer.

Dinner: wait....did I eat dinner...Oh thats right I had the leftover pancakes.

Dessert: Caramel Pecan Macarons! I'll be posting the recipe and a detailed review on Crumby hopefully this weekend.

Magical moment: that first glance of those beautiful little feet on the macarons. Totally made my day.

Random ramble: I definitely need to get to the store/farmer's market/wherever and get some yogurt. My morning meals have been entirely too fatty and I'm not really much of a breakfast person anyway. Hopefully some of my bananas will ripen soon. I'd like to get my hands on some rice flour too, because this corn flour business is going to get old real fast...like it pretty much already has. I mean, I'd like to stick as local as possible, but sometimes a girl just needs baking soda, or chocolate, or pasta. I'm going to challenge myself to go as long as I can without them, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it goes.