Flying Flags 2022

So we had huge debates about this and it's been settled that the traditional Flying Flags glamping for Pam's birthday/Halloween started in 2016, so this is the sixth year we've been doing this! We haven't attended every year (I think we had to miss 2018 because of all the wedding preparations, and didn't go 2020 since it was too close to Sophie's due date) but it's always on the calendar until proven otherwise!

It's a very different experience with a toddler (oh how I miss being able to sit around the campfire with a glass of wine and talk uninterrupted for hours!) but it's been a fun change too, also a huge difference between last year and this year just with Sophie's age and abilities. 

We left Thursday night to avoid traffic and so Sophie could just sleep on the drive up. We got up late Thursday night and basically just went to bed. We had a row of the wine cottages to ourselves and we had Zinfandel, split with Rob and Raf. The rest of the weekend we got to hang out and jump back and forth from our backyards to hang with everyone else, Sophie enjoyed the opportunities to ride her bike and play at the playground. Our usual Friday night activity is the dinner Debbie and her sister put together for us all dedicated to Pam's birthday, which was, as always, delicious!

I just loved this trailer and thought
it was a nice picture

Kacey was a viiiiiibe

She was not at all a fan of this outfit
(if you couldn't tell)

On Saturday we spent the morning in Solvang just down the road cause I can't resist visiting there when I can cause it's just too adorable! Our usual planned activities are the Friday night dinner dedicated to Pam's birthday, and then Saturday is our costumed progressive wine tasting where everyone brings a varietal that we taste test, and end with pizza and donuts as is part of Doug's family tradition (that I don't at all mind adopting for ourselves either!)

Acted like a Viking outside the Viking Room

Mexican train! (I was napping lol)

Star Wars crew! (Actually a coincidence they all matched)

Cat's out of the bag! We're Aladdin, Jasmine & Abu.
I did consider making Sophie Rajah so she would be MY
sidekick, but come on, Abu is a better character than
Rajah and I love that she's AJ's little sidekick :)

We were really worried about her wearing the full
costume because every time we tried, she was NOT
happy about the monkey hat, but we got it going! She
was actually excited about it and kept it on pretty
much all night!

The rosé room varietal tasting

Sunday was clean up and go-home day (our 3 hour drive is one of the shortest ones of everyone there! So everyone needs to get a pretty big head start on Sunday to get home) and you know me, I can't pass Santa Barbara without stopping somewhere! We visited Alameda Park in downtown, a super awesome park for kids for Sophie to play and get some energy out, then hit up an old favorite Argentine restaurant of ours on the east side for an empanada lunch before getting on the road.

Love the little mission art! We were here
at the top of the hour and got to hear the
mission bells chiming down the hill too,
it was so lovely

I drove and was getting so close to falling asleep that I had to break into the huge bag of hot Cheetos that Doug so kindly bought for me and that got me awake and through the rest of the ride. We were thanking our lucky stars that Debbie is in town cause she was happy to take over watching Sophie while we got a nap (yay!) and now today is actually Halloween and we're looking forward to tonight. I have a busy day at work though, so just trying to get through this first...

Lessons in Baking: Apple Cider Doughnuts

I think I mentioned I'm subscribed to the New York Times Cooking section, and it's pretty apropos, even though it can be overwhelming (they sure do send a lot, and with a lot of variety too!) but with the change of seasons they sent a great fall round-up that included apple cider doughnuts, and I wanted to try something fall-y for this fall, so I decided to take them on.

"Doughnuts" sounded intimidating, but my takeaway was that this was essentially just a muffin recipe but in the shape of a doughnut.

For the record, they turned out great! Great consistency and fluff and tasted great, perhaps a little too soft (a few broke when taking them out of the mold) but they didn't seem overly apple-y or anything.

The recipe called for apple cider and I collected it on a quick trip with Sophie and she was not cooperating, so I didn't have time to really shop thoroughly, so while I got was labeled apple cider, it was still basically a mass-produced bottle that I'm not convinced it was any different from apple juice. Maybe "real" apple cider would've produced a more obvious flavor...?

I also think maybe I should have used piping to put the dough into the pan cause it was pretty messy with a spoon. They also were flat-topped, I wonder if piping would have made it more round, or if this recipe just wasn't very doughnutty and wouldn't have produced that doughnut-store look?

You can kinda see how smooth and
fluffy the dough was, which produced
a great baked product in the end

When I realized I maybe should have
piped them

Straight outta the oven

Cinnamon and sugar topping

Brushed with butter while warm
to help the sugar and cinnamon stick

Et voilà! Some are better than others haha

Despite all the above, they turned out pretty delicious and I sent them all off to AJ's work with him today so I didn't eat them all myself at home.

Lessons in Baking: Banana Bread

So much wasted food with a toddler. Got to have all the favorites on hand and never know when one will get shunned unexpectedly. So that's how an entire bunch of bananas got way too soft for eating and I had to salvage them (and I already have way too many frozen in the freezer for smoothies) and I embarked on my first loaf of banana bread ever! (Even I can't believe that). I kept forgetting to take pictures but here you go...

I looked up a recipe and it was super simple. What I love is that I've been so into baking, that I have all the usual ingredients and then a lot. So I can look at the list and be like "yep - good to go" (so convenient!)

Super easy enough here

I would have chopped walnuts cause
isn't that the standard? But I only had
pecans but it turned out really nicely
in the bread!

In the pan

I'm actually not sure if the weird top
is from hitting the top of the oven (we
have a double convection so it was
squeezed in the lower half) or if it's from
the weird way I spread the batter in the pan,
as you can see from the previous

It turned out great! It probably could have cooked a little bit more but I was getting concerned because the edges were getting too dark, but it was still great. Even though it's sweet and a bit of a dessert, I let Sophie had some and we were met with her usual "mm a bite!" or "more!" immediately after shoveling a bite into her mouth.

Easy enough, and I feel much better about salvaging those bananas rather than relegating them to the trash.

Lessons in Baking: Mini Top Shelf Rolls

I still had pie crust and custard left over and I had the idea to try to make Em's Honey Custard Tarts as tiny, bite-sized pieces, both to use up the ingredients and also to just attempt those.

In short: turned out just fine.

What I've learned is to be more generous with the dough. I was worried in such a small area that too much dough would either not cook thoroughly enough, or fill too much of the space and not leave room for any of the filling. But, that wasn't the case and they got flake and hard to pull out of the dish without them crumbling.

Still, not too bad and the presentation was even a little nicer with the scalloped tops. I even tried some raspberry preserve filling for a few of them too.

Filling with pie beads before baking

Before going in the oven

Baked and completed

I still need to work on presentation but again, that's not really my focus lately. They turned out fine though.