What to do on a cold day!

Today was full of shopping, cleaning, organizing and baking.

I have to say, I LOVE COSTCO! If you have not been, you need to go. They have some amazing deals on really good products.

I started the day by going to Costco, best buy, the mall, and grocery store with my lovely fiancé! I also stopped by Barnes and noble to trap a soap making book! It has some really great ideas. I want to try wine soap, coffee soap, and beer soap!

This evening, started with a purging of the kitchen! I bought a bunch of bulk dry goods so had to clean out the kitchen to make some room. I love the view of an organized kitchen. I am not sure what has changed in my adult life but the kitchen has become my sanctuary and cooking is my meditation.

Also made some gluten free challah bread! Came out more like a pretzel than bread so I am going to make this recipe again but in the form of pretzels.

The flour I used

Before the oven

After.  Very large pretzel 

Here is the website I used for the recipe, notice the picture looks way better than mine! 

http://www.care2.com/greenliving/seven-delicious-vegan-bread-recipes.html

Between stages of baking, I whipped together my own recipe for lentil soup. It is very simple. I added about 3 cups lentils with 10 cups of vegitable stock and let cook. While it cooked I sautéed carrots, celery, onions, and garlic. After the veggies were soft I added them to the soup and added a box of diced tomato sauce and 5 chopped tomatoes. I let it cook for a couple of house and then dove in with a wonderful IPA called Union Jack IPA.

This beer was wonderful!

Boom!  Leftovers 

After cooking, I of course had to drink and watch the oscars!  I also had to add this picture the Ellen took during the oscars.  I love how technology and social media has changes the way we experience things.  

Thats all the shenanigans I can stand for the day!  Thanks for reading.