Boredom Baking

Being pregnant and in my second trimester, I’ve rekindled my appetite and am constantly hungry. While I haven’t had any “strange” cravings, I do find myself watching food commercials more closely, dreaming about food, and having a hard time sticking to a grocery list. Add that to not working and a huge case of cooped up boredom, and I tend to eat quite a bit. Today, I was feeling bored, and didn’t really feel like doing anything (that is an awful feeling, the one where you have no concentration but are tired of just sitting around), so I searched my pinterest account and went to the library and decided to whip up some home made goodies. Chad had class tonight, so it was just me and the kids, and I had nothing better to do while they were reading and playing board games, so I decided to spend some time in my kitchen. When I get into serious baking modes, the kids are in heaven because we have snacks around again (I don’t usually spend the money on snacks at the grocery store because they never last very long). So, I made a list of recipes I wanted to make with things I already had around the house (taking kids to the grocery store is not a favorite past time). This time around, my baking list consisted of chocolate éclairs, homemade soft pretzels, banana muffins, pumpkin bread, chocolate Madeline’s, and brownies. I made the pate de choux first, for those that don’t bake, that’s a fancy way of saying puff pastry dough, and baked the éclair shells. The plan is to fill and ice them in the morning so they are fresh for breakfast. Then for a before bed time snack the kids and I tried the pretzel recipe, and I must say they were fantastic! Of course, I did not get to everything today, so it will give me something to do over the holiday weekend. It turns out that it will work rather well to have all the extra snacks around because the kids go back to school on Tuesday and have to take a “healthy” snack everyday. If I can get my list completed, I can freeze a few for a later date and still have plenty for the upcoming week’s worth of school snacks. Being a baker by trade mixed with pregnancy cravings is probably going to mean that my family will be getting a whole lot of homemade goodies in the upcoming months. As long as I have the house decently clean (you can only sweep so many times a day), and am not going back to work, I have time to make delicious goodies all the time. It comes in handy when I volunteer for teacher dinners during conference time (I make the desserts every year), birthdays, and holiday class parties.

It’s funny that I found the baking bug again too, because I just told Chad the other day that I probably won’t be doing any holiday baking or big holiday dinners this year, but after today, I think I may have changed my mind. Baking is not only relaxing for me, it is a boredom buster, and I love it!! Hopefully I don’t loose my passion as I become more pregnant and closer to my due date, because between the DIY crafts for baby and baking I can occupy my time well, and will have plenty of snacks in the freezer for the rest of the school year.