{the vfwbp}

My blog is titled "CrossFit, Family and Life in Between". It seems like I post a lot about CrossFit and a lot about "Life in Between", but not as much specifically about "Family". So this begins a series of posts dedicated to family.

If you know me, you know that I love baked goodies, cookies, brownies, cake, etc. and I LOVE to bake, especially this time of year. However, because of how we choose to eat I hung up my baking apron a long time ago and rarely put it back on. I miss it. I love the smell of something delicious baking. I love seeing the finished product cooling on wire racks on my countertop. I miss biting into a hot, gooey cookie right out of the oven. I miss looking through my cookbooks and finding new sweet treats to bake on a cold Fall or Winter day. I have three favorite cookie cookbooks. I have had others over the years, but these three made the cut when downsizing my cookbook collection. I still love sitting and looking through them, maybe drooling a little, though I rarely make anything out of them.

I bought this cookbook when we lived in Nevada and I was in my "country" decor and craft phase. There is a whole series of these books. Great country crafts, homey recipes for comfort food and fun family tradition stories and ideas. This is the only one I have left of the handful that I had.

This book has a special place in my heart. If you were to ask me what my favorite gift is that Tony has ever bought for me I would say this cookbook without hesitation. Not long after we were married when we were in college and broke, of course, we were living in married student housing at Montana State University. Tony worked almost full-time at the Safeway grocery store. He came home late one night from work with this $6.95 cookie cookbook for me and said, "I saw this and it made me think of you." It made my heart happy. I love this cookbook. :)

This cookbook is also from my country, crafty phase. I loved the Taste of Home magazines that I got in the mail every other month. The recipes were so yummy and perfect comfort food. But, I soon outgrew these cookbooks as our diet changed, but of course, the cookie cookbook made the cut and still has a permanent place on my cookbook shelf.

So now that my love for everything cookies is pretty apparent, I will get to the main reason for this blog post. I search for and hold onto things that bring me comfort. I love things that make my life feel settled and bring calm to my life. With a busy family of five sometimes that is hard to do. I've decided that I want to bring baking back into my days because it is one of my happy places. I don't mean Paleo friendly baking. I don't care who you are you can't honestly tell me it is the same. The texture isn't the same, the taste isn't the same and the joy of making sinful goodies isn't the same. So I have decided that we are going to start a Vanorny Family Winter Baking Project, a VFWBP if you will. :) Every week we are going to take turns choosing a new sweet treat recipe from our favorite cookbooks and we are going to bake them together. There are going to be messy counters, dirty dishes, fun pictures and great memories. Sometimes we will share our goodies with others. Other times we may decide to finish them off ourselves. Other times I expect there just won't be any left to even consider who to share them with they will disappear so fast. My youngest daughter loves to bake, but rarely gets the chance simply because we don't bake much or eat many baked goods in our house. This bums her out so I am excited for her to do something she loves. We will enjoy in moderation and I expect my workouts on Monday may not feel that great, but for the wonderful memories as a family and hearing Kenna say, "This is going to be SO fun!" I am willing to take that chance.

So our Fall of baking is put into action by Abigail. Yesterday she wanted to make a spice cake, but we didn't have the ingredients for the frosting she wanted so she decided on pumpkin bread instead. We all agreed it got two thumbs up!

Pumpkin Spice Bread

Ingredients
3 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1 (16 ounce) can solid pack pumpkin
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 cup water

Directions
In a large bowl, combine sugar, oil and eggs. Add pumpkin and mix well. Combine dry ingredients; add to the pumpkin mixture alternately with water. Pour into two greased 9-in. x 5-in. x 3-in. loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees F for 60-65 minutes or until bread tests done. Cool in pans 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack; cool completely.

I think this was best after it was cooled, wrapped up and sat overnight. Yummo! So moist and delicious! Enjoy!