Backen und Radfahren, kein Bier ... noch nicht.

Today was awesome! I was a nanny yesterday and the poor kid was sick. Well he developed a fever overnight and after a trip to the hospital was diagnosed with a respiratory virus. He must have picked it up from day care last week and is being kept in the hospital so that means that I am off for a few days.

I grocery shopped, baked, and went for a long bike ride. It was sunny and 50 degrees, a perfect spring day in my book.

After having fun at the grocery store for way longer than I intended, I ended up splurging on a few baking ingredients. I have definitely missed baking since we have been here and figured I would give it a try. The challenges with baking are as follows; finding recipes, translating the ingredients, finding the ingredients at the store, converting the amounts from grams to cups, the fact that we have no pans or baking sheets, and that we still don't have hot running water in the kitchen to clean up.

 I was in the cereal aisle when I found Vollkorn Multikorn Fleks with a recipe on the side and a picture of cookies. I decided to make Knuspringe Plaetzchen "Crispy Cookies" so I ran around the store collecting the other ingredients. I found everything myself except for Sultaninen "golden raisins" so I had to ask someone that worked at the grocery store. I have found that grocery store employees generally do not speak English. These cookies also include the following ingredients; butter, sugar, salt, oats, baking powder, ground hazelnuts, and eggs. As a baking sheet I covered the removable drip pan in the bottom of the oven with parchment paper and for cooling racks I inverted the removable oven rack on the counter. That is what I call problem solving in the kitchen. 

The funny thing about the Multikorn Fleks is that they kinda look like dog food and taste pretty bland too. But the cookies ended up being decent and I shared some with our landlords this afternoon.

After boiling water from the bathroom sink to fill the kitchen sink and cleaning all the dishes, I got ready for a bike ride. I was not completely sure where I was going to ride since we are still new to the area. The challenge is that I brought my road bike and mountain biking is more appropriate for the area here. Many of the paths are gravel or brick, the area has tons of woodlands with dirt bike paths in the trees, and the roads are not really wide enough for a bike when you consider all the traffic. But I made the most of it and enjoyed my ride today. I rode a large circle around Boeblingen from Schonaich to Holzgerlingen to Dagersheim to Sindelfingen and back to Boeblingen. It was only about 34 km or 21 miles but I feel like it took me forever to figure out where to go next and stop at traffic lights. Not the most efficient ride ever but a decent workout and I did enjoy the sights. I rode on paths through farm fields that smelled like warm manure, through bustling downtowns as kids were getting out of school, and on country roads with windy turns that seemed to go on forever. Unfortunately I did get a bit muddy and have a bike to clean...