Books and baking

I have a lot of cookbooks, which I seldom look at because...

...they live on the top of the kitchen cupboard above the fridge. 

Even if I drag a chair over and stand on my tippy toes, I can't quite reach them.  Because not only are they high, but I also have to reach over the fridge!  Needless to say, I sometimes think I'd like to make something, then I look up at the books and go naaaahh, I can't be bothered.

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So I had this brilliant idea:  Why not put a shelf up at a height that I can actually reach?  (Duh!)  I chose a floating shelf  because I liked the look of a shelf without the ugly brackets underneath.  That seemed like a good idea until I looked at the load restrictions.  10 kg only. 

So how many cookbooks = 10kg?

Not many! 

4 books, 1 binder and a ½ dozen magazines to be exact.

I bought some stupid brackets today.

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This morning was  sunny & pleasant, but the afternoon was kinda crappy.  A good day for baking.  I had some apples that were past thier best, so I decided to use them up in this coffee cake.  I screwed it up though.  I was supposed to press the apples into the batter so that it would rise up and over them.  Oops, mine are just sitting on top and as as a result they're kind of dried out.  Oh well, I'll know better next time.

I still had 2 apples left, so they became apple streusel muffins.   Yeah, I know, they aren't very streusel-ly, but they taste pretty good.  (Better than the cake at least)

And some tofu "sausage" rolls.  Quit snickering - they're pretty good.  Dan even likes them!

Now I'm off to have tea with a bunch of Spanish speakers at a coffee shop in Marda Loop.  This'll be my 3rd meetup in the last couple of weeks.  I still can't contribute much to the conversations, but I'm starting to feel like less of an outsider.  They seem like a nice bunch of people - if only I could understand them...