French bread and sort of, but not really, Lasagna

I haven't been too exciting on baking day lately.  It's all I can do to get some bread baked for the week, but since I had made some lasagna for dinner, I thought something different would be nice to go with it.  It's my first time trying french bread and I think it turned out pretty well.  The kids loved it, especially with nutella spread on it.  We ate the first loaf before it was completely cooled, and the second loaf disappeared with our dinner.  There have been a few requests for more already.

It is a slightly more complicated process than regular bread due to the egg, or I should say, the separation of the egg.  Once that's done though, it's pretty simple.  Although, with the yolk mixed into the dry ingredients, it looked kind of strange when I dumped the water in.  Suddenly, the bits of yolk showed up so well, that I was afraid the water was too hot and had cooked it!  But, as it turned out, everything was fine and there were no cooked egg yolk chunks in our bread. 

Our lasagna wasn't really lasagna in the traditional sense, in fact, it probably has a name that I'm not aware of.  I'm hesitant to ever make lasagna, because I never have actual lasagna noodles around, or ricotta cheese for that matter, but spaghetti was getting a bit repetitive, so I decided to use what I had on hand to make a pasta casserole of sorts.  I have lots and lots of macaroni style noodles and a container of cottage cheese that needed used.  Not knowing how much pasta to cook, (I always cook too much or too little, never just right) I made way too many macaroni noodles.  No worries though.  The kids love plain noodles.  I'm set for lunches for the rest of the week.  The family loved my lasagna creation, so I thought I'd share my recipe here.

Use whatever you have Lasagna
Ingredients:
Some kind of pasta (maybe 8 oz?)
Jar of pasta sauce (I used my home canned stuff)
Cottage cheese that is coming close to the expiration date (of course if you actually have ricotta, use that)
Parmesan cheese
Lots of shredded cheese (I used a mix of mozzarella and monterey jack)
Dried parsley

Directions:
Cook the pasta until al dente.  Mix cottage cheese, parmesan and some parsley flakes. (I totally forgot the parsley till the end, so I just sprinkled some on top.)  Put a little sauce on the bottom of the pan and put a layer of noodles on top.  Then layer on the cottage cheese mixture, followed by shredded cheese, and then sauce.  Repeat as many times as possible.  The macaroni noodles take up more space than lasagna noodles, so I was only able to do two layers.  Top the whole thing with more shredded cheese and bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes.  Let cool a bit and serve with some fresh french bread. 

*Food Storage application:  While the noodles, sauce and parsley all came from my year's supply of food, this meal can't technically be a "food storage" meal because of all the cheeses.  Someday, when I have my own milk cow and I am making and storing cheeses, I'll be able to do it without any dependence on the grocery store.

Motivation

We're a bit slow here today.  I'm finding it difficult to get motivated to do anything.  Anytime I start to do something, I get called back to assist in the lego Ironman construction.  The little man was so excited to spend his Christmas/birthday money on a lego set.  I should have thought it through a bit more.  It's tough for me to find all those pieces and get them assembles correctly.  It's dang near impossible for a six year old.  I should just turn him loose with the pieces and see what we end up with I suppose.

The dancing queen spent her Christmas money on a princess journal that comes with stickers, stamps and glitter glue.  Oh boy.  It's pure joy.  At least she was able to entertain herself this morning.

At least the baby enjoyed her blocks.  I always worry about something I make not being enjoyed.  She likes to throw them.

I'm so slow, the kids got dry cereal without milk for breakfast.  I'm working up some energy to at least warm up some leftovers for lunch.  I'm having to really fight the inclination to put on a chic flick, wrap up in a blanket and eat cookies.  As nice as that sounds, it wouldn't be, because the kids would be constantly asking me to explain why somebody in the movie did that, or went there, or said that... they would be asking for popcorn, or wanting to eat my cookies and they would no doubt be in my lap, which wouldn't be so bad if they could actually sit still.  Besides, I should do something today.

And we don't have cookies.  We need cookies.  What is a house without cookies?

I thought it would be a great idea to make some sugar cookies and the kids could help cut out valentine shapes.  It is a tradition, after all.  I was getting all excited to do something when I discovered that we are out of butter.  1/2 cup in the whole house!  I always have butter on hand because I use it so much.  So now, I am deflated again.  The baby is napping so I can't run to the store.  Besides, it's almost lunch and the little man has to get ready for school.  If you need me, I'll be under the blanket in the recliner... watching a cartoon... I can compromise.

Dinner Crepes recipe

First of all, thanks for the well wishes.  I am feeling so much better today.  Unfortunately, my two girls have both come down with something.  It hit them at the same time I got hit, but it's different.  My dancing queen has a nasty cough.  I hate listening to her cough in the night, knowing I've done everything I can for her.

Also, yesterday, I received a little gift from Boboloo.  These adorable crayon rolls.  At least one of these will be going in the diaper bag to corral those random crayons that end up in there.







It was a fun baking day today, although I did set the smoke alarm off once.  Something under the burner that didn't seem to mind lower heats, got a bit smoky when I was heating up the water. 

We still have plenty of bread, so that didn't make the list.  Instead, I decided to make more wheat bagels.  I have not been able to find any at the grocery store the last several times I've looked.  However, I was dissatisfied with my last ones because after a day or two, they seemed to get kind of soggy.  I found a recipe that suggested boiling longer, so I gave it a go.
I boiled them for a minute on each side, then baked in a 500 degree oven for 5 minutes, reduced the heat to 450 and baked for another 5 minutes.  So far, these are my favorite bagels yet.  We'll see how I feel about them tomorrow.  They aren't the prettiest bagels I've ever seen, but I blame that on the trip to the doctor.  I put them in the fridge while we were gone, and they were quite lumpy looking when I finally boiled them.  The flavor is good though.
 
In addition to the bagels, I made crepes, which isn't really baking, but who's keeping track?  I've been wanting to make dinner crepes for a while, but my husband is usually in charge of the actual crepe making and he's been so busy with school that it's been impossible to get done.  We generally make them as we eat them, which means there's always a few people waiting for the next crepe to come off the pan.  It's a bit of a production, so we don't have them often.  It wasn't until I was snooping around the recipes over at Thy Hand Hath Provided that I realized that crepes can be made before hand.  Once again, like the chicken noodle soup, the obvious eludes me.

We make our crepes by sauteing up some garlic and mushrooms, finely chopped, and then adding a bunch of chopped spinach and cooking until the spinach is wilted.  I took the advice of Thy Hand and did this the day before.  It didn't look like much in that little bowl, but it ended up making more than enough. 

Then we make the crepes. 
Here's my crepe recipe.  I don't know where exactly we got it, but we've been using it for a few years now.  I'm sure there are other more sophisticated recipes out there, but we like this one pretty well.

Crepes
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup melted butter
2 cups flour

We mix it all up in the blender.  I doubled the recipe and my blender threatened to die.  It's a wimpy blender.  I finally got so I could make a decent looking crepe using my electric skillet.  I would pour some batter in a circle and then pick up the whole skillet, tipping it around until the batter stopped running and started cooking all over.  Turn it over when it doesn't look wet anymore and cook a little longer.  I struggled with going too long and cooking them too  much.  They don't roll very well when they are cooked too much. 
If you are making the crepes as you eat them, add the filling right there on the skillet as soon as you turn the crepe over.  Roll it up and let it sit on the skillet for a bit while the cheese melts.  Our filling includes the spinach mixture as well as a few slices of lunch meat, like ham or pastrami, and cheese.  The kids prefer just ham and cheese in theirs.

Today, I made the crepes, took them off the skillet and then filled them and put them into a pan.  I got into such a groove, I didn't realize how many I made until I ran out of batter.  (Usually, we make dessert crepes as well, but I forgot)  We have enough for an entire other meal.  Guess I know what we'll be eating tomorrow.  At dinner time, stick the pan into a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes. 

Making the crepes beforehand and then popping them into the oven at dinner time made my life so much easier.  I love when I can get almost everything done while the baby naps.  Maybe we'll be having this meal more often now.

Baking day Tuesday...on Thursday

I realize I'm late this week.  It's been that sort of week.  I did not win the sweater I wanted, which didn't really surprise me, but sometimes I fool myself into thinking I'll become one of those lucky people that win things.  But then I did win something!  I entered a giveaway over at boboloo and I won some cute little crayon rolls, which I always have thought I would make, but I never do.

Today,  someone managed to lock us out of the bathroom.  Nobody is fessing up, but I can't pick that dang lock.  Bobby pin is too short, paper clip is to flimsy and nothing else will fit in that dang little hole!  There is no key to it here and from the looks of the door knob, this has happened before to previous tenants.  There's lots of little scratches, and the hole is a bit stretched from something being forced in there.  If I don't get this figured out soon, I may be taking the entire knob off.  That, or busting through with my body.  Fine day to actually drink as much water as I'm supposed to.  So here I am, trying to take my mind off of this situation for a bit.

It was a big baking day today, not entirely on purpose either, but first, a story:

About a decade ago,  I was a college student.  Every once in a while some friends and I would go to an little cafe/ice cream shop for a change from all the fast food that college students seem to live on.  It was attached to a gas station and decked out with coca-cola paraphernalia from top to bottom.  At first, it was just an ice cream run, but then we noticed the other menu items.  It was run by a little old lady, in fact I think the name of the place was Gramma's Ice Cream, or something similar to that.  She appeared to be a sweet little grandmotherly lady, but she had quite the sharp tongue -never approving of my friend's hairstyle- and such a funny sarcastic sense of humor.  I think that's why I liked her so much.  She would make any variety of baked potato you could think of, polish dogs, with all sorts of toppings and she introduced me to something called a bier-rock.

I had never heard of it before.  Cabbage and burger, wrapped in bread dough and baked.  It's like a self contained sandwich.  I guess snowmobilers would stop to get them, wrap them in foil and put them in the engine area while riding their machines.  Then when they were hungry, their lunch would be all nice and warm for them.

When I  left school I basically forgot about them.  That is until I was perusing through a cookbook that I have, and I came across a recipe for runzas, which are the same thing as far as I can tell.  I guess it's been about a year now that I have been making them.  They are quite labor intensive, especially with small hands helping, but judging by how quickly they disappear, they are quite a hit.  I really like to make them for those long work days on the ranch because they are so contained.  We don't have to have a cooler to hold all our sandwich making supplies, which is always a mess.  And I can easily hand one to my dad when he is needing to refuel, but not yet ready to quit and get off his horse.  He can eat while he rides.

It occurred to me this past week, as I kept forgetting to find things for my husband to take to school with him to eat, that these little runzas are the perfect answer.  I can make a bunch, freeze them and then send one or two with him in the morning.  They will be defrosted by the time lunch comes around, and there is no shortage of microwaves on campus for him to warm them up with.  So, I made some.  A bunch.

I figured that two loaves worth of dough would get me through the two pounds of meat I had browned, but I was wrong.  Maybe if I had stuffed them a little more.  We have also, in a pinch, used frozen roll dough, as well as biscuits in the can for the bread part of the recipe.  All have worked, but I prefer to make my own dough.

I had not planned to get so crazy in the kitchen today, but I ran out of dough.  Originally, I planned on two loaves of bread, the runzas, and maybe some buns if I had left over dough, and some cookies.  I ran out of dough with just a bit of meat left, so I decided to whip up some more dough.  Only I forgot to half the recipe and ended up with tons more dough, hence the many buns.

The cookie recipe, I got here.  They are mostly peanut butter, and not getting my fill of my last batch of peanut butter cookies, I decided to try these.  Wow.  Even my husband admits that they are rich, and he never admits something like that.  I do like them, but I think I'll stick to the spoon method when I want that much peanut butter again.  I used to scoop out some PB and then dip it into some chocolate milk mix when I was a kid.  These reminded me of that, just a bit more sophisticated, I suppose.

Here's the runza recipe:
adapted from the centsible nutrition cookbook

1 lb sausage
1 lb hamburger
1 onion chopped
8 cups chopped cabbage
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
cheese -I used mozarella
approx. two loaves worth of dough.  I used my favorite bread recipe.
Brown meat  with chopped onion.  Add cabbage and cover for 5 minutes.  Drain liquid and add salt and pepper.
Pull off a piece of dough- egg sized is what I did- and roll it out in a sort of rectangle.  Put a bit of cheese down on one side and top with a good pile of meat mixture.  Fold the uncovered side of the dough over and seal the edges together.  The recipe I got this from suggests dabbing water on the edges before folding it over, but I found it stuck better without.  Let rise on a pan for as long as it takes you to finish making them all, or 20 minutes or so.  Bake in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes.

I have never frozen these before,  but I'm going to give it a try today.

Grinding wheat for baking day Tuesday

I did it.  After several phone calls to my mom and a practice run last night, I successfully ground my wheat flour this morning.  It brought back memories of "helping" when I was a girl.  The rumbling and shaking of the counter, pouring the wheat berries in and chasing them around to get them down the hole and the amazement at the finished product.  It was fun showing my kids the progression from the "seeds" to the flour, to the bread.

Here's a shot of the wheat going down the hole to be ground up.

 This is how it looks without that metal plate on top...before I got serious about grinding anything.  The stone toward the top of the picture (toward the back in real life) spins really fast against the stone in front.  The berries drop down the hole and fall between the two stones.

 Here's what it looked like after grinding.  Flour everywhere.  I learned not to blow into there. 

I started with a quart of hard white wheat and about 1 1/2 cups of hard red wheat.

 I ended up with a pint of the hard red.

The quart of hard white wheat yielded a generous six cups, filling both the quart jar and a pint jar.

Something I really didn't like as a girl was how heavy and tough the whole wheat bread was.  My mom's generation is all about hard red wheat and I didn't realize that there was anything else.  Last year, as I was attempting to slowly move my family from white bread to wheat bread, I discovered white wheat flour, which has the same health benefits and usefulness, but is a much lighter, easier to swallow wheat.  At least for me it is.  I don't think anyone actually noticed that it was wheat bread at first.

For my wheat today, I used a half and half mix of hard white and hard red wheat.  You can kind of see the different colors in this picture.

I don't know if it was the white wheat, or being freshly ground, but the bread turned out really nice today.

I also tried the bread recipe I found late last week.  It looks a bit rough and we haven't tried it yet because we ate almost an entire loaf of the pretty bread, and we're kind of full.

I also burned the heck out of my left thumb while getting this one out of the oven, so it's not really endeared to me.  The blister is showing up much better now, but I don't really feel like taking another picture. 

Due to my injury, my husband volunteered to finish off the day, which wasn't really baking, but it included bread, so it fits.

We made some scones, topped them off with taco fixings and called them gorditas.  My kids were very excited and are planning to open an eating store to sell them.  The store will consist of two camp chairs set up behind a cooler on the sidewalk outside.  We informed them that a store already exists that sells them, so I think I am off the hook for now.

It was a long day in the kitchen and now I need to get in there and clean it all up.  I think I set a record for pictures in a post with this story.  Sorry about that.  I usually struggle to find just one pertinent picture, but this one went the other way  See you tomorrow, when I'm back to my almost picture less posts!

Baking Day Tuesday: pumpkin

It's baking day Tuesday again.  Last Tuesday was pretty boring, so I didn't write about it.  Today turned out a bit different.  I discovered that I am out of wheat flour.  I do have wheat and a grinder, but I'm still working up the courage to actually figure the darn thing out. 

It's an old magic mill.  I remember my mom using it when I was a little girl.  I find it funny that all these new skills I'm learning are really old skills that she had, but some of them kind of got lost in the middle somewhere.  She would make a huge batch of bread.  I remember getting to help punch down the dough with her.  I thought it was so fun.  Then, financial troubles made it necessary for my mom to go to work and she was no longer able to make bread.  The wheat grinder was moved to the basement, where it stayed until my sister took it to her house.  She eventually bought her own mill and the magic mill was back in my mom's basement for a bit before I carried it off.  The instructions are long gone, but the mill is still in great shape.  I'm just too scared to use it.  Yet.  Next week maybe.

I did have a bag of bread flour with a few cups left in there.  It has been sitting on top of my flour bins for several months now, annoying the heck out of me.  I move it to the wheat flour bin when I need white flour, then back again when I need wheat flour.  Every once in a while it makes it to the sugar bin, but no more.  I used it in some pretty plain loaves of white bread. 

We needed a break from the same old recipe anyway, and this was one I had never tried.  Then, as I was throwing the empty flour bag away, I noticed a recipe for hearth bread on the back.  It looks fun.  Wish I had seen that before I started these.  Oh, well.  They taste just fine with some nutella slapped on there.

But, baking day is not over!  My husband is threatening to throw out the pumpkin that has been on our entryway stairs since Halloween.  I've been meaning to get to it for months now, so no time like the present.  It's baking right now, after which, I will scrape out the "meat", puree it, and freeze it.  My daughter saw me working on the pumpkin and was instantly jumping up and down begging me to roast the seeds, so those will go in next.  They sound kind of good on this cold January day.

Baking Day Tuesday resumes! Bread, bread and bread

I went a little bread crazy today.  I haven't baked in a while.  I like baking.  I think I always have.  I remember getting a cook book when I was pretty young and being very excited about it.  I also remember deciding it wasn't cool to be in the kitchen and being a bit grumpy about getting cookie sheets for Christmas when my sisters got sleeping bags.  Cool sleeping bags.  Or maybe it was when they got those cool leather-man pliers, or those fun colored lariats.  My gifts always had to do with the kitchen.  Maybe I'm not a natural baker, maybe I have been programmed...  And now that I think of it, those cookie sheets are still at my mom's house.  The cook book probably is too.  Hmmmm.

Anyway, I made three kinds of bread today.  My standby wheat bread, much better than the last time, some pitas and a no-knead dutch oven bread.  Once I got going, I decided that three different doughs at three different stages was maybe not such a good idea.  Add to that the appointment I made at 2:30 and you've got a little bit of a crazy scene in the kitchen.  Thankfully, it worked out well.  The wheat bread raised the second time while the dutch oven bread was baking, the pita dough was punched down and rested while the wheat bread was baking.  It went pretty smoothly, but down to the wire.  My husband walked in to see me frantically spritzing water into the oven, rolling dough balls into pita shapes and shifting cooked things around because my little cooling rack just couldn't handle everything.  I'm sure it was a pretty scary sight.  I finished at 2:15.  Plenty of time to change my shirt and readjust my pony tail.

I've been wanting to make pitas for a while, ever since I ran across a recipe while searching for a good wheat bread recipe, but we don't really use pitas much.  We're more of a bread or tortilla family.  I found a recipe idea for a tuna salad type filling for pitas, and I already had most of the ingredients, so we tried it tonight for dinner.  Not bad at all.  We used all the good pitas though.  Most of them got too thin in the middle and too fat on the edges, so the pocket wasn't really there.   I'll do better next time.  If there is a next time... I have a few other ideas for them.

On to the dutch oven bread.  I lived in Germany for a year and a half.  During that time, I fell in love with the bakeries.  The bread is so different and wonderful.  And the pastries...if only I could make a chocolate croissant.  When I came across this recipe it really caught my attention.  It promised to replicate the bread that I fell in love with in Germany.  The "no knead" part also drew my eye, as my wrists have been giving me trouble lately, so the less work for them, the better.  This recipe makes up for that though, in the lifting and moving of a heavy dutch oven.  I don't have one, so I stole a cast iron pot from my mom.  -She does have my cookie sheets, you know.

I actually started this bread last night.  And I read the ingredient list several times before I believed what I saw.  1/4 tsp of yeast.  I kept looking to make sure it didn't say 1-1/4 tsp, or maybe Tbs.  Nope 1/4 tsp is all.  I mixed up the four ingredients, yeast, water, flour, salt.  No sugar.  How un-American.  I was doubtful that the puny pile of goo would actually rise, but sure enough, this morning it was big and full of bubbles. 

The morning after

 The recipe said to generously dust the towel with flour.  I think I was a bit too generous.  The flour is a bit overwhelming.

In the pot, ready to bake.

 I'm honestly a bit disappointed in the outcome.  The texture and taste is good, but it is flatter than I wanted and it's smothered in flour.  Maybe my pot is too oblong for it to stay round.  It's pretty good with butter though.  I may have to go buy some gouda to put on it so I can close my eyes and pretend that I'm in Germany for the advent.  I'm not giving up on this though.  Mother Earth News has more recipes in this month's magazine to try as well.  I won't be able to perfectly replicate that bread, but I'll enjoy trying and eating what we end up with.

Snowbound baking day Tuesday

I was hoping to get on the road before this big storm hit so I could enjoy being snowed in at the ranch.  I love watching the snow fall, knowing that I have enough wood to keep me warm and enough food to keep me fed.  I kind of like the feeling of nobody being able to get in and out.  It kind of forces you to slow down and look around you, especially if the power goes out. 

Unfortunately, we will have to stay put in our basement until the storm passes, then we can go.  Things seemed to be coming together to get us out of here, but then some work came up for my husband, and we were delayed in getting our car window fixed.  -I didn't tell you about that did I? 

On Saturday, we were driving up a canyon when a crazy little hail storm hit, and hit hard.  We thought the car in front of us was kicking up gravel at first, but it was little, jagged, dirty hail stones.  I've never seen it like that.  I thought the windshield was going to come in on us, they were coming so fast and hard.  Instead, the back driver side window shattered.  And then the storm was gone.  Maybe 5 seconds was all.  So, we've been driving around with a duct tape window back there.  Definitely makes me the cool mom in the kindergarten carpool.

Anyway, looks like we're stuck here for the night and most of tomorrow.  I hope the power doesn't go out.  It's dark enough in this basement, and I don't know how the heat works exactly.  Pretty sure it's electric.  I am going to miss just sitting and watching the snow fall.  I love that.  Here, I have to stand next to the wall and look up to see out. 

On to the baking!  Since I didn't know exactly what our plans were, I didn't do bread.  We're still working our way through the failure from last week.  Instead, I'm working on my part of Thanksgiving dinner.  I offered to make rolls, even though I've never had any turn out pretty, and pumpkin pie. 

My daughter was given a pumpkin that she fell in love with after Halloween, so rather than let it slump into a pile on her dresser, (yes it was in her room) I decided to try some pumpkin pie with it.  I didn't think she would notice since I moved it into the kitchen and she didn't say anything, but as I was hacking it into quarters, she walked into the kitchen and screeched, "MY PUMPKIN!"  Oops.  She's a good sport about it and told me later that making a pie out of it was her plan all along.  She has helped me with every part of the pies, and after I forced her to try some of the puree, she snuck a bunch of it and asked for more for dinner.  It was good for a mystery pumpkin, my 9 month old thought so too.  I wish I had saved a few seeds before roasting them.

I used these directions from pickyourown.org.   I had more puree than the recipe calls for, so I upped the other ingredients accordingly.  Four cups of pumpkin yielded three small pies, and they were as full as they could be.  The pies just came out of the oven, so I don't know about taste yet, but they look good, not quite as orange as I'm used to.  I doubt my husband will try it, but maybe... if a certain four year old in a purple fairy dress and red apron asks him... we'll see.  She is so proud of her pumpkin.

The rolls are not what I at first envisioned.  There was a lady near my home that had an amazing roll recipe.  She was famous for them and she would bring them to every church function, every funeral, special occasion, you name it.  She would NOT share the recipe.  I don't know if she handed it down to any of her children.  I hope so.  Because of her, when I picture rolls, I picture hers.  Mine never measure up, or even come close.  I'm always disappointed in my end product.  They are perfectly edible, but they are just little chunks of bread, not the light, fluffy, buttery, who cares what else is in the pot-luck mounds of heaven that I want. 

So I didn't try.  I opted to try a recipe I found on allrecipes.com for butterhorn rolls.  They already look funny, so that's no big deal, and they are covered in butter, so they have to be good.  How can I fail?  I tried to.  I kept forgetting to spread the butter before cutting into pie shapes, and the butter should have been a bit more spreadable, but, I think they turned out pretty good.  They surprised me by raising a lot in the oven, and then smooshing down after I got them out.  Maybe should have baked a bit longer?  They are done and they are pretty good.  So let's hear it for a successful baking day!

And, if anyone has a world famous, fool-proof recipe for rolls, I'm all ears!

Baking Day Tuesday: a flop!

Strange day.  It seems the universe did not want me to bake much today.  And what I did get baked totally flopped.  I got a late start, even though I was up in good time, but I did remember to pull the yeast out of the fridge to warm up.  Finally, around lunch time I got serious about making bread.  While it was raising the first time, the dancing queen (4 year old daughter) and I mixed up some pie dough.  We did not bake pies today, but it is in the plan.  Still gotta use up those apples.  I had planned to make some cookies also, but that hasn't happened yet. 

The bread... I don't know what happened.  It raised the first time and a little bit the second time.  After waiting and waiting, I finally baked the poor pitiful things.  I see a lot of french toast and bread crumbs in our future, as well as another bread baking day.  Maybe tomorrow.

Back to the pie dough.  This is a great recipe that I got from my mom.  She makes a huge batch and then freezes it in balls so that when the pie making bug bites, she's already got dough made.  Here's the recipe:

Moist Pie Crust Mix
from some cookbook that is held together by a rubber band

10 cups flour
1 Tbs salt
4 cups shortening (or 3 1/4 cup lard)
Combine flour and salt in very large bowl.  Mix well.  With pastry  blender, cut in shortening until evenly distributed and resembles corn meal texture. 
Add:
1 1/2 cup cold water
1/8 cup flour-if needed
Add water all at once and mix lightly until the flour absorbs all the water.  If dough is too sticky, sprinkle flour over the top.  Divide dough into balls.  Makes 10 single pie crusts or 5 double pie crusts.  Freeze, or not.  My mom has been known to bake five pies in a day, but I'm aiming for just one.  :)

Hopefully the next time I bake, things will work out better!

Honey wheat bagel recipe

I thought I'd post this recipe too.  Around this time last year, I made bagels for the first time.  I was very pregnant, and I was nesting in a big way, cleaning out the cupboards and baking any recipe I came across.  My husband at this point was not surprised to come home to any baked good, or any mess on the kitchen floor.  He's a good sport about trying things too. 

To make bagels, you mix and proof dough, like any bread, but then you boil the bagels and then bake them.  Those bagels on my first try looked doughy still.  They were very white and un-cooked looking.  Then I found another recipe that said to add 2 tsp baking soda to each cup of water in the boiling pot.  I have heard of doing that to make pretzels, so I was worried to use that much.  I didn't want pretzels.  I made a compromise and did 1 tsp for every cup of water.  These ones look much better than my first try.  Of course, they are wheat this time, so they look different anyway.  Here's the recipe:

Honey Wheat Bagels
adapted from lilacs.in.bloom and Cooking with Food Storage
1 cup water
1 1/2 Tbs honey
1 cup bread flour
2 cups wheat flour (actually, I didn't need this much, so add a little at a time)
1 1/4 salt
1 1/2 tsp yeast
any other ingredient you want (blueberries, sunflower seeds, etc.)

Mix up the dough.  I start with the water, honey and yeast, then add flours and salt and any other ingredients you want.  Shape into ten disks and then push thumbs into middle and make a hole.  I don't think I made mine quite big enough.  I let them rest for 30 minutes, but you probably don't need to wait that long.  It was cold in my kitchen, so they didn't rise much.  Then, place into boiling water.  One recipe says for 10 seconds, the other says 20 seconds per side.  I went with the 20 on each side.  Flip and remove with a slotted spoon.  After you remove them, you can put a topping on them if you wish.  Maybe next time I'll do some sesame seeds. I put them onto corn meal to try to give them that store bought look, but it just turned into a mess of soggy corn meal.  Next time I'll just do parchment paper or a greased pan.  Bake at 450 for 8-9 minutes. 

I'm enjoying mine with nutella on top.  Yum!

Baking Day Tuesday: Round two

I did not get as crazy this week like I did last week.  Thank goodness we don't have another birthday for a while.  As predicted, the cookie dough is gone and I have almost finished off the cookie crumbs.  Because we were out of town for the weekend,  we didn't use as much bread as usual, so I still have quite a bit of that.  We are still swamped by halloween candy and that sweet ice cream cake, so our need for sweets is taken care of... too much so, probably.

So for today, I pulled out some recipes that I have been wanting to make, but I just haven't had time: bagels and granola bars.  I also want to make some pretzels, but I don't have the salt that I want, so that will have to wait... until I make a run to the store... I do need socks... and parchment paper...

For the granola bars, I puffed some wheat following these directions.  I did it in two batches and I think I overdid the second batch.  I wish I had timed the first batch, but three kids suddenly needed my attention, and I was scrambling for the lid to the pot because those little wheat berries spit the oil at you.  So I don't even have a guess at how long.  Next time maybe.

I love these granola bars.  You can basically use whatever is handy.  They certainly aren't the healthiest thing to eat, but you can sneak as much healthy stuff into them as you like and the kids still love them.  I like using flax seed because you don't even realize you are eating the healthy stuff, and it otherwise tastes kind of yucky to me.   But, I didn't have any. 
Here's how I made them:

Granola Bars

Boil 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup honey
Then add 1/2 cup peanut butter
Remove from heat when all melted

In separate bowl stir together:
2 cups oats
1 cup other cereal, like rice crispies, or puffed wheat.  This is where I used the toasted wheat berries
1/4 cup sunflower seeds

You can also add 1/4 cup ground flax seed, 1/2 cup dried fruit or/and 1/2 cup coconut, or whatever else you want to have in there.

Mix sugar mixture into cereal mixture.  Add chocolate chips if desired and press mixture into wax paper lined 9 x 13 pan.  Press down on top to flatten.  Cool in fridge.  Cut into bars.

I haven't had a problem in the past with the wax paper sticking because I line the wax paper with the chocolate chips and it will come right off the chocolate.  However, if you aren't throwing in the chocolate, I would recommend putting some butter on the wax paper, because that honey/sugar mixture is really sticky.

My first ever baking day Tuesday!

Maybe.  Tuesday might not work every week.  It felt like I was baking almost every day, and there are other things I want to do with my afternoons, so I declared yesterday baking day for the week. 

Originally, I had planned to get started immediately in the morning, but my brain doesn't kick in till about 10, so I got a late start.  My 4 year old helped, so that took a bit more time, but we made a lot!  We made bread dough and then made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies while the bread was rising.  Then we punched down the dough and made these oat muffins -still using up apples-while the bread rose again.  Then I remembered that hubby's birthday is this week and I should have made a cake instead of cookies, so after the kids were in bed, I made a little chocolate cake.

The grand tally:
3 loaves of bread
8 rolls (because I only  have 3 bread pans)
2 dozen crumbly cookies -not sure what happened
18 muffins
1 9x9 chocolate cake
1 bowl of cookie dough, because it makes me happy

I wanted to share my cookie recipe, because I love these cookies so much, and with the oatmeal, I can pretend that they are healthy.  I've honestly been making this recipe since I was a little girl.  I'm not sure why they fell apart, maybe I didn't let them sit on the pan long enough.  They still taste good though.

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
2 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp soda
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
4 Tbs milk
4 cups rolled oats
1 cup chocolate chips, or raisins if you really want to be healthy, or dates or nuts...

Preheat oven to 375
Sift flour with soda and salt into mixing bowl.
Add butter, sugar, brown sugar, egg, vanilla and milk.  Mix until smooth.
Add rolled oats and chocolate chips.
Drop by spoonful on ungreased cookie sheet about 2" apart.
Bake for 10-12 minutes

*food storage friendly changes:
add egg powder, butter powder, or milk powder with dry ingredients, then add needed water when recipe calls for milk.
I used 4 Tbs egg powder and 1/2 cup water in place of the eggs, and 8 tsp powdered milk and 1/4 cup water.

Bread success!

As my husband can attest, I have had many failures in my bread making career. They taste okay, but look absolutely horrible or, they look okay, but have crazy textures. I have at least 25 different wheat bread recipes that I have gathered and I have been making my way through them. This one seemed way too simple to be that impressive and called for olive oil, which seemed funny to me. I never considered putting olive oil in bread. I have to say, though, this is my favorite recipe yet. My husband has requested this one over and over. I think the extra gluten flour holds it together, so it doesn't get crumbly. I tried it once without the olive oil and it was just not as good. Here is the recipe:

Whole Wheat Bread
makes 2 loaves
2 cups warm water
1/3 cup honey
1 Tbs yeast
1/3 cup olive oil
2 tsp salt
1/3 cup wheat gluten
5-7 cups wheat flour

Combine water, honey and yeast and let proof. Add oil, salt, gluten, and 3-4 cups flour. Continue to add more flour until the dough does not feel sticky to the touch. Knead for 10-15 minutes by hand. (less if you have a mixer, you lucky dog) Let it rise once until doubled in size. (this is hard for me. I'm so impatient) Punch down and form into two loaves. Let rise in warm oven until 1/2 inch above pan. Turn oven on to 350 (leave loaves in) and bake for 30 minutes.

First Harvest and oven blues

Technically, my first harvest was a few days ago, when I ate the turnip thinnings and one radish, but this was the first thing that I could actually fix for dinner. Two, 'One Ball' squash. I have lots of these coming, which is wonderful, since my yellow crookneck plants don't even have any blossoms yet, and my son's zucchini are still very small. These are the first summer squash I've ever grown and harvested. I sauteed them with some onion and Cajun seasoning. Yum! Except my mommy brain struck again (just like today, when I burned the cookies and left the lid open on the washer) and I cooked them longer than I wanted to. I thought I turned the burner off, but I guess I just thought about it and didn't do it. So, they were a little overcooked, but they still tasted good. My husband humored me and tried a bite.

Here's the garden a few days ago. The corn is more impressive now and growing fast. Hope it makes it before the frost! I'm going to take a picture this week again, because we're going on a week long trip and I want to see how much it grows while I'm gone, or if it just can't possibly grow with me not being there to look at every single plant and blossom.

I think I identified the mystery squash. Judging by the size and shape of the little green squashes, I'm guessing it's a pumpkin, which will make life a little difficult as it smashes the other squashes in that row and takes over the pathway. I need to figure out some ways to protect the other plants around it. The poor cucumber plant behind it is struggling as it is, poor thing. I'm just not good at cucumbers or beans yet. One thing at a time, I guess. Hopefully, when I get back, I'll have some cherry tomatoes waiting for me!

On another note, my mom's new oven has stopped working properly. I say properly, because it sucks you in by preheating normally, so you think all is well, but then it never kicks on again, so you put your cookies in, for example, at 350 and watch as the butter melts and runs out of them and they slowly flatten out, but never cook. Then you open the oven, which still says it's at 350, and notice that it just feels a little warm, not enough to actually cook anything. Luckily, or unluckily, I'm not sure which, mom still has an old stove in the basement that she uses for canning. So I preheat and take the already melty, runny cookies downstairs and put them in to bake. Then, my baby wakes up and needs attention. Sometime later, I remember that I'm baking, or shall I say, burning cookies downstairs. They probably would have been a failure anyway, but the extra baking time sure didn't help.
On to the bread catastrophe! Once again, it preheats wonderfully, so I pop five loaves of bread in. 30 minutes later, I notice that they haven't baked, but have now risen five inches. Downstairs we go again, unfortunately, they crashed, since they were partly baked, but mostly dough. I have a timer set this time, so even though the bread will look terrible, at least it won't taste burned. I hope.
I really have a hard enough time surviving day to day as a homemaker when everything goes smoothly. I don't need the appliances to sabotage me just for fun.