I did it! (And two new sites to visit) September 4, 2008

I made a loaf of bread in my bread machine.  Wow…that is quite an accomplishment.  It was an egg bread recipe, and it actually worked.

I’ve stumbled upon (literally, and submitted them, lol) two great sites in the last couple of days.  One is dubbed ‘The Best White Bread or Rolls from a Bread Machine Recipe‘.  I haven’t tried it yet (out of flour) but will in the next few days.

Another great site I’ve found is Frugal Food.  It’s about saving money grocery shopping, stockpiling, and has some great recipes.  Found it while I was trying to figure out how to make my own hot pockets.  Cause the ones at the store I’m sure are loaded with a bunch of junk that my family doesn’t need.  I will be visiting her site often.

Frugal Food

Update on Bread August 26, 2008

Well….I’m not quite sure what my problem is, but I apparently can’t make bread.  Second round failed about as miserably as the first.  I’m going to bust out my breadmaker and see if I can’t do something with it.  I’ll keep ya posted.

Truly disappointed wanna-be bread maker….  *sob*

Bread…Bread….why do you hate me so? August 22, 2008

Ok…so I tried the no-knead bread recipe….and it failed miserably.  I was waiting until 11pm for the dough to rise and fall…but it never fell (oh, I did use a metal bowl and a kitchen towel to cover it).  So I waited until 1am, when it still didn’t seem to fall, and put it in the refrigerator anyway.  I took it out this morning, and attempted to bake it.  Guess what I ended up with?  Yep….a small hard loaf of ‘bread’.  Dangit!

This afternoon, I decided to try it again.  I AM going to get this right….it’s just BREAD!!!  4 simple ingredients!!!  So, this time, I followed the instructions to a T.  Not using more wheat flour than what was in the original recipe, and using a plastic bowl (NOT metal).  I also used instant yeast instead of regular yeast.  Not sure what the difference is, but whatever.  The dough raised MUCH more.  It actually lifted the lid off of my bowl.  After about 4 hours I still couldn’t see that it had fallen, but I think that was more due to the outer edges sticking to the bowl lid, because when I went to take the lid completely off, the center had fallen.  So, now the dough is in the fridge, still very large.  Will attempt to bake it tonight or tomorrow and see how it turns out.

If any of you breadmakers out there have any suggestions, I’d love to hear them.  Apparently I just don’t get it…but I want so badly to make yummy bread for my family!

Homemade Bread August 22, 2008

I love StumbleUpon.  I’ve found some great websites out there I probably never would have encountered in my day to day life without it.  One of them being ‘The Left Over Queen Blog‘.  Thanks so much to her speaking of baked goods bread rant about store-bought bread, she has inspired me (and gave me two simple recipes) to make my own bread.  A few months ago, I tried making bread in my bread machine and failed miserably.   Either my loaves rose too much, and all but exploded in the machine, or they didn’t rise enough, and resulted in small, very dense, loaves.  Bummer…I sooo wanted to make good bread for my family.

For probably 2 years or more I have avoided bread with HFCS (high fructose corn syrup), instead looking or honey as the main sweetener.  It’s been difficult to say the least….especially at the grocery store.  And my kiddos like white bread (yuk!)  lol.  So, I am again experimenting with bread and seeing where I can go with it.  I would much rather make my own, than buy what is at the store.

My bread is rising now………(supposedly…lol)

No garden August 8, 2008

Well the garden did not get planted, and now we have a big rectangle of weeds.  lol.  Right after tilling it up, when it was time to plant, hubby and I decided we might want to move out of our current house, and didn’t want to put all of the work into it, just to leave it.  Unfortunate.  We would have been close to harvesting some very yummy veggies and fruits.  Oh well.  There’s always next year, right?  And, since it’s been tilled once, and amended, next year it should be even better than it would have been this year.  We have very hard clay soil here, so it can use all the help it can get!

Hello! June 17, 2008

Where to start? Well I guess I’ll give a little bit of reason behind the name.

It seems…that the older and more mature I get (NOT that I am old, or even very mature, lol) I become more and more concerned about what goes into my body, and the bodies of my family. No, I am not super eco-friendly…in fact, the other day I did an online test of my carbon footprint, and it is BAD. But, I am making changes to do what I can. Every little bit, right?

With that being said, I am planting a garden this week. I live in the middle of the biggest city in the state of Idaho, in pure suburbia…and I’m going to have a garden in my backyard. Corn, tomatoes, onions, carrots, peppers..all of it. If I could have chickens I totally would….but apparently it’s against the CCR’s. We really need to move to a more farm-friendly neighborhood..lol.

And today….after plotting out my garden, it got too hot. Yesterday, I found a website that details how to make fresh butter, and I did it!!! I made fresh butter in my kitchen. Now, granted I used heavy cream direct from the grocery store, but Friday I will be buying a gallon of heavy cream from a local farm that raises their cows naturally, on field greens, not grains. From that cream, I will make plenty of butter (and also have buttermilk) that is actually better for us.