Bread Making

Okay, what is this all over my counter? Bread mixes made by me.: Winter cometh and I am longing for stews and soups and crockpotty type dishes with homemade bread. Do you still have that bread maker on a shelf somewhere? This is what I do with mine. I make my favorite mix up ahead. Since I had scored some flour at .99 and the season is right, it was time to mix some more up. How many do I do at a time? Well that is decided by how many plastic bags or how much ingredients I have. I was hoping to use up the last of my whole wheat flour but ran out of plastic bags. If you notice that the bags all look different, I have a confession to make: I wash out my ziplocks untill they are dead (so now you know how frugal I am :). Here is my favorite recipe:

Whole Wheat Bread - large loaf

Bread Flour (I use regular) 2 1/2 Cups
Whole Wheat Four 1/2 Cup
Salt 1 1/2 teaspoons
Sugar 3 Tablespoons
Dry Milk 1 1/2 Tablespoons

All the above into the ziplock bags.

Warm tap water 1 1/8 Cups
Add the bag
Dry Yeast: 1 teaspoon for bread setting, 2 tsp for bread rapid setting
Butter 1 1/2 tablespoon

Rainy Day Fun

This is our 4th day without wheels and our 2nd rainy day. Entertaining the 14 to 18 month old set can be tricky on days like today. If you are stumped today, here is Sister Mary 4's top five boredom busters: 1. Pearler beads (those plastic things you put on forms and melt with your iron), 2. button box (string them on elastic thread with girls and make letters with your boys), 3. baking, 4. stamping (my kids love my SU robot set), and 5. finally library day. Don't forget the books on CD for when the screen time has been used up.

We opted for baking. I figured at some point everyone in my house would be happy. So who knew that Buck would get in on the baking action. I am so glad, especially as this recipe calls for some by hand stirring. Two Bits got busy supervising while he did a couple of those math pages from school. Half Buck kept little Mite and Cents busy for some of the time. But of course, Mite had to come back for a couple visits, especially after he heard the word cookie. This is my favorite cookie recipe and it is that Mrs. Fields one with all the rumors about it. You know: someone supposedly asked how much they were paying for the recipe and was told $4 and then was charged $400 or something. So she shared it all around. Wonder what she could have done with it if she had a blog way back then. This recipe was one of the first to go into that brand spanking new recipe box with the cute little strawberry cards when I was a newlywed. Anyway, here is the recipe:

Mrs. Fields Chocolate Chip and Oatmeal Cookies - Serves 2 chubbies (it says so, right on my card and then it has my best friend and my name on it). Cream together: 2 C butter, 2 C Sugar, 2 C brown sugar. Add 4 eggs and 2 tsp vanilla and mix well. In a separate bowl mix together: 4 C flour, 5 C oatmeal, 1 tsp salt, 2 tsp baking powder, 2 tsp baking soda. Then mix both bowls together. By hand works best. Add 24 ounces of chocolate chips and 1 finely grated Hersey bar (optional) and 3 C chopped nuts (I use about a cup as I don't like nuts THAT much). Place golf ball sized cookies on cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 8 to 10 minutes.

Now you know that is waaaaay too many cookies for any two best friends. So here is what I do. I place several big spoonfuls on wax paper and roll them up. Then I put the wax paper rolls into a zip lock bag and freeze them. Now I can take out enough dough for a couple trays of warm, fresh baked cookies on another day. Then I bake up a whole mess of them. It is good thing I did because, Mite stole one off the tray before it went into the oven. Then he somehow got back to the cooling racks for two more! I'm telling you they are getting more rambunctious as we go on down the line. Here is my little thief.

Recipes On the Computer

How hi-tech are you? Are you ready to switch over from the recipe box to the computer? I used the computer for finding a freezer jam recipe and it was way quicker than hunting through my books or mags. But I don't always have computer accesss. Buck, Half Buck, and Mite looooove the computer. The Prof occasionally needs access to it too, for some reason. So, I'm going to wait a bit. But if you are interested in organizing your recipies on the computer, here is a free download. My thanks to My Frugal Adventures.

Strawberry Picking and Jam

This was kinda fun. I dragged all 5 kids out to the strawberry farm thanks to some Face book encouragement from Barb and Kelly. And thanks to some blog I read, I thought freezer jam would be easy. So I gave it a try. After $28 worth of berries, I had to do something to use some of them up. Even Buck and Half Buck can't eat that much. I think Mite might have though, if I had let him.


So here is what I did: I washed those berries up and then began hulling them. If they were mushy, they went right into my blender. If they were just right they went into some bowls to eat with pound cake, pancakes, and shortcake (this from a girl who doesn't like normal cake!). And some of those just right went into freezer bags for a rainy day. Although, where I will shove them in the freezer is still a mystery!

They have this freezer jam pectin that comes in a bag (like your onion soup packets or something) that cost less than sure jell and it only uses a cup and a half of sugar (compared to 4 or more cups for the usual kind). So I figured I saved two different ways. I mixed the pectin and sugar, blended strawberries till they reached the 4 cup line and then mixed them all for 3 minutes by hand (all right, by spoon). Then I just put them in whatever leftover Tupperware/butter tubs I had hanging around that still had a lid without a crack in it. Into the freezer they went, except two. One for us and one for a neighbor who is a coupon supplier! It turned out pretty well.

Now if I could only grow tomatoes. I haven't killed my hanging garden yet and it smells kinda spice cabinet-y. I will have to ask Heidi what I do with those herbs.

Freezer Cooking Recipes

I know I mentioned this before but I didn't stay home to cook. If you look at my spices I have the basics, same goes for pantry items. You won't find any strange ingredients here (well, that is not entirely true. Now that I'm couponing, I am finding lots of new things to try). It is a byproduct of my picky eater childhood. But I do have a fondness for easy. I have enjoyed Taste of Home mags or 4 ingredients cookbooks. And I love mixing up several batches of dishes I have found freeze well. I usually just put the recipe in a gallon freezer bag and lay it flat. Be sure and squeeze out as much air as you can for freshness. So here are two I did with my stock up and one I have planned:

Baked Ziti
1 egg
2 C. Cottage Cheese
16 oz ziti pasta cooked to instructions (undercook a bit if you are freezeing)
1 1/2 to 3 Cups of pasta sauce
10 oz. frozen spinich, cooked and well drained
Blend egg and cottage cheese and add to the rest of ingredients and mix well. Bake in sprayed 3 quart casserole at 350 for 30 minutes.

Cranberry Chicken
1 Can Whole Cranberry Sauce
1 Jar Russian or Catalina Dressing
1 package of Onion Soup Mix (can halve to cut on salt)
3-6 lbs chicken breasts
Mix sauce and pour over chicken in dish (or freezer bag). Bake at 325 for 1 1/2 hours. Serve over rice.

Sloppy Joes
16 oz ground beef
1/2 C. onion
1 Cup tomato sauce
1/2 to 1 Cup salsa
1 T. brown sugar
Brown ground beef and onion and drain. Add the rest and simmer for 15-20 minutes. I have done this in bigger batches with ground turkey mixed in as well.

So now you know what I'm doing with all that Ragu, salsa, and salad dressing from the Meijer sales! I would love some new and easy meals to use in the freezer. Feel free to share them with us here.

Cooking Club

When I was a new Mommy, waaaaaaaay back when, I went to a 30 day cooking seminar. I loved it. I really didn't come home to keep house and cook, I came home to be with my kids. I find the laundry, kitchen, and cooking just need to be done again tomorrow. There isn't that paycheck, or a "job well done", or even a "I finished it" moment. This can sink me into the blues, especially come January, that only spring can fix. So cooking ahead and having it done really appeals. While I don't do it all the time, I do use several adaptations that work for me.

One involves food and friends: Cooking Club. I kept hoping we would come up with a better name, but the folks and food sure are good. Once a month 4 friends come over hauling their coolers with them. We go through a rotation with 2 of us making a chicken dish, 2 of us making a beef dish and one of us making a breakfast or pork dish. We let each other know, gently, how our broods liked the meals from last month, chat like there is no chance tomorrow to finish a sentence, and swap meals in ziplock bags ready for the freezer. We simply label the front with the name and any cooking or heating instructions, attach any toppings in a seperate bag taped to it and stack these up like cord wood in our freezers. An assortment of children accompany the moms and enjoy the play time too. My big boys, Buck and Half Buck clear out while this is going on. But when the door closes on the last guest, they want to know what meals are being tucked into the freezer. Once a week I have something new and ready to go. They get to try something new. If I like the recipe, I shoot of an email or phone a friend with a compliment and request for the recipe.

Do you have one of those bread makers gathering dust somewhere. I know there are some of you with allergies or on a health kick that are using it regularly. But mine was just taking up needed grocery staples space before Tina taught me this trick. When I make a loaf of bread, I make 10 to 20 or so. I simply measure the dry ingredients of my favorite recipe into a bunch of 1 quart bags. They sit in a basket in my pantry waiting for a crockpot kinda day. When I start up the crock, I take 2 extra minutes and load up the bread machine too. I don't have to mess up the kitchen or see if I have wheat flour on hand. The house sure smells yummy when we return. After trying cooking for a month, I wonder, did I ever make lasagna one pan at a time. If I'm making one, why not make 3 or 4. I have found,over time, that I usually have something for that family that needs a meal due to illness with little extra effort on my part. I don't have to say "I can't this week, I'm too busy." Meals ahead in the freezer are something I can share.

I would love to hear from you what helps you get ahead on the meal game. Let me know and I can add it to my blog.

That's a Good Idea

I have loved going to some Beth Moore studies; she feels like a friend. Or someone you want to be friends with. In a recent video of her I saw, she shared how she chooses what to share or say. Basically if she thinks it's interesting, she figures someone else will too. So along those lines I want this to be a place where I can share things that helped me, the good ideas I've found recently or along the way.

I love Potato salad and have this great recipe from Russia. Of course every salad in Russia seems to have potatoes in it. So usually a recipe is named for the special or unique ingredient in it. So this is actually called Meat Salad in Russia, and that is where I got the recipe. My hubby (now called The Prof) and I spent a year there in 96/97. But peeling and boiling up and dicing sure takes a lot of time. So I only used to make this for special occasions. So here is how I just learned to make my potatoes, thanks to my sister, Sister Mary 4 (I think I'll just number all those Marys since they also may apply for a job someday). Basically, wash them well, but don't peel them. Score them around the middle with a knife, making sure you cut through the skin all the way. Then place in boiling water for about 15 minutes. When the potatoes are done move them to a bowl of ice water for about 10 seconds. The skins should now just peel away by pulling on each side. I tried this last night for the first time and it worked like a charm. It was way easier then peeling them all and I didn't loose chunks of potato in the water. Here is link to see it done. If I get my tech act together, maybe I will learn how to post the video! But don't hold your breadth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4W0qIPJmoo

Meat Salad

1 pound sausage or ham
1 carrot
3 hard boiled eggs diced
1/2 bag of frozen peas (don't cook)
2-3 pickle spears diced
6-8 potatoes
mayonnaise to coat.

Boil potatoes and carrot together, dice. Cut other ingredients and mix all together. Use mayonnaise to coat.