Monday, September 28, 2009

Favorite Things

I thought I would share a little about myself using one of those dreaded chain emails!

20 Of My Favorite Things
1. Color-Blue
2. Dessert-Cookies
3. Smell-Vanilla
4. Flower-Calla Lily but really any flower will do.
5. Animal-Cat
6. Month-May
7. Beverage- Sweet Tea
8. Pair of shoes-none - Bass Sandals
9. Snack-Cheese
10. Song-I don't think I have one absolute favorite.
11. Book-Harry Potter or Dan Brown
12. Fruit-Strawberry
13. Hairstyle-Depends on the day, usually up somehow.
14. Piece of clothing-Jeans
15. Store to clothes shop-Target or J. Crew
16. Season - Fall
17. Hobby-Reading or cooking
18. Thing to collect- Depression glass but I don't have room for any
19. Movie-Dirty Dancing or Steel Magnolias
20. Restaurant-Bonefish Grill

Menu Plan Monday



This is my first time posting for our weekly menu plan. We go through next Monday since I do our menus on Monday's, this way no day is left out. Thanks to I'm an Organizing Junkie for hosting MPM. For other wonderful meal plans check out http://orgjunkie.com/


Monday 9/28 Make bread
Sloppy Joes, Cole Slaw, Potato Salad

Tuesday 9/29
Eggs, toast
Sandwiches
Chicken and Dumplings in the crock pot

Wednesday 9/30
Eggs, Toast
Sandwiches
Shrimp and grits, Green Beans

Thursday 10/1
Eggs, Toast, Fruit
Sandwiches
Leftover Night

Friday 10/2

Eggs, Toast
Sandwiches
Dinner at Brock's

Saturday 10/3 Make and can applesauce, dried apples, deer jerky
Sausage, Fried Apples, Toast
Sandwiches
London Broil, Mashed Potatoes, Broccoli

Sunday 10/4
Cereal
Sandwiches
Leftovers

Monday 10/5 Make bread
Eggs, Toast
Sandwiches
Grilled Mahi Mahi, Green Beans, Corn


Snacks for week:
Apple & PB
Celery & PB


Next week I'll post the recipe of our favorite meal. Enjoy your week.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Apple Picking

We went apple picking with a group of friends this past weekend and enjoyed seeing everyone as well as the beautiful weather. We could not have asked for a more perfect day to be outside in the mountains.

Madelynn did not really "pick" apples
but she really enjoyed eating them!

Chris and I had fun too (he did all the picking for us). I’m hoping this will become a fall family tradition.

As for what to do with the 30 pounds of apples we brought home? I have already made an apple pie that tastes alright but is about as ugly as a pie can get. If you have any suggestions for a recipe I would appreciate it since I can’t seem to make a apple pie to save my life. We have been eating apples for snack and I’m planning on making and canning applesauce in the next week or so. I’ll let you know how it goes.

What are some of your favorite fall traditions?

Bread Making

In my process to becoming the unexpected hippie I have been trying to make as much food from scratch as possible while working full time. This became necessary when we thought that the possibility of Madelynn having a dairy sensitivity was causing some of her sleep and ear issues. After reading many food labels I realized that the food industry has managed to sneak dairy or a dairy derivative into almost all processed foods. To start my fight against processed foods I began making our bread. I found this recipe online and tried it because it is one of the few bread recipes that does not include milk. This is the original recipe:

Craig's White Bread – Makes 1 Loaf

1 Cup plus 2 tbsp warm water (slightly warm to the touch)
1 tsp Sugar
2 ¼ tsp yeast
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
3 ½ cups all-purpose flour

Warm the bowl of your mixer under hot running water. In a measuring cup combine water, sugar and yeast. Set aside.
Measure the flour and add to bowl with salt. Mix to combine.
Add oil to yeast mixture and pour whole thing into bowl with flour.
Using the dough hook of your mixer, combine on low (2) speed until dough forms a ball. This will take about 5 minutes.
Knead on low (2-3) for 10 minutes adding flour as needed to prevent the dough from sticking to the bottom of the bowl.
Remove dough to an oiled bowl, turning to coat. Cover and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
Knead by hand about 1 minute, form into a loaf and place in oiled bread pan.
Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise until 1 – 1 ½ inches above top of bread pan. No more than 1 hour.
Bake in 375 degree preheated oven for 35 minutes. Bread will sound hollow when done.
Remove from pan and allow to cool on wire rack.
To store wrap completely cooled bread tightly in plastic wrap. Will keep for about 1 week if it lasts that long.

Now this makes a wonderful white bread, but that was not good enough for me so I played around with the recipe, wanting to make it into a whole wheat bread but keeping the general texture. Not as simple as switching to whole wheat flour. Because of the more dense nature of whole wheat flour and less gluten content whole wheat flour does not rise like all purpose flour. There are two options for remedying this. One - used whole wheat bread flour (not available in all stores) or two – add vital wheat gluten to the flour. I went with the second option since vital wheat gluten is available on most baking aisles. After playing with the recipe for several weeks this is what I have found to work.

Whole wheat “white” Bread

1 Cup plus 2 tbsp warm water (slightly warm to the touch)
1 tsp Sugar
2 ¼ tsp yeast
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp salt
1 cup minus 3 tbsp unbleached all-purpose flour
2 ½ cups whole wheat flour
3 tbsp vital wheat gluten

Warm the bowl of your mixer under hot running water. In a measuring cup combine water, sugar and yeast. Set aside.
Measure the flour and add to bowl with salt and gluten (Add vital wheat gluten to the measuring cup then add unbleached flour to make measurement easier). Mix to combine.
Add oil to yeast mixture and pour whole thing into bowl with flour mixture.
Using the dough hook of your mixer, combine on low (2) speed until dough forms a ball. This will take about 5 minutes.
Knead on low (2-3) for 10 minutes adding flour as needed to prevent the dough from sticking to the bottom of the bowl. Dough should be slightly tacky when ready.
Remove dough to an oiled bowl, turning to coat. Cover and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
Knead by hand about 1 minute, form into a loaf and place in oiled bread pan.
Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise until 1 – 1 ½ inches above top of bread pan. No more than 1 hour. I place the pan on top of the stove to rise while the oven is preheating to ensure the proper rising temperature.
Bake in 375 degree preheated oven for 35 minutes. Bread will sound hollow when done.
Remove from pan and allow to cool on wire rack.
To store wrap completely cooled bread tightly in plastic wrap. Will keep for about 1 week if it lasts that long.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

First Day of School





Ladybug started her first day of "school" yesterday. She's now attending The Goddard School and boy was she a big girl. Just a few tears and she was fine, I on the other hand cried until 11am (she was dropped off at 7am). So much for getting any work done. Now this whole process has been difficult for me, I've gone back and forth on being excited and completely against it. I just can't accept that she's old enough to be alright in a daycare setting. A call to her teacher around 8am let me know that she was doing just fine and I resisted the urge to go and get her anyways. Turns out that she's growing up faster than I am.


So all day long I struggled with the feeling that something just wasn't right, I couldn't explain it though. Finally 3:30 and I could leave work. Ten minutes later I walk into her room and she's just happy as can be (she was eating, they must have been bribing her with food all day!) Her teachers said she did great and her daily report told us all about what she did during the day.


She got to paint, play with glue, paper and sand, look for birds outside, sang Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and climbed a foam mountain.


I am quite surprised at how well she's transitioned to this new place. I guess all the interaction with the sitter's children helped get her used to other people. We are forever grateful to our sitter for opening her home to Ladybug over this past year and taking such good care of her. I know she's adjusted so well because she's always felt loved and safe either with Chris and I or with her sitter.


This morning went much better and without tears, so I know that it will be better each day.