Bug's Bread

A couple of days ago, Bug asked to bake bread.  And then proceeded to do it by himself.  I measured out the ingredients for him, but he did the rest all bu himself - choosing the recipe, getting everything ready to go, and watching and questioning the entire process.  (We used a bread machine, though might do it by hand next time.)  He even told me that baking bread was "more fun than watching tv" - high praise!

Terrible photography aside, the bread turned out great!  It was SUPER yummy!  He was so very proud of himself. :)  (And I'm super proud of him, too!)



We devoured the first loaf of bread pretty much immediately, so he asked to bake another loaf.  So my 3.5 year old baked two loaves of bread in one day.  I can see us making this an addition to our daily non-routine.

The recipe we used:

1 cup water
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons oil
1 cup flour
1/2 cup oatmeal
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons yeast

It turned out so light and fluffy and tasty.  Mmm...bread...

Yummiest. Lemonade. Ever.

It went too quickly to get pictures!

Mom and Art went to California to visit his family awhile ago and came back with a LOT of absolutely beautiful Meyer lemons.  (Which I think I have a photo of somewhere...  hrm...)  We've been using them, but not all that quickly and Mom was kind of worried that they were going to end up going bad before they were used.

Richard and Bug to the rescue!

After last weeks orange juice, they were ready to squeeze. :)

Turning the lemon juice into lemonade fell to me.  I was kind of worried about messing up - even though I know that lemonade is basically lemon juice, water and lots of sugar - so I poked around online a little bit and looked over a handful of recipes to see where the similarities were.  It pretty much ended at lemon juice, water and sugar. ;)

Richard and Bug squeezed just shy of two cups of lemon juice.  I boiled two cups of water, dissolved one cup of sugar into that and, AFTER the sugar was dissolved, poured the lemon juice in.  Once that was nicely combined, I added four cups of cold water and decanted into pitchers.

Even though I only used half of the sugar recommended by a large portion of the recipes that I'd seen, it was still REALLY sweet.  Richard ended up watering his down whenever he poured a glass.  I kind of like my sweet. ;)  (As a note, Meyer lemons are sweeter than other varieties, so the 2:2:1 ratio should result in a not-as-sweet lemonade if using different lemons.)

Enjoy and I'll try to get some pictures next time.  We still have lemons!

Easy-Peasy Truffles

I hope everyone had a really nice time celebrating their winter holiday of choice. :)

We had a really great time and I'm looking forward to sharing some pictures a little later.  Right now I'm just too wiped out to resize photos, so I'll talk about food instead.  No pictures because it was all DEVOURED, but I made some yummy truffles to contribute to the holiday food selection.  It's becoming a bit of a tradition. :)

I know that this recipe came from somewhere, but it's been a few years and I couldn't say where.  Apologies.  I'd like to offer credit where it's due.

These truffles are SO STINKIN' GOOD...and remarkably simple.  You need baking chocolate - in a form that will melt - and cream cheese.  Whatever amount of cream cheese you want to use, have double the amount of chocolate.  Or equal parts of two different chocolates.

Melt 1/2 of your chocolate.  I do this on the stove so that I can watch it, but I suppose you could do it in the microwave and just keep an eye on it.  You don't want it to burn.

Once the chocolate is melted, mix in your cream cheese.  (I tried this over low heat this time because I was using a block of cream cheese and it worked out okay.  Just watch your heat.)

Once the cream cheese and melted chocolate are mixed together, put it in the fridge to cool.  About two hours.

When the chocolate and cream cheese mixture have set up a bit, remove from the fridge and melt the last half of your chocolate.  Form balls of the chocolate and cream cheese mixture and dip in the melted chocolate.  Set aside for coating to harden and then enjoy.

I tried something different this year and used almond bark for the truffle innards and Wilton meltaways for the coating.  They turned out nicely when the finished product was stuck in the freezer, but I wouldn't recommend it for truffles you'd like to leave out for the grabbing.  The almond bark had a lot more oil/fat in it and never really solidifed the way I'm used to.  Luckily, the meltaways hardened and held the truffles together.  Next time, I'll just spring for the good chocolate to begin with.  (In the past I've used both Hershey and Ghirardelli. Both work beautifully.)

Egg Bread

Oh yes, the bread machine and I will become VERY good friends.  Two loaves in one day!

Egg bread!  SO soft and yummy!



3/4 cup milk
2 eggs
3 cups bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Place all ingredients in bread pan as directed by manufacturer. Select
Light Crust setting.

This recipe yields 1 loaf.

Recipe here, again.

Honey Oatmeal Bread

Today, I took on the bread machine.  And won.



1 cup warm water
1/4 cup honey
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 cups bread flour
1/2 cup oatmeal -- not quick-cook
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons bread machine yeast

Combine ingredients in bread maker per your manufacturer's instructions.
Select "Basic/White" bread setting; crust color as desired.

This recipe yields 1 loaf.

Recipe found here.

It's really yummy (we've already devoured almost the entire loaf and it's been out of the bread maker for about twenty minutes!) and I want to make more right this instant.  The house smells SO good.

Must. Find. Outlet.

The last few weeks (erm, months?) have been a tad bit hectic/stressful/busy/crazy.  Choose your descriptive.

Bug is doing well.  Or, well enough.  There have been a LOT of changes in his life in the last two months, so some days are better than others.  We've been in a little bit of a rough patch the last two or three days or so, but today was better.  Given that there has been the same amount of chance in my life, I can't say that I've been responding well to his freakouts - which isn't helping.

Boo is doing very well.  Getting big and strong.  She's outgrown her teeny little preemie outfits and is starting to wear "real" baby clothes.  She puts away a LOT of milk and has started to chub up.  Her thighs are getting thick and chunky. :)  (Funny to me...Bug's filling out, too, now that I'm making new-baby milk again.)

My sister is AMAZING.  She's four days post-op and her doctor says she's healing really, really quickly.  She's already got full range of motion back.  My sister is Superwoman.  Which I've always known but this has proved yet again.

Great news from her surgery, too.  The genetic testing showed that she doesn't have the marker.  Her lymph nodes were benign so the cancer hadn't spread.  They were able to get it all out of her and she might not eve have to do chemo.  Yay!

And we bought a condo. (Or, Mom bought a condo and we'll be living in it.)  We haven't closed yet and there's a tiny bit of work to be done (a/c doesn't work - yikes!), but it's really exciting to know that we'll have someplace to really call home soon.  Not that we haven't been comfortable at Mom's, but it'll be nice to have our own space again, and I'm sure they'll be glad to have less chaos in their lives when we're not on top of each other all the time.

So, all in all, things are ultimately going well.

And I haven't had an outlet for any stress at all.  (Because yelling at Bug does NOT count as an outlet!)  I neeeeed to do something creative.  And soon.

I've fallen behind in my bee blocks.   I've got a few starts there, but nothing worth showing yet.

I decided today that I needed to either sew or bake.  So I looked up bread recipes and might try a honey wheat yeast bread tomorrow.  And I got a bug to make a little dress for Boo, so I started on that this evening.  I'm patterning it as I go, so we'll see how that goes.

And I think we're going to (finally!) get library cards tomorrow.  I don't have any time at all to read, but I really need to have something on hand that I CAN read.  If that makes any sense.

Hopefully there will be pictures of something soon...

Beef and Veggie Soup

Tonight's dinner - Beef and Veggie soup



I love this soup, because it's so incredibly simple to make. I always just use what I have on hand, and it always turns out great.

I will admit right off the bat that tonight's soup was the prepackaged, super simple, I've-got-a-baby-on-my-hip-and-one-free-hand version. The branch of the organic veggie co-op that we use is still on hiatus, so everything was store bought this go.

Tonight's soup used:
Beef (pre-cut since I was one-handed)
Beef broth
Carrots
Corn
Green beans (snapped in half)
Mushrooms

Spices:
Onion powder (since R is allergic to fresh onion)
Garlic powder (fresh cloves are difficult to work with one-handed)
Cajun seasoning

Easy-peasy directions:
I browned the meat in a large pot, with a splash of beef broth, and added the spices in amounts that smelled yummy. As soon as the meat was cooked, I poured in the rest of the beef broth. Added carrots, mushrooms and corn. I snapped the green beans in half and added those, then topped off with enough water that it looked like soup.

When I have time and have them in the house, I'll add either potatoes or barley to make this a heartier soup. It's yummy served with fresh bakery bread.

We served four adult-sized bowls, picked out a bunch of veggies for C and still had plenty to put away for lunches.

- Kiza